letter by letter

Well, we survived Halloween, but the only scary thing that happened was that the bus I was supposed to connect with on Oct. 31 never came, so I got home an hour later than usual. Not a single trick or treater at our overrun-with-wild-children apt. complex. I guess either everyone goes to the mall now, or they're just scared of us... :)

I'm working on my next Echo column. I brought a cache of old letters home from KC in early October, and I'm reading them. Not every single one...not sure why that seems like an impossible task...but enough from each letter-writer to get a good flavor of what our correspondence was like. I'm struck already by my whistfulness for the longer rhythms of written letters (vs. our short burst e-mail letters today). I'm still in contact with a lot of people by e-mail, and extremely grateful for it. Still, I wonder if our society has lost something... ok, I wonder if my communications with others have lost something by becoming almost entirely electronic.

And there's a number of people I have no idea where they are today. For some, it's probably best we've lost contact, but I just wonder about some others...I'd never have guessed when I was 18 where I'd be at 36, so I just have to wonder where the road of life has taken them.

I've set a lot of writing out to be accomplished before Thanksgiving: my Echo column, a front-of-book piece for Sojourners, a Bright Livelihood column. I can do it. The bus time will be full.

Scooter and I were listening to Sheryl Crow's Wildflower album this afternoon and I'm struck by her haunting melodies and her bittersweet lyrics. You can read her lyrics for "Perfect Lie" here.