Letter to an Old Friend Before I Go

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