Happy Monday everyone! I hope this bountiful holiday week is off to a good start for you. I also know the holiday season is tough for some families who are missing loved ones, especially for the first time. I’ve been there and my heart is with you.

This month’s book is getting a lot of buzz, at least in some of the groups I’m in, and it’s fun being part of that conversation. I don’t often stay up all night to finish a book, especially one I’ve not even reached into the halfway point, but the other night, I did with The Correspondent.

The Correspondent by Virgina Evans is a novel told in a series of letters, written by Sybil Van Antwerp. Sybil is a retired lawyer, a member of the local garden club, a divorcee, a mom, and a grandma. And a prolific letter writer. We get to know Sybil as her personality emerges depending on whom she’s writing to, including: the author Joan Didion, the film director George Lucas, and people not so famous like her best friend/sister-in-law Rosalie, her brother Felix, and a young boy, Harry, the son of a former colleague. There are others. Some she’s never met. And they write back.

The letters span the years from 2012 through 2021, and during those years we witness not only Sybil Van Antwerp’s victories and irritations, but also how her relationships change. How she changes. Throughout, there’s also one letter that is written, added to, but never sent. The recipient and the mystery are revealed slowly in both the continuous letter, and in the letters to others.  

I’ve read other novels written in this same style and I enjoy them. I admire the authors who can write them in a way that the letters don’t come off as stilted or forced. Evans does a superb job of avoiding those problems.

Something I thought about while reading, and it’s mentioned in the book, is how our emailing and texting have changed letter writing. I’ve mentioned in other posts what a treasure it is that I have handwritten letters by grandparents, between them and other relatives or friends. They shared mundane things like the material one bought to make new curtains; they comforted, worried, celebrated together through their scribbled lines or long flowing script. I know we still do that through our emails and texts–but then it’s gone. With actual pen to paper letter writing there’s permanence. There’s a written record, a history. There’s something to go back to, to hold, to reread when those words are needed again.

The mother of one of my sister’s friends dedicates her Sunday evenings to letter writing, choosing a couple people each week to drop a line to. She has special stationery and a favorite pen, and no one is to disturb her while she’s writing. I’m a lapsed letter writer. I have a short stack of correspondence next to my chair I keep promising myself I’ll answer. After reading The Correspondent I’m more determined to get back at it, even if only a letter or two each week. Do you still write letters?

Thanksgiving Week is upon us. I made two pumpkin pies yesterday and the aroma of spices and fresh pumpkin filled the kitchen. As much as I love Christmas music, it’s the scents of the season that bring the holidays home for me. I’m ready. How about you?

I’ve had a blessed year and I hope you have, too. Years ago, when my book of poetry, In the Garden of Life and Death – A Mother and Daughter Walk, was published, I often signed them with the phrase, “May you always find moments of grace in your garden.” Moments of Grace is the title of one of the poems and it illustrates how even during the horrendous years of my daughter’s and then my mom’s cancers, there were moments of grace. That’s my wish for you, especially this week of Thanksgiving. In the midst of all that isn’t right and good right now, personally or otherwise, my you notice and celebrate all those moments of grace that still exist and make things right and good.

I’ll see you next week – though it may not be Monday …