Dear Kermit the Frog,
It’s been a while, little man!
Last we saw each other, I was most likely sitting in front of my parents’
television set after a tiring half day of writing stories and finger painting at kindergarten. I might have been eating my one-time-a-week
allowance of Hardee’s chicken fingers with ketchup, which I liked a lot, and you
might have been singing me a croaky song about rainbows, dreamers, and sailors.
Well, a few things have changed since days like these. For example, I’m not in
kindergarten anymore, I no longer eat chicken fingers, and I have a different
set of teeth than before. Some things
are the same, though. For example, I do
still eat ketchup because I still like it a lot.
Alright, well, I hope you might
have some time to read what I write, because I recently read something you wrote. I mean, for real, you didn't really write it; you said it. But, someone else must have scribbled it down, so it's kind of like you wrote it. It went like this: “Anywhere I am is
here. Anywhere I am not is there.”
Remember when you said it? I
don’t remember, either.
But I think it's real honest and nice, and I'm glad someone wrote it down.
It's stuck on repeat in my brain now. I think that's because I’m about to change my here and my there for a little while when I move from La Crosse, Wisconsin to Juffair, in the Kingdom of Bahrain. When I think about it, I’ve come to really like the here I know, yet I’ve
also gotten more and more antsy about the there I don't. I figure the best way to get to know any
there is to make some new place a here, and what you said makes me want to jump to make that happen. Of course, I
will miss the here I know. I think, though, that what I see as here will keep growing, will become stronger, become more me,
somehow, no matter the there I find. This is the coolest, sagest, and amphibianest part I see in the words you said and that are in my brain: heres and theres don't have to be so far apart; they might even be the same thing sometimes. Right?
How about this: I’ll write little unfinished stories and thoughts about
different places I go and different people I meet on my Bahraineous adventure. Then, I’ll store them here in this bloggy blog
with your letter. This way, other lovely people I know can read them if they want, because I'll be thinking about them as I make my way around, and they might be curious about new heres and theres and juicy Bahraini pears. If they have Bahraini pears, I mean. I don’t know if they do. If they do, I'll let you know. For sure they have dates, which are sort of squishy, wrinkly looking and very, very sweet.
I hope Sesame Street is still chasing your clouds away,
Kermit, and that you are spending lots of time with your pink-snouted and sassy
love interest.
Peace and Good Things From Here to There,
Laura
