From across the infinity that stretches between souls and half the physical world away comes a hello. I saw the red and white bordered international air post envelope in the mailbox and the wild angular scrawl. No chicken scratch, this writing is made by a much larger, wilder bird.

I dropped my bag with a happy grin and opened the envelope with greedy fingers, pulling forth two thin blue pages of paper filled with the best kind of run-ons and quirky spelling ("Britich ladies").

She left more than a year ago for travels in Spain and Morocco, then found family and work in Paris, travelled to Rome on holiday where she met a young man, and moved into his North London home. With his seven Sicilian roommates. And soon added Italian to the number of languages she knows. She worked as a bar maid for an historic bar and as a well-off Spanish family's nanny long enough to save money, has gone with him to Sicilia to meet his familia, including the Mama, who gave her many hugs and called her Bella because she ate all the food that was offered. Now they are bumming on beaches in Mallorca. I think it's a serious romance, which she has not had before. She has started dancing again.

In June, she tells me in her ferocious hand, she will be bringing him home to Oregon.



He's funny. In an honest, acerbic, wry, offensive, practical kind of way.