Dear K,

I got the job. Today was my first day. It's a miserable little dungeon full of the kindest people I've met in this new city.

I don't like it here. I miss home. I miss being able to ride my bicycle out into the countryside and see fields and smell fresh country air and hear bird song and feel God stir me through the wind. The wind blows here too, but I don't feel God in it. I don't feel his kind hands, I feel grit and I smell garbage and fumes and people. The endless crowds of people. They press in around you. There is no escape from the crowds. This is how I die, pressed around by a mass of people.

Move to Des Moines. I'll move back. We'll write together. We can be neighbors and drink bottles of wine and sit on each other's back porches staring up into the night sky.

I feel older than I've ever felt, and I miss my home.

Take care of yourself,

K