I was just a few years her elder, my cousin Dawn. But it was in those years that I had learned to color within the lines. And more significantly (I’m not saying for the better) I had begun to care about it. We were at my grandma’s house, coloring in the sewing room. She, still free from any worry of boundaries, took her crayon in her tiny fist, and moved it with reckless abandon across the coloring book. I tried to hold in my horror – I hope I did. But these were the wildest, most furious purple lines I had ever seen. It was indecipherable what the underlying outlines had recommended. Still, she held it out – held it up – proudly. “I think it’s pretty good,” she claimed, “you know sometimes, I scribble.” (As if to say she hadn’t then.) I envied her assuredness. I stayed within the lines. Ready too, I suppose, to hold mine equally out to the world, just as she had done, and say clearly, “Dear Someone,…Maybe it’s all been a letter. A reminder. A plea. An offering. An outreach. Sometimes appearing on canvas. Sometimes in a book. Sometimes just a scribble on a notepad. Sometimes even indecipherable. But I think in each of our own extraordinary ways, every day, inside and outside the lines, sometimes with confidence, other times with fury, sometimes in colors so weak they can barely be seen — each day we write the letters. Letters that contain giant hopes of connecting, of being seen, of being loved, of giving thanks. Letters that ask to be seen. Letters that say, “I see you.” Letters that open days, open doors and open hearts. Letters that ask for the help. Letters that offer it. Letters that know today it might be me, tomorrow it might be you. Letters that know both words are true for all. Dear. Someone.

So we wake each morning and present to the mirror, present to the world, our masterpieces and our scribbles, each beginning with a clear and hopeful “Dear Someone,…”