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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.