Cross Your
Eyes and Dot Your Teas
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I like to write letters. I like to receive
letters. It’s a lifelong habit for me. While I no longer have a mailbox, I do
have an email account and a computer. While the pleasure is not even similar to
pulling down the flap of the aluminum container perched on a post at the end of
the drive, I have learned to compensate.
We live in a wondrous and fearful
world. Everything—letters, bills, junkmail, spam, appears on my screen without
visible means of support.
Just this week, in addition to daily
notes from “regular” mailers, I heard from Lynne, a friend I haven’t seen in over
twenty years. While “heard” isn’t the accurate word, she tried to contact me.
Lynne was my first friend when I
moved to Washington in ’84. We met through my, then embryonic, business. Together
we crossed the Sound to hear the Seattle Symphony practice sessions, an
experience which can be more exciting than the actual symphony. We sat around our
kitchen tables and drank gallons of tea. We filled hours with conversation,
hopes and dreams and “where did we go wrongs”. We both were alone, knew few
other people in the area. In my case, in that first year, she was my only
friend.
Despite our good intentions, we eventually
got busy with our lives and somewhere along the way we lost touch. At that time
neither of us could activate a computer. I couldn’t imagine ever using one
though my eight-year-old son managed to scrounge one at a neighborhood
yard-sale and within weeks was making the relic do things it was too old and
never designed to do. He did not inherit his skills from me. I wish inheritance
worked the other way around.
Lynne located me through the Havre
Daily News. I realize she didn’t walk into the newsroom and grab a paper. She
probably Googled (Is that a real verb?) my name, opened the HDN website, read
my column and found my email address at the end of the article.
She tried to email me and failed to
get through. Undaunted (I’m imagining the steps.), she then found my Montana
Tumbleweed blogspot. She left a message for me. I am so excited.
Lest you think I am computer savvy,
I confess that my daughter set up and manages my blogspot. Dee Dee relayed
Lynne’s message to me. For some reason, operator error, I’m certain, I cannot
get into the mysterious innards of my blogspot from Mexico. So I asked Dee Dee
to give my message to Lynne and assure her that the email address on my column
is indeed the right one.
I’m fairly certain, imagination
again, that Lynne overlooked the dot in my address. It’s easy to do. After all,
it is such a little thing, that dot in the middle of my name. A simple dot. One
hardly notices it. In retrospect, when I set up the site, I should have simply
said sondrajeandotashton, weird at that looks, it is visible.
Meanwhile, out of the blue and
across the miles, this same day, Steve’s wife Theresa emailed me to ask if she
still had my correct email address. She said Steve wanted to email me. Ja! Ja!
Ja! (That is laughter in Espanol.) Steve and email? That is funny.
I’ve been friends with Steve for years. He has never emailed
me though I get occasional messages from Theresa. In fact, when last in
Washington, Steve and I had coffee at my favorite coffeehouse, the Waterfront
Bakery in Silverdale. He told me then that he was determined to learn to email.
I smiled. But I never opened my mailbox to look for a letter. I know Steve.
Lynne will contact me. We have entire decades of time and
experiences to share. I will check my inbox with happy anticipation. Maybe her
message will await me in the morning.
Who knows? Maybe Steve will write too.
Sondra
Ashton
HDN: Looking
out my back door
September
22, 2016
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