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Thad and I are being home bodies, as ever, and my thoughts aren't particularly brilliant, as ever, but I know you like to hear from us none the less. (I like that phrase. None the less. I often think of it as a single word, like Therefore and Henceforth.)

I take great delight in the change of the seasons, although I may not look it. Or at least get redundant over it. But they really are delightful, and I really am surprised every year. Winter into spring is of course the most dramatic, and, for me, always surprises me the most. I can remember what it is like for everything to be stunningly green and to have the sun beat down (only barely, but I can remember it), but I forget every year the sound that that slushy ice makes when you step on it and crack it, and so it comes as a great surprise. Delightful, beyond anything, to remember the sounds and smells you hadn't thought about for a year. There is that satisfying crunching sound on occasional days when we walk down the drive to see if any mail came, and new birds singing when we forgot there were birds and that they knew such sweet songs. Last week, we heard thunder, and once smelled Spring, although we can't now. All this you know, of course, because everyone, since the seasons began, has been exclaiming over them. But it doesn't matter, because every spring is the first, and it is also the first thing we learned. I don't know how to say it, but I know you know it is true.

When I was young, I had this vague, sure understanding that there were Smart People. I guess intellectuals. And I thought colleges were teaming with them. Maybe I circulate the wrong groups, or maybe I've gotten to be too smart myself, but I am being strongly disillusioned. Colleges are full of normal people, if not, in extremity, dull ones. I guess I have a great desire to look up, and so far it seems I only get to look around. I know I'm not too smart, so it's disappointing to think that intellect is on the decline. But again, perhaps I just don't know how to find it or how to see it.

My window sill plants are thriving, which is beyond me. I thought they would have a fear of the cold that comes through the window, but they don't. What have we to fear but fear itself? Snakes, of course, but other than that? I'm just talking nonsense now, so I'll wish you well and go see if Thad is making dinner like he said he would.

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I have been carefully reviewing my life, and find that I have been quite wrong about it all along. I lived under the assumption that my life is normal and boring. Maybe it isn't that my life isn't normal. Maybe it's my definition of normal. I believe the cause of whatever my misinterpretation is created by the joint influences of having a phlegmatic temperament and being a rather horrible storyteller verbally. Oh, and my memory isn't anything significant, either. So when odd things happen to me, I forget they aren't the sort of thing that happens normally because I have little emotional response, and immediately after I forget about them because I don't tell them to anyone, and then I just plain forget forever. But I have experienced many remarkable things, and I'll tell them to you, if I ever can conjure up some memory. They've been happening all my life, not just this past year, and I just didn't have eyes to see them. But maybe they happen to everyone, all the dramatic coincidences and weird, delightful interactions with strangers. Maybe only some have the gift of presenting them with enough fanfare to make them seem out of the ordinary. We all of us have such clouded eyes.

I just baked cookies and have eaten an unfortunate amount. Thad is supposed to be helping me learn self control, but he brought the pan in and put it on the couch next to me instead.

I have such a plethora of thoughts that they all together switch back and forth between all crowding forward and all hiding behind each other. Not much has been happening here, and so I don't have much to say, as my thoughts are on the decline at the moment. I asked Thad if he had anything he thought I should write about, and he said, "Please pass the cookies." He's drawing up the blueprint for some idea, but I can't tell what it is yet.

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Today was an exceptionally bright day. Whether this was because of the extra vitamin D I have begun taking, the beautiful British alternative rock and Baroque piano music that played all day, the fact that we neither of us tried to accomplish anything today, or just because our bones know spring is coming, I do not know. It was just a very good day, and my mind is agog over the thoughts that are about to pop into my head.

When we went to France and Italy for our honeymoon, we went to every cafe we could find that had those tables outside, right on the edge of the street. Therefore, I have forgotten the name of every single one. At one of them, for seven minutes I leaned over the back of my chair and spoke very bad French to a four year old boy. We debated what constitutes a Beautiful Day.  Apparently my interpretation has always been too broad. But today really was, honest.

I have been feeling very fond. I don't know if this is the effect of the great above listed conglomeration, or because I've been watching movies about family, or if I am really loving more. Thad has noticed. He says I am like a reverse aging cat, with my solemn superiority era passed and the cuddling kitten phase on the rise. Which just means he has improved at everything so I give less advice and I do more of the staring at his profile and giving squeezy hugs whenever we pass in the kitchen or hall. For all we've been hunting how to open our eyes wider, it always comes when we least expect it. I am seeing this week how precious and finite everyone I love is. I want to hold onto them a little bit tighter. So it makes it hard that we haven't seen any of you for such a long time.

I always say "I miss you" in the middle of a conversation, after spending a long time with my beloved ones. Tenses, what are they? I have missed you, I will miss you soon, I will miss you for ages and ages when you are gone, and the burden will be too much to bear because of the beauty of your soul.

Stay a little longer, my lovely ones. I haven't held you long enough.

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I suppose you should like to hear from us and how we are. I'm not very good at this, as you well know. Maybe I am good at the writing part (I don't know), but I am intimidated by the communication. There is this great high wall I have to get over to reach you, and I am very afraid the sincerity and truth will be lost, and then what is the point? So that's why I haven't written until now.

We are in excellent health and comparative peace. It rained a great deal today, which was joy for me (to sit by a fire and read and see flashes of lightning and hear thunder after a winter of phlegmatic, silent snow!), but I guess it wreaked havoc with various things concerning Poorly Shingles and Ice Layers. Thad was very preoccupied with them, but as I didn't seem to care (as indeed I didn't really), he kept it to himself.

Remember how my hands used to be all smooth and lacking character? Not really pretty, of course, because my skin isn't anything other than useful, and I inherited rather stocky fingers. Things have changed a lot. I'm not sure what, although I guess that's an idiotic thing to say. Everything has changed, so why shouldn't my hands? The veins stand out now, a cross between what we used to admire in strong men's hands and the soft hands of my grandmother. Remember that one time when we stayed up too late and talked about hands? And the next day we went shopping and stared at everyone's hands in the quest for finding you a perfect man. When I was little, my grandmother would come to visit and I would sit close beside her and hold her hand while she talked with my parents. I would just sit and hold her hand and stroke it and look at it. They were very soft but used to work, and freckled softly and the veins were distinct and she had three really pretty rings. My hands are neither strong nor elderly, but you get the idea. You can see little bumpy intersections of veins, and I find it fascinating. I like to watch my hands do things, because they are express and admirable in movement, but they know they are being watched and that takes something away.

I have stayed up too late writing this, and I will miss out on dreaming tonight. I shouldn't mind so much, because I get to live such a nice life in the daylight, but I do. I figured out a little bit about why I like dreams so much. They let me live another life. All sorts of lives in all sorts of places, to see all sorts of architecture and colors and textures. That might be what intrigues me most about dreams. I have the surroundings of my life, these exquisite surroundings, but they are set and can only change so much. Books certainly take me to other worlds, but those worlds are peopled with people, and the landscape is vague. My mind falters and is hedged in. When I dream I can lay hold on anything to see or touch, and so much better than I can in any other place.

I wish you ever fresh dreams and the taste of spring you are looking for.