Letter from a Friend

Dear Friend: How are you? I am fine ...

Remember getting a letter from a friend? 

I do.

A fortunate child, in every respect, I spent every summer during the 1970s at our cottage in the Haliburton Highlands. Long days in the water, baking in the sun, no worries in our pert wee heads, except missing our friends from back home. There were no computers back then, no crackberries. For the longest time we didn't even have a telephone at the cottage (heck, we didn't even have indoor plumbing) and, when we finally did get a party line put in, my father would have strung me up if I used it to make long distance calls to my friends.

The only way to keep in touch was through letter-writing and my heart always did a happy jump when a trip to the post office garnered me a letter from a friend. My good friend Mark must have have gotten a deal on gold-coloured fish stationery because his envelopes were always decorated with embossed fishies. Even better, he wrote conversation bubbles coming from their fishy lips, usually berating me for not writing more often. 

I've been thinking for a while about running a series of articles about the blogging friends who have had a big impact on me. There are many and they're all different but they all have encouraged me in some way, or inspired me, or offered me their friendship and I dearly love them all. At first I was thinking of questions and answers or maybe something akin to my American Weeks series from a couple of years ago. I got all wuzzy and sentimental, thinking how I could honour these folks and, when I got sentimental, I remembered the sweet charm of receiving an old-fashioned letter from a friend.

In that spirit, I have asked my blogging buddies to write me a letter. I haven't asked them for anything specific because I'm hoping all of them will be different and wonderful in their own ways. I have also asked them to take a new photo of themselves, nothing professional, just something that reflects who they are in this letter.

I haven't gotten around to asking everyone yet (I am not that organized, believe me) and there's nothing formal about the process. Like a letter from a friend, you never know when one is going to pop in your mailbox.

I'll post their letters intermittently in the next few weeks, starting tomorrow with Laurita Miller, one of my dearest blogging friends and an accomplished writer, who I had the pleasure of meeting in the fall of 2010. Her letter made me laugh and it made me cry. It told me a little bit about what's going on in her life and what's going on in her head. I can hardly wait to share it with you.

Till tomorrow, then.

Love, 

Cathy oxo