A small room inside a bay window. A single bed, a table and chair, and a sink. I could manage something larger, with more conveniences, but I could never match the view.

In yesterday's mail came a handwritten letter from someone I had not heard from since high school, someone I barely knew, yet someone who writes with a familiarity that makes me miss her.

How is it that writing can do that? Not just writing, but reading.

The person who wrote this letter has read everything I have ever published -- my books, my essays and articles, and this blog. She gets it that the room from which I write is a fictive space, based on a British bedsit.

Near the end of her letter she mentioned that her daughter, who is studying architecture, has collected every post that begins with "A small room..." and is building a model based on their contents. How timely, because today I am adding a full length mirror to the inside of the closet door.