Dear Tereza

Dearest Tereza,

I don't even know how to begin writing to you - so much is swirling around in my brain...

About two feet of snow has fallen today in our area, and we've missed each other twice over the phone.

I miss you, and love that we have continued our communication in this way. Through this blog, I write to someone, to you, rather than just what I'm thinking about. I find that so helpful.

I mean, when we started this, I barely knew what a blog was, and had only that year begun to deal with the big issues that had been plaguing me for the previous lifetime of years. In 2007, in Cape Town, I had finally told someone - my roommate - about being attacked by a group of boys at summer camp when I was 12, and being sexually assaulted on a one night stand when I was 19. Before then, I never spoke about either of those things to anyone.

Then I told Claire, who told me that I should talk to you. So I did. And then we started our blog...

When we started writing together, I was 33.
This year I'll be 40.
I was so tired of having these issues press down on my heart, affect my moods with so much anger, and block me from real happiness. The real reflection was how I related to my son; I didn't want to repeat a cycle of yelling that I had grown up with. What's that phrase? it stops with me.

In the past, I never really knew how to approach Rose's question: "who are you without your problems"? Now I have an idea of what she might mean.

Things feel more natural now.

It's actually warmer tonight than it has been all day. And thankfully I have under-floor heating, so (finally!) our house is not as chilly as old homes usually are. Not so in the studio: I've been throwing log after log in the fire in there, but unfortunately that building is full of leaks so all the hot air escapes. I am setting up a sculpture to shoot for the NYFA grant (deadline: Tuesday). The reflected light looks blue through the windows.

I put up a photo of Anitra; she's in the mix, still.

Right now my son is crying, and I'm downstairs writing to you. Let Dad take care of this one; we've been inside and with each other all day, and we're all full of cabin fever.  Now, it's laughter. Toddlers can be so unpredictable.

It would be great to have our blog be translated to paper. We can make a book ourselves and also make gieclee prints of selected entries.

I'd love to write you an actual letter.

I'm Morse coding our poem as a necklace for two, but it might not be ready for our anniversary. Maybe we can work on the book, the blurb, or just be together and do a walking meditation at Mass MoCA. 

Red writing and blue responses. 

The inhale, the exhale, the taking in, the letting go,

being full transitioning to being empty,

circulation - of thought, of time, of memories, of blood in the body, of the planets around the sun, of hands scrubbing a dish in the kitchen sink

I'm reading a page at a time from Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, and also The Gift. It's almost like I'm throwing the Iching - every page is what I'm supposed to read, at that moment. 

Dinner time now: warm veggie soup on a cold winter day.

I just baked some bread, too. 

Goodnight xoxox

Angela