You once left a note for me on my ottoman, letting me know, as you drove up to the cottage, that you spied a flicker on the crest of the roof of the big house. Today, as I mucked about in the kitchen, as I pulled together a bite to eat, I looked out the nook window and saw a couple flickers on the lawn. Were they a sign? A reminder of the passing of yet another year? Another casual reminder of you? Hard to say but it was a treat all the same.
This week marks seven years, seven summers since I first met you down at the Port Orchard branch. It was a thunder struck moment, that moment you walked in the door of the meeting room. Auspicous? A case of almost too much of a good thing? A bad omen? No, seeing you that day I knew you were the real McCoy. I didn't know it then but I must say that you, my dear, where the finest thing that every happened to me, a real life incident, the kind that a man can say he experienced and lived to tell about, like living through a flaming train wreck or an asteroid strike.
You were like a special delivery letter sent from Venus that day, a visitation, a walk-on role that neither of us ever fully expected you to play, kind of like a person who walks into a foreign embassy, who has a message on the tip of her lips but doesn't quite know how to speak the language. You were the messenger, and I was, well, the willing recipient. Spectators at the window would have loved and understood the moment, it was the kind where you can practically see the writing on the wall, the kind of writing that says, here lies THE fork in the road. It was in our eyes, in the way we sat, fidgeting, like the chairs had loose electrical wiring shorting in our pantgs, in the way that my fellow colleague and the building and the universe all sort of disappeared. Only when you left did the walls in the room return, did the sun come in, did my mind stop reeling.
Was it love? You know, M, looking back, I couldn't tell you at the time, as I was addled, starstruck and wanted to somehow preserve that strange little moment of heartfelt wonder. I knew that there was no language for it so I tucked it away, put away that meeting of ours into some sort of magic bag of mysteries, let the moment settle and simmer away until I met you again later on that fall at All Staff Day. But love? I didn't know the symbols that were in front of me, I could only tell that what I felt for you was deep. I told my new old friend about the other day in a letter. She asked me why the Horsewoman wasn't high on my list, why I couldn't reciprocate the feelings she had for me. She knew of our story and asked me if it had anything to do with you. I told her that love comes one of two ways, either in the form of a lightning strike or is allowed to build up over the years. Either way you know it when it comes. It's pure chemistry, one way or the other, either sent from above in a sort of wild emotional deluge or built up, a sort of elemental chemistry block set that you both put together brick by brick. The Horsewoman has neither going for her, sad, but that's the way it is.
I looked out the window today and know that those flickers were sent to me as a sort of subtle cosmic reminder that love, no matter how it comes or goes, lingers, and that little messengers like those birds are gifts, ones that remind me, now and forever, that love, no matter how it comes, must be honored, cherished and respected.
A bag full of notes, an empty kitchen and you across town in the arms of another, notwithstanding.
Love, your WHMB
This week marks seven years, seven summers since I first met you down at the Port Orchard branch. It was a thunder struck moment, that moment you walked in the door of the meeting room. Auspicous? A case of almost too much of a good thing? A bad omen? No, seeing you that day I knew you were the real McCoy. I didn't know it then but I must say that you, my dear, where the finest thing that every happened to me, a real life incident, the kind that a man can say he experienced and lived to tell about, like living through a flaming train wreck or an asteroid strike.
You were like a special delivery letter sent from Venus that day, a visitation, a walk-on role that neither of us ever fully expected you to play, kind of like a person who walks into a foreign embassy, who has a message on the tip of her lips but doesn't quite know how to speak the language. You were the messenger, and I was, well, the willing recipient. Spectators at the window would have loved and understood the moment, it was the kind where you can practically see the writing on the wall, the kind of writing that says, here lies THE fork in the road. It was in our eyes, in the way we sat, fidgeting, like the chairs had loose electrical wiring shorting in our pantgs, in the way that my fellow colleague and the building and the universe all sort of disappeared. Only when you left did the walls in the room return, did the sun come in, did my mind stop reeling.
Was it love? You know, M, looking back, I couldn't tell you at the time, as I was addled, starstruck and wanted to somehow preserve that strange little moment of heartfelt wonder. I knew that there was no language for it so I tucked it away, put away that meeting of ours into some sort of magic bag of mysteries, let the moment settle and simmer away until I met you again later on that fall at All Staff Day. But love? I didn't know the symbols that were in front of me, I could only tell that what I felt for you was deep. I told my new old friend about the other day in a letter. She asked me why the Horsewoman wasn't high on my list, why I couldn't reciprocate the feelings she had for me. She knew of our story and asked me if it had anything to do with you. I told her that love comes one of two ways, either in the form of a lightning strike or is allowed to build up over the years. Either way you know it when it comes. It's pure chemistry, one way or the other, either sent from above in a sort of wild emotional deluge or built up, a sort of elemental chemistry block set that you both put together brick by brick. The Horsewoman has neither going for her, sad, but that's the way it is.
I looked out the window today and know that those flickers were sent to me as a sort of subtle cosmic reminder that love, no matter how it comes or goes, lingers, and that little messengers like those birds are gifts, ones that remind me, now and forever, that love, no matter how it comes, must be honored, cherished and respected.
A bag full of notes, an empty kitchen and you across town in the arms of another, notwithstanding.
Love, your WHMB
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