Skipped study for a couple of days: I had gotten a response on Facebook from an old high school classmate - the only classmate I'd been able to find - and it turned out to be my old nemesis. The rich kid, the smart kid - the two-points-more-in-IQ guy who used to ridicule me mercilessly whenever I mispronounced (or he thought I mispronounced) a word, etc. He went on to become a doctor, a renowned blood expert, a professor at a decent university. I found the 60-year-old version to be kind and open, and we had such a flood of correspondence over the course of three days, the relief of it overwhelmed me, and not much beyond the wrapping and mailing away of my precious library, bit by bit, has happened.

But now, after the sharing and the healing, the inevitable silence resumes. Bye-bye now. His three grown children are off at good universities, his 26-year marriage is solid as a rock, and I am left to contemplate the difference financial security and parental support and guidance can make in the life of even someone from the same tiny farm village I went to school in.

I found myself weeping in gratitude that he was able to accomplish so much, and yet I did not envy him. My lessons too benefit the collective, at least in my soft conception of things. And I still have a little bit of time ... and even if I don't, maybe something will last, or that wild gene I carry will blossom elsewhere down the line.