In the age of Instagram and Tiktok, the word “greeting cards” is likely no more than an obligatory gesture on birthdays and holidays that are read once and forgotten the next day. Its lifespan is no more than a Crate & Barrel catalog that you just get.
I enjoy greeting cards because it allows me to celebrate you, and yet I run out of words after “Enjoy the next trip around the sun!” I have loved writing letters using a bouquet of fountain pens I have for as long as I can remember, and yet in the busyness of life, the prompts and time seem to be farther and farther apart. And to be honest, I do not expect, nor to I receive responses in return in crisply folded artisan papers.
I came across Prompt’d cards through a beautiful set of circumstances. After I received two sets of cards, with beautifully handwritten labels, “Reminiscence” and “Intentional” as thrilled as I was, I did not fully realize how it works. Well, it turns out to be just as beautifully simple, as the creative sets of four cards in each of the boxes. Each theme (say, Reminiscence) comes with two sets of same four cards. Each card has a question or topic that is deeply introspective and reveals a bit of yourself. You keep one set for yourself, and gift the other to your corresponding partner. You and your partner write in the same card, responding to the same question and send it via stamped envelope (included). So when you get your next mail, you may just find a card getting to know your friend or loved one deeper.
The quality of the paper is just beautiful and on par with Rhodia, Maruman Mnemosyne, and Clairefontane. The photographs are precise, unassuming, and draws you in. Those feel like everyday moments that are frozen, dipped in nostalgia, and yet does not distract you from going deep to answer the questions prompted in each card:
“What moments of my life have I always enjoyed celebrating?”
A prompt in one of the crisp card with a photo of a distant firework; you have to look to see. After a pause and a set of thoughts, I started writing:
This. This moment that is reminiscent of each moment when I have written a letter revealing a bit of myself to someone I care. I feel vulnerable in the process, and I wonder what she may think. Then I realize there is an added connection. It could be at this very moment she is picking up her pen to share her celebration with me. I can be myself, and in the process know myself – and if you care about someone to come this far, wouldn’t you?
This is the moment of my life that I have repeatedly celebrated – yet without expression. Being myself and sharing myself. Asking someone to be relentlessly herself and share herself, if not in person, then through ink dried on a card prompting us to pause.
Raj Patra