A LETTER

I like to write. I still chuckle when I remember that I was a co-editor of my high school yearbook...and I wrote all the sports captions...me...who doesn't know right field from left field, has no idea what a touchback or a full court press is....and can't hit the little thing they use in badminton...and can't catch things like car keys when someone tosses them to me. I can get a letter to the editor published, and use funny return addresses on birthday cards (like Calista Gingrich....or Dick Cheney) but my favorite thing to do is to actually sit down and write a letter...or get one.

I have just a handful of friends who still take pen to paper, and we've been doing it for years. Lou is a friend that I stole from my partner...she always wrote him long letters, and he'd share some of them with me...to the point where I wrote to her myself...trying to get in on the action. She still writes to him, but I get special letters myself now. She sits outside at her picnic table in Florida and writes about her dog or her cat and her hopes and dreams...once explaining a relationship that was failing this way " we just keep disappointing each other".

Adrian writes from Iowa..with million dollar plans to renovate an old gristmill...and what it's like to have no money at all. His letters come on the backs of ads, or on big yellow sheets of really old paper. David writes from LA, where he and his partner have a friend who brings them calla lilies from her garden. I met him when I met my first boyfriend....the boyfriend didn't last, but David has. He wrote to me last week. Terri writes from Chicago...or Colorado, and she often writes about the beauty she sees all around her. Terri is the person who thinks the meal you made is always the best she's ever tasted, that the ocean looks more beautiful every time she sees it, and that she has the most wonderful friends in the world. Being with or hearing from Terri is always a shot in the arm.

While I currently have 853 emails that I haven't quite gotten to yet, and I love to get cards in the mail...getting a letter is a really special treat. I tend not to read them standing by the mailbox, or right after I spy it in between the ads and bills. I save it for when I'm sitting on the concrete bench in my garden, or snuggled up with Woof in the morning sunshine...so I can savor the words...and focus on the gift that I hold in my hand. Taking the time to write a letter is monumental for me. It's one of those things that forces me to take a step back...to "save" the emails...and to put off the whole world for awhile. Knowing that someone else has done the same...just for me...can really make my day. What a rare treat...one that I'm determined won't become a lost art.