I used to write here nearly every day, didn't I?  A few things have pulled me away, and I've been living more inside than usual.  But I've always loved my relationship with my readers, and the online world has been a way for us to connect.  It's immediate and intense.  Write, hit post, and there I am in your inbox.   I want to ask you: what have you been doing during this time?  What have you been reading?  What are the big and small things in your life?  The small things sometimes get overlooked.  We're so focused on the major events and hurdles, we can forget that the smallest, seemingly--at the time--insignificant--moments or choices can add up to major changes, dramatic life directions.  I'm serious: the littlest things.  Just as, on a hike, if you find a tiny stream and follow it far enough, you'll find the ocean.

Have you found the ocean since we last visited?

But see?  Even with that question I'm asking about the big thing, not the tiny stream, and I'm of a mind that it's the small, the overlooked, the near, the easily dismissed that keeps us in the present, where all good things happen.

Today I plan to pet my kitties and look into their eyes.  I plan to take a walk in the Ramble in Central Park to see birds passing through on spring migration.  I plan to pause and look at tree branches, at the buds that will soon, but not yet, be leaves.  I plan to stop into the book store and choose something I want to read.

But for now, this minute, I am here with you.  So hi, you.  I've missed you, old friend.

Love, Luanne

photo: 192 Books, wreathed in pear blossoms.