Letters, Redux

After a really long hiatus, I'm giving this blog another go. It's been over a year since my last posting. It's been a tumultuous year. I am not just older, I am changed. My mother died and I did not, my youngest child graduated and moved to DC and I did not, my daughter moved to Egypt and I did not. But I learned from everything. There was the revolution in Egypt and a failed democratic movement right here in Madison. The two had many similarities, many differences. I studied both quite closely. I made many new and wonderful friends, from all parts of the world, some right here in Wisconsin, some very far away. I wrote poems and rediscovered painting. I mourned my mom and tried to find within myself a residue of her spirit and the joy she held onto even as death cruelly, cruelly claimed her. I went to Egypt and experienced life in a third world country seeking to reinvent itself. It was a revolution for me as well as the people who lived there. I will see what I have to say now. Welcome back, Russ Feingold.