By Jane Gordon Julien
July 21, 2025
I stood on the sandy sidewalk outside my house the other day, watching as my son-in-law loaded a Lyft. The ocean and I sighed at the same time. My daughter, my son-in-law, and my beloved grandson, so enamored of the world and its wonders, so wide-eyed when seeing the cresting white waves, the shimmering pink sunsets, the deep, dark vastness of the Atlantic Ocean, so happy to eat sweet chunks of dripping watermelon at Bunny’s beach house (I’m Bunny) were going home to San Francisco.
I stripped the beds, I mopped the sand from the floors, I sat on the second-floor porch and stared at the sea. My grandson was a country away from me.
I know I need to cheer up. Or I need something to cheer me up.
I wake a few days later to gray skies and a dreary state of mind. Whenever this happens, I make soup. In this case, Fannie Farmer’s carrot puree soup. It does little to change my spirit.
Then the mail arrives. In it is a letter addressed “Bunny’s Beach House.”
Inside is. a thank-you note fronted by watermelons.
This piece arrived at just the right moment on just the right day. A little sprig of hope, of happiness, of gratitude, popped through the dense soil of my melancholy.
Then an envelope arrived. A six-page letter! From my father–in-law’s former personal secretary, whom I had sent a Christmas/New Year’s card in January. He could have written any other time, but the universe must have told him, this was the time. I was happy to hear from him, happy to hear his childhood reminiscences of visiting my little beach town and its next-door neighbor down the boardwalk, Asbury Park, home of Bruce Springsteen’s musical beginnings.
After reading through these missives, one brief, one a summation of the past several years of an old acquaintance’s life, I thought about letters. About reaching out, and how much it means to me.
So I’m reaching out to you, today, after several weeks of silence, to say hello, to say I am thinking of you, to say that I hope you’re well. To say that I hope you are thinking about reading, and writing, to document what you see each day, what you have seen in the past, and what you hope to see in the future.
Let me know how you are doing. This note may not arrive in your physical mailbox, but it’s the best I can do for now. A small missive, to know I am thinking of you.