I've always been an indifferent journaller. You've probably guessed that by now -- especially since the last blog entry was posted in February!

This weekend was about connections. The first was a re-connection with a dear friend of long standing (we don't say "old friend" anymore, now that the first number in both our ages is a "5"). Jolene and I have been in and out of each other's lives since I was a sophomore in high school and she was a senior. We were best friends then and remained so until I went to college, she joined the Army, and we lost touch. We found each other again when I was out of college and unemployed and she was out of the Army, married, and the mother of a darling baby daughter. Miraculously, we had both come back to Eau Claire, our home town, and found each other again.

She saved my sanity in many ways in those days when we were all broke and barely scraping together the means to provide roofs over our heads and food on our tables. Saturday night after Saturday night, we were at her house, watching "Love Boat," playing dominoes, and eating nachos with cheese dip. The power of that connection, cemented in the experience of finding community even when there was no money to provide what the consumer society called "entertainment," cannot be overestimated.

About ten years ago, Jolene and I lost touch. She was going through a tough time, I had moved far away to Wyoming, and somehow the contacts I tried to make didn't connect.

About six weeks ago, a wedding invitation arrived. Valerie, who is now, impossibly, 26 years old, was getting married. I hadn't seen her or her mother in about 15 years. I had to go.

Of course, I was nervous. And, of course, there was no need to be. Jolene was as thrilled to see me as I was to see her. In the big cliché that is often life, we began talking as though we had never been out of touch. We got caught up and vowed that we would never let so much time lapse again without seeing each other.

The weekend brought other connections, as well. The wedding was in St. Cloud, Minnesota, where I happened to live from the time I was two years old until I was ten days short of turning eight. I know I was ten days short of turning eight on the day we moved because that was the day my sister was born. It's always nice to have definitive markers for the changes in one's life.

I found the house we lived in and was amused to find that the block still looks like the block that was indelibly etched in my memory. There was the Quinlivan's driveway right across the street, the Mays' house on the corner, the blind alley I rocketed out of on the first day the training wheels came off my bike, only to run right into a passing truck. (I still remember seeing stars and birdies and coming to consciousness to see Peter, the neighbor whose house was next to that alley, standing on the other side of the street, waving his arms, and yelling "Smash up! Smash up!" I was fine, though I gave my parents a scare.)

It stuns me, sometimes, how clear those childhood memories are. I looked at the sidewalk in front of Sally's house on the corner, and remembered my dad telling me about the bad words about my brother that I wrote on that sidewalk in chalk when I was four years old. I looked at the lawn across the street and remembered learning to ride a bike there, knowing that the neighbors had lent us their yard because it was the biggest, softest expanse in the neighborhood. I fell down on that grass a lot!

When I got home and checked my email, I found a new blog entry from another connection. This is Keith Snyder, a person I've never met, but whom I know from years of trading posts on online message boards. Keith is an artist -- a writer, musician, filmmaker, and genius. I love his work and his sense of humor. Five months ago, he and his wife welcomed twin sons into their lives. The blog entry he wrote today blew me away. See if it touches you, too:Keith Snyder's Blog.

I was stunned by the elegant simplicity of the first stanza. Blessings to you,
Jeanny