I'm not very much liking this name in print thing. I've been writing for a while but mainly under pseudonyms or for small readerships. This is the first time I've not only had my name, but my face, attached to my work, and I'm not exactly digging it.

I've always loved the idea of falling off the face of the earth. When I left the States five years ago, I did just that. Not only did I withdraw from all the races I was running, but I was not even on the sideline as a spectator or a failed runner. I simply was not there. Like Reepicheep, I'd ridden the coracle to the edge of the world and had gone over.

Coming to the Ew Aye Ee, however, has been like readmitting in the race. I don't like it. I don't want to be running anywhere ever again. You don't get to enjoy the view when you're doing that, and you never get anywhere anyways. There's always a racer far ahead and another road to struggle on. Very tiring and pointless when that's not what the Test is about.

But I have to be here, if only for a short while, Inshallah. When I signed on, I thought I'd come and do quiet desk work. Then I wouldn't be on the radar, I would simply be in the vicinity. That way when I left again it would be simply like a shadow of something that had passed.

But they took me on as a writer, so that' what I'm doing. And while I have asked for a nomdeplume, my boss doesn't jive with it. It's about accountability, they say, and we have to be able to take the heat for what we write. Telling him I'm accountable only to God though, didn’t seem to help much. Your articles get your name, sometimes your photo, and we want you to fight for the frontpage, dammit! Oh blah.

I guess it feels like, if I become a face card in this game, then I'll have a harder time quietly folding when I want to get out. Pride takes hold and your identity becomes a beast of its own. And you always have to have a way to get out. I never want to be tied to anything. If it starts to mean too much, it's time to go.

Sigh. I'm already eyeing my next stop. Anywhere with trees, crisp air, quiet, and a winter. I think the Balkans sound nice.

Robert Louis Stevenson once said, "There is no room for cowards. We must all be ready somehow to toil, to suffer, to die. And yours is not the less noble because no drum beats before you when you go out into your daily battlefields, and no crowds shout about your coming when you return from your daily victory or defeat."

The small battles, the minor everyday challenges that life present us are invisible to other people. No one else knows what we do, and even if we were to tell them, they would not be able to understand any more than they would be able to crawl into our heads and see through our eyes. You can tell people what you're going through, but you alone will feel it. How then, can you it be expected that the others should understand that you're feeling trapped, captive even? Or that they should place as much importance on your goals as you do? After all, you may all be in the same boat, but no two of you will share the same vision with absolute clarity.

You can, however, share the same purpose, and you can turn what may feel like a fruitless captivity into a rewarding, or maybe slightly less constricting experience. All it requires is that you endeavor to love one another. No one else will understand how you feel, but they may understand that you don't feel well, and they may look upon you with sympathy and pass you the extra sunflower seed that they had initially crammed into their cheeks. If, however, they fail to do so, understand that they may feel trapped and alone as well, and perhaps you should give them the lettuce leaves you buried in the corner instead. Kindness must start from somewhere.

Such is sympathy, such is compassion. Such is the sentiment necessary to see the other hamsters as comrades rather than enemies all trapped in the same cage, even if they do girly-slap each other when it starts raining peanuts. There are three of you in the cage and no two of you are alike except that you're all stuck in the same plastic tub with a baking rack on top. Make the best of it, my lovelies, lest I be forced to come in there with a sandal and beat the ever-loving millet seed out of you.

Love,
Thatcher