In Practice
Published by Joanne Lam • Friday, March 27, 2026
Sunday, September 10, 2020
Uncle brought over from Hong Kong what remains of great grandpa's belongings: a pocket watch, portraits of his elders (one of himself), and a tattered notebook, the kind children use to practice their penmanship. Addresses fill the pages — Jamaica, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Madagascar! — alongside newspaper clippings and handwritten medicinal recipes. Most of the Chinese is undecipherable to me except for one peculiar sentence. Digitizing it for posterity... to make a t-shirt? Or get a tattoo?
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Sunday, April 25, 2023
Captivated by this video1 of a man packing loose tea leaves into a perfect brick. The precision and gracefulness! The stamp designs in red and green, and how they overlap!
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Tuesday, August 27, 2024
Applied for a creative fund last month to publish children's short stories + artist illustrations via postcards. Got the rejection email today. Developing the proposal was so much fun though. Still want to make it happen in some form.
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Sunday, December 29, 2024
Heading back to Osaka in April. Maybe I can get something printed again while I'm there?
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Monday, February 3, 2025
Found a printer that does short run postcards but everything is in Japanese. Spent hours researching their many customization options via shoddy Google Translate. In too deep, I have to make a postcard now. Two months until I leave — no time to arrange story submissions etc. so I'll just write something myself. Feels like an opportunity to do something with great grandpa's sentence.
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Saturday, March 1, 2025
Back in the forest after a long absence. At one point a golden hum permeated the air above2 — french horns and trumpets (?) playing sustained notes without pause or a particular melody. Discernable from birdsong and traffic, but not loud... just omnipresent. It stopped after ten minutes or so. Is this the afterlife?
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Friday, March 14, 2025
Discovered Ping Practice3 via Laurel Schwulst.4 Intrigued by the name alone. Applied to try the beta version of the app.
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Monday, March 17, 2025
It's St. Patrick's Day. Someone published a short story today on PoetiCal5 that mentions ancestors, Canada, writing postcards on an island, and green being a heavenly colour. Floored by how specific this is to me but it clearly isn't about me. The universe communicates in mysterious ways.
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Monday, April 7, 2025
Don't have an iPhone so I can't trial the app. Offered to send Peter a postcard anyways since it's essentially Ping Practice in practice. Pre-orders are coming in, but still tweaking the design because no hard copy proofs = can't check for errors. May the Japanese print gods protect me from disaster.
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Friday, May 9, 2025
Early morning pilgrimage from Osaka to Uji to attend the bell casting6 that Yukiko rescheduled just for me (!). Impeccable timing: postcards from the printer arrived while I was gone. Terrified to open the package though. What if everything turned out wonky? Vinci's visiting for the weekend, maybe it'll be better to do the unboxing when she's around.
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Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Asked to buy 80 stamps at the post office, as any normal person would.
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Sunday, October 9, 2025
Email from Peter:
Joanne! A space emerged where I can finally say: what a meaningful delight it was to experience the "Full Circle" postcard you mailed. [...] If you'd ever be up for a virtual conversation, I'd love to learn more about how this project came to be and what it's meant for you since.
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