Dear Danni,

I have spent the last night sleeping in your little bed in what was once your room there on Debord Street.  The few times I slept there I never saw your ghost, never was awaken by uneasy dreams and I never felt anything but warm and secure.  Perhaps I really did feel your gentle spirit in that way.  Now your room is let and is filling with odds and ends.  A microwave oven sits on the floor, there are boxes stacked near the closet and strange clothes hanging there.  Someone new will occupy your old bed on a full time basis.  My existence in this place will go elsewhere as did yours.

I played your guitar, looking at the words you had written down for "House of the Rising Sun,"  (Even though I knew them by heart).  You see, that song you were learning at what was to be the end of your life, was the first song I ever learned, way back at the beginning of my life.  It's an odd symmetry, one I think may bear some deeper hidden meaning than I can not grasp.  But that's okay, not everything important in this world is meant to be easy to understand.  If it was I would not find it necessary to write you a letter that your worldly self will never read. 

I entertained some of your friends with your guitar.  I started with the song I've been writing for you, playing it unannounced, then moving on into little quiet finger picked melodies.  I love your guitar.  It is a nice instrument.  I intend to restring it with the proper strings (the current ones are cheap and corroded).  I can see from the wear on the neck you played mostly open chords, the kind a person plays to accompany their own singing.  So I will learn a song or two for you, just of that kind.  How about some Neil Young? 

I live in a single room in an old house now.  Not much different than the one you last lived in.  I sleep through the warm summer nights wrapped in your old blanket on top of the bed spread, warm and happy as if I was in my mummy bag on a mountain someplace.  I sleep peacefully for the most part.  Thinking of your cherished friends, pondering a lyric for your song, composing little pieces of this letter and maybe others yet to come. 

Thank you for being in the world Danni.  Thank you for the peaceful dreams.  I hope your present dream is as peaceful.

Love and respect,

Russ~