One of my favourite sayings as a child was
Strangers are friends you haven't met yet.
It's what my Grandad would say whenever I shared my anxiety of meeting new kids - at school, at Brownies, on holiday...
Of course, I assumed he was the creator of the saying... only to discover at college it was W.B. Yeats, and the actual quote was
There are no strangers here; only friends you haven't yet met.
It's one of the reasons I loved having penpals as a kid and why I sponsored a child in Africa throughout my late teens - to make contact with strangers in other lands, so they were no longer strangers :)
Of course Virginia Woolf had many deep and lasting friendships. This is one of my favourite quotes
![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_ucjlSOvsi0YMgq0fAOQ6lfVVHxAFha_xo0tiowbu6IDg51J_owFgX5EPNzplCYTIQG6hNYj9c-XXJ0q683PFyqF4JtFx_3mDnpC4QZQM-BAOSkyWSO0u5DDDwT14p211nw5Ag2WKZxhwZfrC6uUmBzyaZ9Mx7mBW48gA=s0-d)
And we're lucky enough to read so many of the letters she wrote to and received from those friends.
As I wrote in this post, I love writing and receiving real mail! In this digital age, nothing lifts the spirits quite like hearing the letterbox jangle and seeing a handwritten envelope lying on the hallway mat :)
And yesterday, I received such a gift all the way from Australia, from new friend Robyn. We're both members of a Facebook group called Singing Over the Bones hosted by Sharon Blackie.
And look what was in said envelope...
... a beautiful piece of real art - wow!
The kindness and generosity of 'strangers' never ceases to amaze me - thank you, Robyn!!
I love how the internet connects people and makes the world feel like a global village, but it's the real, tangible objects that make those connections stronger and more vital. It's the fact that someone thought of you, wrote a letter/card/made some art(!), went to the Post Office and mailed it, just so you could know they were thinking of you...
It's a beautiful thing, to be sure, and something to be deeply treasured!