My dear friend Dorothy Walters is now asleep (I hope) in the front bedroom of our house. She arrived this afternoon from San Francisco. It is her first time in Michigan, and I am beside myself with delight at having her here. Dorothy and I met in 1998 during the third of my six winters in that magical city by the bay. We lived just eight blocks apart on Guerrero Street in The Mission, and would meet at least once a week to read our poetry to one another at a coffeehouse halfway between her rented house and my sublet apartment. Our friendship deepened with each line of poetry and has remained strong even though I stopped migrating west after the winter of 2002. We were last together during a one-week visit I made to San Francisco in March 2005. But we talk on the phone regularly, and she keeps up with me through my PBase photo galleries, and I with her through her blog, "Kundalini Splendor." Dorothy is an inspired and inspiring spiritual poet whose first book of poetry was published at age 70. Two years later, a memoir detailing her kundalini awakening was also published. CLICK HERE to go to her blog. (Sorry I put up the wrong URL last night. Now it is correct!)

And now I must get some sleep myself so I'll be fresh for our lovely long weekend together.