Been watching the sky all day. Sat outside for a while this morning and watched the purple storm clouds gallop across the horizon. I came back inside and looked out the window while the bamboo danced and the rain fell. Been a stormy off and on day.

Went outside at dusk to watch the sun paint the raspberry clouds. Funny thing, today the pink clouds were on the left side of my great-grandmother’s house across the street. The sun was setting there, too, but usually the clouds and sunsets are on the right side. Guess the earth took a good tilt on her axis today. The clouds were beautiful. Nature’s colors sure are wondrous. Don’t think a mortal could mix such beautiful hues of pink and orange. Such a marvelous view before the darkness of night.

Saw a news story yesterday about a woman mowing her yard when a hawk flew by and dropped a long snake on her arm. She was slinging her arm trying to get the snake off and the snake was coiling around her arm and striking her on the eye, thank goodness she had glasses on, and the hawk was trying to pull the snake off her arm! Whoa!! The hawk’s talons and beak pierced and sliced her arm and the snake bruised her arm where it was coiled tightly. The hawk eventually got the snake back. Emergency room doctors could not find a puncture wound from the snake. Guess that was the good news. Found out later she had been bitten by a venomous snake several years ago. She must be a snake magnet. Bless her heart!

Anyway, I have this little hawk that comes to my yard lots of early mornings and late afternoons to snatch a bird off a feeder for a snack. When I saw him this afternoon I promptly ran in the house just in case he was in the mood to drop a snake. Just when I didn’t need anything else to worry about now I have snake dropping hawks to contend with. Watched a hawk once snatch up a chipmunk and that little critter squeaked out screams till the hawk was out of sight.

Got a letter in the mail today from Boss Lady. So exciting to open the mail box and see a personal letter, always makes me happy. Got two new books in the mail, too. Pretty good mail day. I always save her letter as a prize for completing a chore. Folded some clothes and then enjoyed the letter. My turn to write her a letter now. Been composing the letter in my mind waiting for her letter to come.

I love writing and receiving letters. So exciting to look in the box everyday knowing its your turn to receive a letter. Chief and I have always been frequent letter writers. He had lots of friends in Vermont and students from his school teaching days he would correspond with on a regular basis. He wrote beautiful descriptive letters, works of art. Mine are like my blogs. Sometimes I write Boss Lady a letter and decide it makes a better blog than a letter. Somebody told me once a letter from me was like a conversation with me. They could hear me talking.

My father died unexpectedly several days after I had a job interview with Chief to work with him at The Russell Record. He wrote me a beautiful sympathy note. A few sentences still stand out in my mind and I think of the letter often, specially in the summer. The last paragraph of the letter reads, “In the full of summer greens the planet at its best. In a few days will be the very marked decline into the loss of it, toward autumn and the shedding into winter. But may the present winter for you be not altogether barren of green, because you have kindred spirits who try to understand, and with truth. Yours, Tom.” Deep thoughts but beautiful.

On Valentine’s Day one year he wrote me a four page love letter. The letter begins “Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s Day and I wanted to honor you with a letter of my love and appreciation for over the years that have brought truth and beauty of being alive on this Planet Earth into a proud and humble reality.” I always read the letter slowly to absorb the love from his thoughts. He was serious when he put pen to paper to express himself.

I print out emails and texts from family and friends that move me and file them away with my letters. I treasure all my letters and have several shoe boxes of letters from my college years and a large shopping bag full of letters my mother and daddy wrote each other during her college years. My grandchildren wrote letters to Chief and we tied them to balloons at his funeral and sent them to heaven.

My grandson Emerson received a letter from me at Boy Scout camp this summer that brightened a homesick day. He told his daddy, “I was kinda homesick but Patty’s letter helped me.” A short little letter on a note card was a ray of sunshine on his day.

Letters can be such a comfort and can be read over and over. The effort put into writing a letter coveys a sense of genuine connection to the recipient. When a loved one passes away their handwritten notes are cherished treasures. Even a card is a tangible thing with an emotional connection that can be experienced every time it’s opened and revisited.

There is no art to writing a letter. Just put pen to paper and let the thoughts flow.

“Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them,” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.