August 6, 2021 — If you’ve wisely played it safe and staycationed this summer, way to go. No place like home! If you’re traveling, you already know the challenges of wrestling with your GPS, sky-high hotel rates, flat tires and dueling semi-trucks … so let’s focus on the joys!

Weeks after the Surfside building collapsed five blocks from where I live, I felt it was time to take my vaccinated self, my laptop and my dog on the road. As I was packing, I remembered something my dad said to me back when I was where so many kids are today — preparing to go off to college. Sensing I was sad about moving away from all the kids I’d grown up with in our little farming community, Dad said, “No matter where you go, Jo, you will always have these friends. These friendships are part of you now. But if you never venture out into the world, you will never meet all the people waiting there to become your friends.”

That still feels like a little blessing today, and his words have served me well. So, with eight-pound Gracie riding shotgun, a month ago I headed north to meet a few great friends of Cardthartic, Cardies who have become vibrant participants in our community.

First stop: St. Louis, home of our first Contributing Cardie! Since we first asked to publish a great line from an email she sent me six years ago, Mary Morini has become a dear friend indeed. (And, wow, can she and her husband Larry entertain!) I spent nearly a week of evenings with them on their screened-in porch, gabbing away.

I was so pleased that Judy Cortner and Mauri Truesdell would drive an hour up from where they both live to meet me. And each other! What are the chances that two caring and talented Cardies live their whole lives in the same relatively-small town and only actually meet each other through Cardthartic?!?👏🏼

Click on their pics and you’ll be taken to the Meet Fellow Cardies section of our site where their profiles reside. You can read for yourself how interesting these two are! Because we all thought we’d feel safer sitting masked together in the big, open-air atrium lobby of my hotel, they thoughtfully ventured there and we had a great afternoon of getting to know each other as card lovers as well as Creatives. Both are powerful writers, and Mauri is a gifted photographer, too, so we had a good time reviewing two dozen proposed Passages designs on the drawing board.

Heading back toward the southeast, I was happy to finally meet longtime Cardie Bev Wise, with whom I’ve been trying to rendezvous for the longest time. At least five years ago, I’d hoped to meet the life-long Pennsylvania resident when I planned to be in her home state but, before I made it there, she up and moved to North Carolina. So last week we both had to laugh when I emailed her to say I was going right by Greensboro … that same evening, she replied, “You won’t believe this, but I moved to Hilton Head. TODAY!” I wrote back that, happily, synchronicity was on our side: Hilton Head was next on my itinerary. We talked and laughed through a downpour on a tented Mexican restaurant terrace, with our two dogs on their best behavior by our sides. What a lovely person Bev is.

Less than an hour south of Hilton Head lives Contributing Cardie Teresa Bender, who graciously welcomed Gracie and me into her home. Teresa spends much of her time being lovingly there for her husband, Richard, who is largely confined to his bed these days. Click on her pic and you’ll see that Teresa already has three Passages cards to her credit. And she is quite the storyteller! She shared with me that she and Richard met in college in the ’60s, before he was called to war. It was in Vietnam, she said as we were saying our goodbyes, that Richard lost his ability to walk and run and ride the horses he so loved. Only 34 men in his platoon of 400 made it out alive. Every day since, an amazingly joyful Teresa has been by his side.

One day when the world is healthy again, we’ll have our Cardie Con so all of us kindred spirits can meet each other. Until then, you’re sure invited to Introduce Yourself! I think Cardie Carolyn Reinersten said it so beautifully when she wrote us recently, “Until Cardthartic, I didn’t really know there were others like me who thrive on taking the time to find just the right card in which to write just the right note to friends and family to let them know we’re thinking about them and wishing them well. The past 18 months have been a particularly needy time for such expressions of care and concern. I’m glad to know there are many of us doing our part to knit together a loving net of supportive connection.”

So well said! Whether you travel across the country or to the house next door, you can’t go wrong befriending a Cardie! Thoughtfulness and positivity abound. Thank you one and all for what you bring to this community.

Jodee Stevens
Founder & Chief Creative