This morning, Miss Williams, Caroline (& Gigi & Evan), Effie & I went foraging for fresh produce/sundry-goodies (cheese, honey, pickles for Miss Williams) at the Ocean City Farmer’s Market.

I picked up Miss Williams at quarter-to-nine; took refuge on her porch with Uncle Bob, who was there drinking his morning coffee (as is his custom), while the brief rain spritzed off the pavement. After no more than ten minutes, when the sky had had a good cry & decided to get sunny & to get on with it again, we took our cotton totes to town.

The market is held all summer on the Tabernacle grounds; it’s lush! I usually market every week during the season.

Letter-Writing Club

I’ve also decided to start a letter-writing club. As of today, the club consists just of lonesome old moi. Perhaps there might be others interested in getting together, swapping stationery (I have some lovely notecards), and then, like a cloister of monks, scribbling tender missives to friends & distant (or not-so-distant) loved ones together. Or maybe this should be a necessarily solitary act; I’m not sure. But I just read about a letter-writing club in Vancouver that sounds so inviting. (Oh, Canada; how kind you are.)

Today I wrote my childhood friend Melissa a note on three, 3 x 5 cards. Melissa sent me a note this week; her words are always such a comfort. I Skyped with my sister last night and read her Melissa’s note in its entirety; almost an anachronism now, this act of reading a letter out-loud for entertainment (albeit over video-chat: Jane Austen meets Gossip Girl).

I don’t think she’d mind my excerpting some of it here for you, mes amis. I had told her about the alleyways project. Melissa responds,

I remember that, as a middle-schooler, my friend Fawn & I were obsessed with riding our bikes in the alleyways, always convinced of the magical happenings just under our noses. I’m sure you’re finding all sort of illuminating things.

(Aside: I’ve enclosed, in my latest letter, Mayleez, a prototype for one of my alleyway accordion zines.)

In closing, Melissa writes,

Don’t you sometimes miss the days before rampant technology? I think I’m developing ADHD just by using Facebook. I’m so grateful to you for sending me a real card! What a treasure you are––I miss you!

Oh, Mayleez––tu me manques trop, mon cherie.
––Reeshard xoxo

“P.S. I took this picture in an alleyway in Mexico.”