My goal for my 40th year

I've been reflecting a lot on envelopes. I think that a lot of the best ideas that people have are often scribbled on the backs of envelopes or napkins. These are scraps of paper that are always at hand and can give a flash of inspiration a home in the world. I mean, how many stories have we read about some hit song scribbled on a cocktail napkin, the seed for a great work of art sketched on the back of the water bill. Stuff like that happens all the time.

So I say that it behooves (love that word because it is so hoity toity) all of us to pick up a pen, paper and an envelope and write a letter to everybody we know and care about. That way, your envelope can be there at hand to catch whatever inspiration strikes your loved one.

This is my fortieth year. I heard on the radio yesterday that Sesame Street made its 40th year anniversary too. I don't know what Bert & Ernie have planned for their 40th -- maybe they'll finally get the right to marry. But it is my goal to write my loved ones and friends this year. It will probably take all year and if you don't get a letter from me, I must not love you very much. jk. I was just thinking that celebrating my 40th birthday with a party would be fun, but I don't think I need a bunch of cake and presents. I'd much rather give presents of my thanks to the people who have enriched my life. The thank-you for being the person who held me while I cried when my husband got on the plane to leave for Seattle. The thank-you for the person who made me dinner when I brought my third child home. The thank-you for the gifts from her garden the summer that my husband had lost his job. The thank-you for the months taken away from her home to stay with me to watch my kids. The thank-you for the arms around me as I grieved my father's death. The thank-you for the first laugh I had during that terrible dark time. And countless other kindnesses I've been blessed to receive. Those are the moments and interactions that have formed me in these past 40 years. And the enormous gratitude of debts that I know I cannot repay except with a thanks and an envelope.

An envelope that can catch inspiration and can bloom into something marvelous.