dear boy in my english class, the one who smokes and reads steinbeck for fun—you don’t ever talk—but when you do, it’s wonderful. don’t sell yourself short.

dear housing: today was probably not your shining moment.  

dear old man: you! the one with a white beard like ernest hemingway and a bulky green sweater the color of magnolia leaves: I bet you have stories.

dear fellow fellows, who may or may not be reading this: this weekend was wonderful. you dearly inspire me and I cannot wait to share the next three years with you.

dear sarah kaminer: HAPPY 19TH BIRTHDAY, SHAWTY! I love you, my mountain dixie-chick who beeps at boys in cars, who wears cowboy boots, who is madly diligent and a spunky future foreign nurse that is a lightweight. you inspire me to have no inhibitions.

dear folk goddess caroline robinson: GO LOOK UP BREAD RECIPES AND WRITE ON MY WALL. granola don’t make itself.

dear rwanda: two months, baby.

dear ta who will soon be grading my miserable test: I’m sorry that I am your worst nightmare, insofar as the whole learning comprehension goes…if you use your imagination, you can pretend that those two proofs were finished. fun, right? try it!

dear lenior girl/captain super judgy waffle-maker: really, my breakfast-preparing game wasn’t on today. your staring makes me nervous.

dear kombucha and chocolate-covered espresso beans: you’re going to make me so, so poor.

dear ani difranco: hey, it’s been awhile, but you never change. spring 2004; I do it for the joy it brings, because I’m a joyful girl.

dear allie: come home. rumspringa is no fun without you.

dear lauren thomas: woman, I love you. you define enrichment. every conversation I have with you sparkles. you collect words, you lock your keys in your car and hangle triple-a like a PRO, you make pre-med students fall in love with you, you make banging techno mixes, you pray easily and readily; and ultimately I come away more awake to every aspect of my life. you, my friend, are rare and I am grateful for our friendship.

at the risk of drawing ridiculous paralells between the weather and my life; well, they exist. the past two weeks have been rugged; the weather today was rugged and then, at that bewitched four o’clock hour, this light filtered through the pit and everything was transformed. so maybe the weather doesn’t cycle around my personal moods. but sometimes it paralells, and creation—and the dogwoods, and the cherry trees, and the wet-pink petals that hang on the ground like limp dresses—quietly flood redemption! and that’s something, redemption, that I’ve been seeing everywhere: in afternoon light, in morning light, in conversations, in individual slices of orange, in weeping moments and in glad ones. in the winter, the bushes and shruberry are nearly invisible, forgotten landmarks. in the spring, I remember them; I see them; I am aware of parts of landscapes I did not know existed. they come alive. and these have been my days; when winter made my joys vague and clouded. and then the sun comes, and stretches out, embracing. and it makes me remember.