The flu is responsible for the lateness of this newsletter. Every year I get a flu shot, I don't go into crowds, I wash my hands often, and I never get sick. So, what happened this year? Well, I have been wearing a soft brace on my left hand to prevent carpal tunnel getting me again. So, I didn't wash my hands as often as I used to. Maybe that's why I got something like a flu and not a flu, like a cold and not a cold. I never had all the symptoms of either. I have been okay one day, weak as a rag the next. My daughter suggested that I might have allergies. I have never had allergies to trees, pollen etc. I checked it out and sure enough. I was treated, and in 24 hours the allergies were gone and I feel great again.

I have heard a lot about writers' block. Perhaps you have also. Writers dread it. Whatever causes it, it immobilizes the writer which leads to depression. Some writers claim to have had it for months or years. Some get it for shorter periods, days or weeks. In all these years I have been writing, I have never had it until recently, and let me tell you, it is frightening. I've been going along, the words pouring out, and suddenly I'm facing the computer and my mind is blank. The story won't come. Words have dried up. My career as a writer is over, or so it seems. But, I am not ready to quit. My novel is half done. I have to find a way out of this. And, the flu hits me and it's even worse. Now I cannot even sit at the computer.

There are workshops and books written about how to break this cycle, to feel fresh and able to write again. I can't even deal with reading them. Luckily for me, the minute the allergies were gone, so went the writer's block. I am happy to report, that I have written ten pages this morning. The material flowed like it used to, thank God. So what caused it? I don't know. I hope not to ever have it again.

The novel, which I am working on for 2009, is progressing slowly. It is a holiday tale of two Civil War soldiers, one from the north, one from the south, wounded and left to die on a South Carolina battlefield. They are found by an old woman. She manages to get them into her ancient wagon and carries them off into the woods and then into the mountains. She heals them, and they stay with her, and take her name. They never go return to their homes and former lives. After all these years, their dairies and letters are found at Bella's Park in a long- buried tin box. Grace, Hannah, and Amelia set out to find their ancestors, North and South, and to unite them with local descendants, if there are any, at Christmas time in Covington. In my next newsletter, I will tell you more about the ladies progress in finding, or not finding, their Civil War soldiers' people.

Recently, I received a letter from a woman whom I had known and liked in 1956 when my then husband, Dr. Bernard Rumsch and I, were stationed for two years in Germany. I was so young. I had one child, then, my older son, Damon. My younger son, David, was born a year later in Germany on an Army base. Probably many of you had tours of duty with your husbands overseas in the 50s. I called this lady and our conversation was marvelous as we retraced our then young lives. She was the wife of my husband's commanding officer, and she reminded me that I used to sing really silly songs to the kids in the playground. Any of you ever see the movie or play, FANNY? There was a song in there about an octopus. It began with "I'm in love with an Octopus--" One thing she said was that I was a maverick and did not fit in with army life. Seems I invited enlisted men's wives who lived on the German economy and not in base housing, to have a bath in my bathroom, and this was considered inappropriate, to put it mildly. I was delighted to be in touch with her, to hear about her life, and share mine. What a treat this was. Bless her for making the effort to find me.

Last Christmas, my son, Damon, gave me an electronic picture frame. In February he and his wife, my dear daughter-in-law, Karen, went on vacation to St.Thomas. Damon shot many rolls of film, and he put the St. Thomas pictures of my choosing on the electronic frame. It sits to the right of my computer, and I can cast my eye at it even as I type. The photos of St. Thomas make me feel that I am looking out of my window. I am home. I see the color of that ocean, the incredibly blue sky. I always loved that sky and those enormous white pillow clouds. I loved the red roofed houses climbing up the hillsides and the harbor. Many of you have visited by cruise ship, perhaps, so you know what I mean. Seeing it, I have mixed feelings, happy and sad. It pulls at my heart to be there.

I have never been a person to regret things. We all have made choices. Some turn out great, some didn't. I never regret the 15 years I was married to Bernie Rumsch, or the years before I was 35 and got my first job for pay. Everything, I feel, leads to something else and it all has made me who I am. Suddenly, I find myself regretting leaving the islands in 1973. What was so pressing, I wonder? What craziness prompted me to uproot two kids from a good school to take them to Florida, where the schools where just being integrated and all hell broke out. I didn't know about this integration of schools in America. In the islands the schools had always been integrated, everything had always been integrated. People mixed on the basis of socio-economics and not color.

Anyway, I can honestly say if it were 1973, I would stay right there. On the other hand, had I not come to Florida, worked at a senior center, had my heart opened to older women, and then moved to North Carolina, would I have become a writer? Would I have written about the Ladies of Covington? Life is what it is. Each choice brings gladness and sadness. Live life now. Regret, I remind myself, is a big waste of time

email: jmedlicott@mindspring.com

web: http://www.joanmedlicott.com