In Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery wrote, “True friends are always together in spirit.” My most meaningful messages have come from a true friend who faithfully writes handwritten notes sent through the post. In an age of quick electronic missives, these letters in her perfect cursive are, and have been, a balm to my soul and have kept us “together in spirit” for over 20 years. I have an inches-high stack of cards and notes tied together representing years of faithful encouragement from Tina. Even during the years when we lived in the same town and saw each other regularly, she continued to put loving words on paper and send them through the mail. My heart always smiles to see her script on an envelope in my mailbox. While it is impossible to select one note from this dear friend, I remember the season when her letters were a lifeline. I spent several years battling Lyme disease with pain so severe I often could not rise from my bed. My children and husband did their best to persevere without much help from Mom, and my heart was as broken as my body. During these years, I lived across the state from Tina and her handwritten cards saved me from despair. The words were often light musings on parenting and homeschooling or thoughts on a recent book she had just finished, but for me, they were a reminder that real life was happening for others and could one day again be my reality after healing. Her words were gentle encouragement to not give up, to not let my spirit succumb to the pain in my body, and to hold onto hope. Some cards are purchased notes, some are hand-colored, and some are simply stationary, but always the words are sculpted beautifully in colored ink. I carried these notes with me to long treatments at medical facilities, and she even mailed cards to my inpatient clinic during my weeks-long stay. Holding the physical messages from this dear friend spurred me on through long days, weeks, and years of treatment and healing. Tina persisted in writing even when I rarely had the mental energy to craft a sentence or the physical strength to hold a pen. I thanked her over the phone or in short electronic messages, and she never faltered or resented the almost one-way communication. She chose this means of loving a friend and expected nothing in return. We again live in the same town, and the notes still come occasionally. Annually, I revisit my collection and reflect on this amazing friend whose handwritten encouragement kept us “together in spirit” and provided a lifeline in the gloom of chronic illness and severe pain. I know she faithfully writes to many in her life, and I am eternally thankful for her words of love and hope that have come, and continue to come, to my mailbox. Kristin Fenwick kristin.fenwick@gmail.com

“Only one soul was to be seen, and that was Madame Defarge– who leaned against the door-post, knitting, and saw nothing.” -Charles Dickens My passion for literature solidified in middle school when I realized Madame Defarge actually saw everything and was knitting a record of the executions at the guillotine. The craftiness of that rebellious act and the symbolism in the knitting highlighted the power of story and the urgency to record our world through fact and fiction. As an INFJ who is intensely in-tune with others and the broader world, literature provides both a window of learning and a door to escape for my very active mind. The opportunities within books are endless, and this is what I am pursuing with my advanced degree and am sharing via my teaching career. I have taught secondary English for more than a decade and have a wealth of on-the-ground experience and hard-won accomplishments. My heart swells when reluctant readers engage with a book such as The Outsiders or The Book Thief, when students ask deeper questions about life that emerge from reading a text like Frankenstein, and when students say to me, “You have to read this!” I dream of writing literature curricula, of teaching literature and dual-enrollment courses, of pouring into the homeschool community with which I am connected to support budding writers, of finishing the memoir I have started, of bringing fiction and poetry ideas to life on paper, and of giving back to the education and learning communities in which I have long been active. These are my passions, and all orbit around literature. My long-term book club friends would attest to my love of all things print and my quest for deep understanding, deep conversation, and deep connections. My family would say my primary hobby is reading. My parents had to send me to the guest room as a consequence, because there I had no books! A passion is truly a passion when it is lived out in life. Sharing the treasure hunt that is reading with others is my life’s work. Who knows what other mysteries (like Madame Defarge’s knitting) are to be found in text?