Dear John,

as I’m writing these lines I’m sitting on the walls surrounding my little cottage in South Wales. Yes, I’ve finally bought it and decided to come live out here and leave everything behind, like I said I would, but you wouldn’t believe me.

From where I sit I can just make out the sea. It is a calm, turqouise-greyish shade, like my cottage’s window sills. Wind is coming from the sea - it hardly ever ceases - tousling my hair like a not-so-gentle lover. It brings a smell of ozone; I think there will be bad weather afoot tonight. I can imagine you so well if you were to see me sitting here hoping for a thunderstorm just like the little witchy girl that I am, and you asking me if I’d go slay some chicken anytime soon. I guess you never believed I was serious about my religion and my place in the world, as you never believed so many other things I tried to tell you. Sometimes I couldn’t quite get the message through, didn’t know how, and sometimes I thought I succeeded only to find out you misunderstood my every word.

But that’s water under the bridge, right? I left the past behind when I got off the plane in Bangor, and I don’t feel the urge to remind me of my life before Wales. Most of my personal belongings are still stored in little brown boxes in a warehouse I rented, for if I ever feel I need them, which at the moment I don’t think I ever will. I keep mostly to myself nowadays; I get up with the sunrise and praise the Goddess and take my tea out to my little patio to hear the waves crashing to the shore and to see the mist rising from the sea like ghosts in a movie. Since three days I am enjoying the company of a huge black cat who strolled into my yard in the evening demanding a petting and something to eat. I am thinking of keeping him and calling him Edgar if he chooses to stay with me. But you can never know the mind of a proud cat, can you?

So I just wanted you to know that I am fine and you needn’t worry. Sometimes I still need to go to therapy, but now it’s just on the anniversary of the accident that I get depressed. It’s not like when I couldn’t even get out of bed on Mondays because I missed you so much. But now I’m here anyway, and with the cat I think in the end I’ll make it. Somehow. Maybe I’ll actually open up a pub like I said back then and call it „The Oak King“ or something equally silly; I guess you’d tell me I’m crazy but hey, there are so many White Lion or Red Horse pubs around, you need to attract customers somehow.

It is starting to rain now; I had better go inside and fix myself a strong cup of tea so I don’t catch a cold. But first I think I’ll go to the sea and post your letter. I hope it will reach you where you dwell now.

Hope to see you there,
love, Eileen