Maybe my friends lost my address?  But I always write my address on every letter.  I learned that years ago when a friend’s excuse was she didn’t know my address. So where’s my mail?

Maybe my letters didn’t reach them?  But I received my VISA bill! And my bank statement, so where’s my mail?

 It must be lost, somewhere between here and there. Maybe they forgot to put enough overseas air-mail postage on the letter and it was returned? Maybe they used the country’s initials and the mail was rerouted to Ireland, Canada or Egypt as one of my earlier VISA bills were?  Maybe they didn’t write?!

 Don’t my family and friends realize what an effort it is to MAIL them letters?  Getting to the Post Office at the right time, procuring a parking space without a fight, being stared at while waiting in line – then resented because I step to the front of the line.  Then I have to pay twice as much as friends and family do when they mail things to me. (An Arabic tradition is that women can go to the front of a line.)

 Nephews and nieces are the worst.  One sister used to force her two young daughters to write thank-you notes. One daughter is in college and the other on stage, working and finishing high school so she obviously doesn’t have time to write her Aunt Alice.  One nephew was shuffled around and I lost his current address.  I used to keep current with their 14 birthdays, but they started happening so rapidly – and with no return hello – that I ceased sending cards.

 Sisters are the next worse.  They assume they will see me and hear everything, so they feel no compulsion to write.  I’ve told them how much I miss the every-dayness of America, yet they still don’t write.  So I call or write one sister. She’ll tell everyone my news as she tells me everyone’s news.  News travels fast through the desert and through my family.

 Friends?  I used to worry I lost them or they forgot me. But this isn’t the first time I’ve lived overseas. Nowadays before leaving for another country, I check with new friends and everyone seems to say, “I never write.”  When I look them up when I back home, friendship is alive, warm and loving….