Sealed with a Stamp

I left Berkeley towards the end of my tenth grade school year, because my father had suddenly died. Even though close friends had offered to keep my brother and me until the end of the school year, our mother decided that we needed to move down to live with her in Santa Monica immediately. So move we did, and started a new life in a city we only knew as a vacation spot.

At first, letters from my Berkeley friends were my lifeline. I drank in each letter over and over, for the bittersweet pleasure of the familiar past viewed from my barren new present.

I sent letters back sharing my new circumstances -- my new classes and teachers, the indignity of sharing an English class with my older brother, my lungs' painful adjustment to the smoggy air.

I decorated my letters with sealing wax in various colors. One seal featured my initial; another was a pattern of some sort, maybe a flower.

I put effort into my missives and appreciated every word I received. Gradually, though, the events of my friends' lives became increasingly distant, I dug into my own concerns, and we drifted apart.