Dear Bob,
Hi! How’s life going? I haven’t seen you in a long time, and a lot has changed in the past couple of years with the Minoans. Did you know that I must learn to help Mom make clothes and gather up crops? Honestly, using the loom and spindle wheel to make clothes is kind of boring. I always try to finish spinning and weaving before moving to gather some crops. I just collect some simple crops such as saffron crocus flowers used for dyes and healing. I’m now old enough to do chores, which is kind of boring.
Life on an island is peaceful because almost nobody can reach us. Here on the island of Crete, we are in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, so many people can’t reach us. The house we live in has three stories. Our walls are made of stone, brick, timber, and rubble, which helps the building stand during these small tremors that shake the ground. We have a shaft in the middle of the house to bring sunlight in, but the best part of the house is the plumbing. I live in an urban place, so many of the houses are really packed. Our house also doubles as a workshop for my parents for pottery and metalworking.
I must help my family every day. We have countless loom weights and spindle whorls to weave and spin things such as blankets and cloths. onto cloth that is then traded away to other places. We also work in workshops creating pottery, decorative seal stones, and ritual objects. We also participate in lighter agricultural tasks, such as picking plants for rituals. My favorite part is that I get to organize our storage supplies because our family owns a shop, and I need to organize it.
I love life on Crete, but I think our civilization might be coming to an end soon. These small tremors in the Earth have been happening for a very long time. They have been getting more and more common, and in the past few times the tremors have been growing stronger, knocking down more and more things. Well, we will last, so I hope everything is going well for you over there. Hope you have a nice life!
Your friend,
Evelyn Xu