As a child, I’d stroll to school lost in daydreams of discovering something out of the ordinary. Nestled beneath a bush, my heart would quicken at the sight of a hidden treasure — a weathered box or a sealed envelope, left just for me to find! Alas, it was only a piece of trash or an old bottle cap. Each time, reality whispered a quiet disappointment. The treasures I longed for never appeared along my path.
Yet the desire to discover treasures persisted into adulthood. One day it occurred to me that I might never find a secret treasure, but perhaps my perspective was backward. Maybe I could create treasures for others to find.
One day eight years ago, on spiral notebook paper, I wrote a letter to no one in particular. I wrote words of encouragement and whimsy. To create an air of mystery I signed the letter “Sincerely, T”. I promptly folded it and put it in a plain white envelope. I drove to the public library. Upon browsing the stacks, a book with a particularly thick spine caught my attention. Shogun by James Clavell. I pulled the book off the shelf, opened it somewhere near the center and tucked my letter inside. Someday someone would check this book out from the library, take it home, and find my words pressed between the pages of Clavell’s epic novel.
Who would this person be? How would they feel finding an envelope addressed “For You”? Would their pulse heighten? Would they look around to see if someone was watching? Would they wait to be alone before cutting the envelop open? Would my words land on their heart? Would they save my letter? Would they think it’s stupid and throw it away? Or would that copy of Shogun rest untouched on the library shelf for years, then get tossed during a downsizing and no one would ever find the gift I’d left? I would never know. That excited me in a strange way.
Over the subsequent eight years the memory of my secret letter occasionally fluttered through my mind. Like a leaf drifting to the ground on an autumn day, it became brittle and disintegrated back into the recesses of my memory for months or years at a time.
But in 2025 the idea returned again. This time more as an insistent toddler pulling on mommy’s pant leg, begging to be picked up, held, and nurtured. This time it wasn’t a memory. It was an idea ready to be born after gestating for eight years. The crying toddler was demanding to be fed.
Following my curiosity, I decided to write five letters to sprinkle around the city. Nine months later these five letters were born. I took an artistic approach. After all, if someone is to find a treasure it needs to look pretty and enticing! I loved the idea of finding a vintage letter written to a distant lover. I crafted each letter with a vintage style using old book pages and homemade tea-stained paper. I formed the words of each letter to be heartfelt yet general enough to share with a stranger.
Then I got the idea to create a blog to document the journey of each letter: from idea to creation to deciding where to strategically place each one and trust the right person would find it. This blog, aptly called Sincerely, T was born.
The mission? To leave curious treasures in public places to be found by random people. The intent isn’t to change lives, but to remind a select few that yes, it is possible to go about your day and find a little treasure, laying there just waiting for you to pick it up. Maybe for a moment you experience the little thrill of curiosity. “What is this? I wonder!”
Ironically as I finished the fifth letter, I also finished watching the television series of Shogun. It wasn’t until I sat down to write this blog-post that I remembered the connection of that book to my first Sincerely, T letter nearly a decade ago. My own heart flutters at the coincidence. And I say to myself, “I wonder…”