7/7/16 RMB Lucky 7 and Steinbeck

7/7/16 RMB Lucky 7 and Steinbeck

Dear Rita Mae Brown,

Days are racing by, tumbling over each other, kids at play without a care. Yet there is much to care about. Several times I’ve started “Dear Rita Mae Brown,” and ended there. 

Sometimes a mixture of words spill out. They lack rhyme or reason. They are corralled and set aside and may yet see the light of day, when they are tamed and in proper order.

There is nothing to say and there is everything to say, too much. And beyond what there is to say, what matter is there in what I have to say about it?

Ah, see, this is why the letters have slowed. Oddly I wonder if it is because I am in one of my “you think too much” phases that my friends point out. Or if my thoughts are lacking, and thus, so too are the words.

One thing demands to be said. And I don’t have a clue what it is.

A cool breeze met me after I left my day of work upon stepping out of the office, into the newness of evening air. A man was walking his dog. An impatient driver honked his horn when I was slow to take my turn at the stop sign. He did it again at the next stop sign. Neither honk increased my speed.

Today is the seventh day of the seventh month, my birthday month and my mother’s lucky number. She is with us today as she always is, our own heavenly angel.

I am reading, or rather listening to on CD, John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. His careful handling of words inspires me. It also makes me cautious of how I lay down my own. An older gentlemen came to my desk today to buy books and among them was another Steinbeck title. I told him how I enjoyed Travels with Charley and he lit up.

“That’s my favorite book!” And with those words I knew more about the man than if we had sat and spoke every day for a week.

With much care,

Loraine