I\u00a0grew up\u00a0in\u00a0the late \u201980s, on\u00a0a\u00a0sleepy street where everyone knew each other. Our neighbors had a\u00a0big house, but we\u00a0rarely saw them. I\u00a0dared my\u00a0friends to\u00a0come with me\u00a0to\u00a0ring their doorbell. The neighbors looked terrified and slammed the door without a\u00a0word.
\nWhen I\u00a0told my\u00a0mom about this, she gasped in\u00a0horror and revealed that they kept their daughter indoors due to\u00a0a\u00a0rare immune condition. She had been homeschooled and isolated.
\nSo\u00a0I\u00a0asked my\u00a0mom if\u00a0we\u00a0could find a\u00a0way to\u00a0talk. She helped me\u00a0write a\u00a0letter. A\u00a0week later, her parents dropped off a\u00a0note from her in\u00a0our mailbox. That started\u00a0it.
\nEvery week, I\u00a0wrote to\u00a0her. I\u2019d describe things we\u00a0saw outside, and she\u2019d reply with her own drawings of\u00a0how she imagined them. One day, her parents placed a\u00a0small lantern in\u00a0her window. When it\u00a0glowed, it\u00a0meant she had a\u00a0new letter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u00a0grew up\u00a0in\u00a0the late \u201980s, on\u00a0a\u00a0sleepy street where everyone knew each other. Our neighbors had a\u00a0big house, but we\u00a0rarely saw them. I\u00a0dared my\u00a0friends to\u00a0come with me\u00a0to\u00a0ring their doorbell. The neighbors looked terrified and slammed the door without a\u00a0word. When I\u00a0told my\u00a0mom about this, she gasped in\u00a0horror and revealed that they kept their daughter indoors due to\u00a0a\u00a0rare …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5908"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5910,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5908\/revisions\/5910"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}