The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!
We have a forum topic for people to contribute writing prompt suggestions for us, Jane (aka MostlyMess) suggested a classic conundrum: if you had a time machine, what time period would you visit, and why?
For me, it’s pretty difficult to say! I have a lot of questions first: how long would I have to stay? Would I be able to interact with anything, and if so, am I well disguised? You can see I have a practical sort of attitude to the problem… But if I’m just daydreaming, and I could choose to go to any time period as an observer (and return whenever I choose), then there’s one obvious answer for me. I want to see dinosaurs!
My favourite dinosaurs are probably ceratopsians (like Triceratops) and stegosaurs. Those two genera of dinosaurs never met, unfortunately, so I’d have to pick just one… If I want to see Triceratops, looks like I’m headed to the Late Cretaceous! I’d probably have to be very lucky to catch a glimpse, but hopefully my time machine would guide me to the right spot.
If forced to pick an era of human history, I’d quite like to go wander around Castell Coch (my favourite castle) when it was newly decorated by William Burges, and no one could stop me wandering into every room!
How about you? Would you join me on a trek back into the Cretaceous, or are you happy with human history? Is there a place you want to visit at a specific time, or something you’d like to find out? Let us know in the comments here, or write about it in your postcards this month (or both!).
44 comments so far
As a woman, there is no time in history that was welcoming or safe for girls and women. Traditionally: property of men.
Women and children were not 'given' 'rights' until the early 19th century. And only minor rights and only in some places.
On the global scale, things start to improve - a little - in the early 20th Century.
And still, in the 21st Century, many children and women are not safe, do not have access to education, do not have freedom to choose for themselves, and do not have the same opportunities as their male counterparts.
So, I ask myself: would I go to a historical point in time where I could play a role to effect change? Or, would travel to the future to have the opportunity to look back to see where the lives of children and women are in the future, and figure out what I could do now to help improve the lives of children and women.
Probably, go to the future, then return to work from the present with 'future knowledge'.
1050 years ago, the German Emperor, the grandiose "Otto the Great" embarked on his last journey through his German homeland.
Quedlinburg, Walbek, Merseburg, Memleben and Magdeburg, all of these places belong to my closer home.
So I could admire all the art treasures and magnificent buildings and enjoy the intact nature of that time.
I would like to be part of his entourage on his final journey.
https://deskaisersletztereise.de/
Where did it start? I want to see that. Preferably from a safe distance of course 😅.
Ido for my first trip I would
- either join you to the Cretaceous period
- or go from the 16th to 20th July 1969 to see Apollo 11 sending men to the moon and feel the emotion of these days, see the launching and watching / waiting as they are landing, hearing Armstrong say his famous sentence.
Really feel in my body the intensity of these moments.
I love to travel to a period when all the human species were present and love to see their travel from continent to continent e.g.out of Africa towards Asia.
Happy Days.
I was born in 1964, so I missed it.....
I grew up in the '60's and '70's, it was a pretty good time living in the suburbs of Seattle, we weren't really affected by much.
I have different wishes about what I want to do:
- I would like to walk through my hometown Göttingen in the late 50s/ early 60s
- seeing life on one of the Polynesian islands like Tahiti 100 years ago
- accompanying the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt on his trip to South America from 1799 to 1804
I know, that are very different things, but for me all very exciting :)
- the time with Cleopatra and to see how big her power really was and how pretty she was
- the year 1740, I can trace my ancestors back to this year. I would like to know, what their projection about the future was
- New York, Manhattan in the 1950s and 1960s years, when the folk and rock music starts. I think I would hang around in the Gaslight or The Bitter End every evening 🤣
- last but not least: I would also like to travel in the future, not to change anything, but only to have a look, what‘s going with the children and their children and so on
Renaissance days when Leonardo painted Monalisa and Michelangelo sculpted Pieta ...
... or if I could go as you said to any time and period as an observer and return whenever I choose; ... then definitely I would be forever a traveler soul!!!
Happy Postcrossing Year!
To see and observe my grandparents and parents as children, that would also be nice...............
↑ Back to top ↑