I'm looking out my window right now and watching the snow fall and realizing that all the things that I did and shared and felt with you are still impacting my life as much as that snow that has had me locked down in this comfy house Port Orchard. It is not for want of trying on your part, that's for sure. You gave me notice years ago, but nevertheless for years I felt that I had to wear the mantle, be your knight errant, be the mascot of this strange and forbidden thing that we shared.
I think it was clear to me, this whole misbegotten mission of mine, when I saw you, after one of my long distance trips to California. I ran into you on that school route of yours, in the parking lot below Big Lots. I had just received an email letter from you the day before, one where you asked yourself, in the last line, if you would do it all over again. I had to find out.
But it took a trip to California and back for you to ask that question, for you to write me, to breathe deeply and be thankful for my safe return. It was a somewhat hairy trip, but I arrived safe and sound and was able to celebrate the New Year and my birthday in the comfort of my little house with all my kids about.
It was, oh so much different than the year before, but that's what happens when a year goes by and life takes over. Life has taken a path that you and I could have never forseen. It has gone places that even in my wildest dreams I would have never hoped or dreamed for, but sometimes that is best. To leave the dreams alone and let life, and all it strangeness, wonderfulness, take over. Sort of like when you walked in the door of the Port Orchard meeting room that day, way back in '03. Things happen, or they don't, but when they do, when people connect, when hearts that are shared are real...well, then.
Love happened. No apologies there. It just did.
So I look out the window and think of a novel I was flipping through the other day. The lead character seemed to be somewhat hapless in love, or at least, in keeping his homelife together. Somehow the gods delivered that book and that passage to me. The man in the book was the victim of a wife who came and went out of his life fairly regularly. Somewhere along the line he met and fell in love with a completely inappropriate woman, but then again, there it goes. In the end he loses both of them, finds a way to make his relationship with his kid the best he can, then moves on with life. But it was a line he shared with his father that really kicked me in the head. The man goes to see his pop, who at this point in the story is in the hospital, and Pop asks his son how his wife is. "Oh, she's gone". "Gone again? For good this time?" says Pop. "Yup", says the the son. "But why?" "Well, I fell in love with another woman", says the son. "That'll do it every time" says Pop.
Yep, that'll do it every time.
Silly, I know, but I had to honor that of ours love, too. Can't love two women at once.
I know it was all about loving you that Christmas day when I was beating feet over and across Oregon and The Blue Mountains, trying to beat the snow home. I know I was honoring that love of ours when I found that turnout above the town and made my way back into La Grande just to hear your words coming in all the way from Arizona. I know that I was honoring some sort of code when I took on my birthday that year with a new stance, a new outlook in life. Never mind that we wouldn't last out the year, but those feelings, those words, that mission to honor what we shared and what we were went on until the following new year, and beyond.
I know that my mission was sound when I saw you in that parking lot below Big Lots that morning, because I found out that you felt the same way. Even before you got up to me, I knew. But it was reinforced and turned into mythology that day when you told me, unbiden, that yes, you "would do it all over again". You said it twice, without me having to say a thing. And baby, I believed you then, and I believe you now.
And I would do it all over again, too, even if it meant having to relive all this heartache, this joy, this wonderment, one more time.
Merry Christmas, M. Life and all it's goodness has moved upward and onward, and so have we. Miss you all the same, but only because. Well, you know.
Your WHMB
I think it was clear to me, this whole misbegotten mission of mine, when I saw you, after one of my long distance trips to California. I ran into you on that school route of yours, in the parking lot below Big Lots. I had just received an email letter from you the day before, one where you asked yourself, in the last line, if you would do it all over again. I had to find out.
But it took a trip to California and back for you to ask that question, for you to write me, to breathe deeply and be thankful for my safe return. It was a somewhat hairy trip, but I arrived safe and sound and was able to celebrate the New Year and my birthday in the comfort of my little house with all my kids about.
It was, oh so much different than the year before, but that's what happens when a year goes by and life takes over. Life has taken a path that you and I could have never forseen. It has gone places that even in my wildest dreams I would have never hoped or dreamed for, but sometimes that is best. To leave the dreams alone and let life, and all it strangeness, wonderfulness, take over. Sort of like when you walked in the door of the Port Orchard meeting room that day, way back in '03. Things happen, or they don't, but when they do, when people connect, when hearts that are shared are real...well, then.
Love happened. No apologies there. It just did.
So I look out the window and think of a novel I was flipping through the other day. The lead character seemed to be somewhat hapless in love, or at least, in keeping his homelife together. Somehow the gods delivered that book and that passage to me. The man in the book was the victim of a wife who came and went out of his life fairly regularly. Somewhere along the line he met and fell in love with a completely inappropriate woman, but then again, there it goes. In the end he loses both of them, finds a way to make his relationship with his kid the best he can, then moves on with life. But it was a line he shared with his father that really kicked me in the head. The man goes to see his pop, who at this point in the story is in the hospital, and Pop asks his son how his wife is. "Oh, she's gone". "Gone again? For good this time?" says Pop. "Yup", says the the son. "But why?" "Well, I fell in love with another woman", says the son. "That'll do it every time" says Pop.
Yep, that'll do it every time.
Silly, I know, but I had to honor that of ours love, too. Can't love two women at once.
I know it was all about loving you that Christmas day when I was beating feet over and across Oregon and The Blue Mountains, trying to beat the snow home. I know I was honoring that love of ours when I found that turnout above the town and made my way back into La Grande just to hear your words coming in all the way from Arizona. I know that I was honoring some sort of code when I took on my birthday that year with a new stance, a new outlook in life. Never mind that we wouldn't last out the year, but those feelings, those words, that mission to honor what we shared and what we were went on until the following new year, and beyond.
I know that my mission was sound when I saw you in that parking lot below Big Lots that morning, because I found out that you felt the same way. Even before you got up to me, I knew. But it was reinforced and turned into mythology that day when you told me, unbiden, that yes, you "would do it all over again". You said it twice, without me having to say a thing. And baby, I believed you then, and I believe you now.
And I would do it all over again, too, even if it meant having to relive all this heartache, this joy, this wonderment, one more time.
Merry Christmas, M. Life and all it's goodness has moved upward and onward, and so have we. Miss you all the same, but only because. Well, you know.
Your WHMB
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