'Turn it, and turn it again, for everything is in it.'

We started a dreambook. It would be a plain black unlined journal, which I brought home and put on our coffee table. Every night that one of us had a vivid dream, we decided, we would record it in the dreambook.

On the first page I wrote the word "delusion" in red marker and put a red box around it, because that's what I dreamt - that the word "delusion" was written in red on the first page of the dreambook.

I did not have a dream the next night, so I used the second page to write a letter to my friend Katya.

Dear Katya, I wrote, do you ever listen to Ani Difranco? She's one of my favorites, and you always reminded me of her.

But then Jamie came out of his room and needed the dreambook, and beneath my aborted letter to Katya there began to appear a crayon rendering of an ocean scene, with people swimming and diving and breathing underwater. Jamie has never liked drawing, but apparently this dream was so vivid that he had to try. He used six different shades of blue.

I started a new letter to Katya. I don't write letters much, because I never quite know what to say in them - it's like having a one-sided conversation, but I feel weird talking about myself for too long. And I never call people, so I am awful at staying in touch. But anyway, I needed to write to Katya, because this was the first I'd heard from her in six months. Her phone had been disconnected and I did not have the address for her current rehab, or the name, or anything. I had thought I would never hear from her again. And then I got an email from my old work, saying she had tried to contact me there, and she'd left her address.

So Jamie sat with the dreambook on the couch and I sat next to him watching him color. He picked up each version of blue and made a careful design with it involving curly Q's that interlocked with the ones that came before it. He had his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth like a kid in a cartoon.

I knew what I wanted to tell Katya, but I had no idea how to say it. If it wouldn't sound creepy I would say 'I think about you a lot, and wonder how you are or sometimes what you would say about a given thing, for some reason, maybe because I like the way you think.' I wanted her to understand that she is one of the people in my life I consider special, who I think about when they're not around, even if years pass in between. In Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut talks about people being on your karass, or 'team,' people to whom you are divinely connected. I think there are some people in life with whom you just feel connected, for whatever reason, even if they're strangers, they feel closer than some friends, even if they don't know it. That, I am willing to bet, is one of the hardest things to convey to someone, because you can tell a friend anything, in theory, but there are different parameters for talking to strangers or acquaintances, and even some friends wouldn't really understand how serious you are about saying this.

Jamie is still coloring.

'Jamie,' I say, 'have you ever read Cat's Cradle?'

'Yeah,' he says, not looking up, 'a long time ago.' He is shirtless and skinny and wearing red flannel pants. He still has his glasses on, which means he probably hasn't brushed his teeth yet.

'I think we might be in the same karass,' I tell him. 'You and I.'

He nods. I can't see his face because his head is bent low and he has shaggy hair. A little orange fish is coming to life inside one of the curly Q's.

'Yeah,' he says. 'I could see that.'

He gets it. It is easier for me to talk to people who have read the same things I have, because so much of what I talk about comes from them. I don't think Katya likes Kurt Vonnegut. I have only ever seen her read Danielle Steele.

One of the reasons I like reading so much is that I almost always get the feeling that the author wants the same thing I want, to feel connected to someone. The strange part is, I am fairly certain that I would not get that impression from talking to the author, because talking so often gets in the way of connecting. I never know what to say to anybody and I usually say things I don't care to talk about, like 'How have you been' and 'I like your hat,' when really I mean something wordless, like 'Let's not pretend we have to talk about boring things, when really we just want to connect, and share how we feel about something.' But even that can come off as shallow or false, and thus the connection is lost.

If Jamie can spend so much time drawing his dream when he does not even like drawing, surely I can put some effort into writing Katya's letter.

'Dear Katya,' I begin again, 'Sometimes I listen to Ani Difranco, and feel both comforted and depressed, because I can totally relate, i.e., I know what she's talking about, but I also know that if I ever met her I would not be able to convey to her that I know, and I'm not sure she would care all that much anyway.'

This is far too cerebral for a casual note to an old acquaintance, but by now I am thinking way too much, so there's no going back.

Eliana and Charlie have both woken up and are rummaging through the kitchen. The smell of frying egg wafts out into the living room, and they follow.

'Morning,' says Eliana, and they sit down with steaming mugs. 'What are you guys up to?'

'I'm trying to write a letter, but I don't know what to say,' I tell her.

'I'm drawing my dream,' says Jamie.

'You could write a haiku instead,' Eliana suggests.

'No, I have to draw it,' Jamie says, which makes me rethink Eliana's intention.

'It's too early to think about that,' says Charlie, and in a small way I agree, but I don't know how to say that without sounding like I am agreeing for agreement's sake, and so I just nod my head, and then go get some tea.