Earlier this spring, when a man outside a Tel Aviv grocery store asked Nurit Chinn to lean in close so he could take her temperature, she thought: “Kiss me. Please kiss me.”

He didn’t—the temperature gun beeped, and she walked into the store to hunt for parsley. 

Yet this moment, captured as part of our “Postcard to a Stranger” collection, is a testament to the potential for connections in our heightened new reality. Unknown neighbors become comforting fixtures; fleeting run-ins take on strange intensity. We’ve learned to scan eyes above masks, for both warmth and sorrow. 

When we asked writers to send us postcards addressed to strangers encountered during the pandemic, missives poured in, chronicling a slew of memorable strangers: a COVID-test nurse, smokers six feet apart, ride-share drivers, a hotel watchman, a Brooklynite in snakeskin pants, a flirtatious Costco employee, a neighbor playing Kansas during a season of allergies and grief, and so many more. 

What we didn’t expect were the real-life connections born from “Postcard to a Stranger.” After illustrator Nikita Sveshnikov drew a neighborhood fixture known for his bike tricks for author Kyle McCarthy’s postcard, a friend reached out saying he knew this stranger, and would love to pass on the drawing. When poet Madeleine Barnes saw the luscious painting Megan Vossler created for her postcard about a favorite florist, she contacted Megan for a print, which now hangs in her apartment. Postcard author Faith Adiele wrote she was moved to tears by the dispatch from Vidhi Taparia, a high-schooler in Mumbai, which captures the exodus of daily workers and is illustrated beautifully by Owen Murray. And writer Tami Fairweather, who wrote to a neighboring saxophonist whose music reached her across the ancient New Orleans trees, met the musician and shared her postcard, thanking him for the joy he’d brought her during these difficult months. 

The beauty of connections is why we’ll be continuing “Postcard to a Stranger”—but in a new form, transitioning from a temporary pandemic project to bite-size “Letter to a Stranger” pieces that will be a mainstay at Off Assignment. For now, we invite you to look back at the dream-like months this series harkens back to—and hope the postcards’ collective power will bolster you for whatever comes next.