Dear Paul

Oh Paul,

I'm eating your words up. I am so enlivened still by Anasazi. I connect with you. I am with you. I love you. I understand you. My clothes were torn by those same cat claw branches. I slept under that same sky... sometimes so lonely, and sometimes so full with the night breaths of radiant living. I know those little twigs you have to keep feeding your fire with around your black cup. It's filled with last night's leftover lentils because you forgot to clean it out the night before.

I know what an email means after you get home. You want to share every story from your week on the trail, but your time on the off week is quite limited. And you are dying to hear from everyone. You hope people don't forget you. And you hope they truly understand that even though you are having huge and new adventures, THEY are the ones in the deepest corridors of your heart, and THEY are the ones you are thinking about as the fire dies down and it's time to curl into your army green sleeping bag on the welcoming desert earth.

In the moments before you sleep you're asking yourself, how is Kaarina doing as she gets ready to graduate? Is Audrey loving her job as much as she was when I was there? Who does Lumina call when she's sad? Is she still in touch with Ben? Michelle! Where is my Michelle? How is Emily Neaman? Does she truly know how much I think of her? I wonder how Kristin is liking Portland. Has it been warm enough there for Kadra to use the kiddy pool yet? Didn't Skye say she and Jared were going to South America? Is that still happening? What kinds of projects are Forrest and Bryce doing this summer? Does James know how much an email from him means to me?

Well, that's what I'm asking anyway...

And many many others... faces splash like drops in my ocean. Each one fills only a moment of time, yet carries with it its own weight of emotion and joy. Each soul I love is precious and nurturing. Each drop of water, divine.

Paul, please continue to share your letters from Anasazi with us. We are your family and you are part of us all.

With you, Emily