Well, you asked for it...(these boots were made for ramblin':-)

A few days ago I was working with my computer account,
getting rid of the piles and piles of files that accumulate
like so many digital dust bunnies...I also ran across
some letters I had saved over the summer, from you.

Those letters made me think.  They were much longer than the
common 3-line e-mail plus a smiley that I always see now.  They
spoke of loneliness, and unhappiness.  That summer I wore my
feelings for you like a shirt, not that I've ever been able to
cover up my feelings at any time, ever.  Those letters seemed to speak
of a potential for romance, like a stored energy, waiting to be tapped.
The timing's just wrong, you said.  It let me keep this little speck of
hope alive nurtured on e-mail and blind optimism.  Your writing was
lovely, a flowing stream of consciousness.  It spoke of beauty, and of
genetic-driven romance, and some of it was about how frustrated
you were with how romance could make you feel.  That's one of
the things that bothered me most- it just sounded like things
were so unbalanced, and I didn't like to see you feel so uncomfortable
with that part of your life.

Huh- did you ever stop and think what a beautiful medium e-mail
would be for love-letters?  It's so ephemeral, no ink on paper,
just electrons hidden deep inside a machine...
and the words aren't just written on a screen- they actually glow.

But anyway, nothing ever came of those pieces of e-mail.  You
wrote me snail-mail, and said "Enough."  I asked if that meant that
I needed to stop?  You seemed to hesitate for a long moment, and then you
answered yes.

We went for dessert, that incredible huge dark chocolate cake, and
coffee that fall, but we didn't see each other much over the semester.
When I did see you, you were often with a guy.  So you had gotten over
that uncomfort you had spoken of before, or had given in to it,
or made peace with it, or something.

And the whole time there was Marnie.  That relationship is a pure
safety relationship, or its not.  We aren't able to figure out
if its lasted as long as it has because of or in spite of the
distance between us.  And we've never even really had the guts
to call it by a proper name, like "boyfriend / girlfriend"  It's
just been there, and that's either the wonder of it, or it isn't

And so it went.  The funny thing is when I think about what happened
between you and me in the fall of 92.  'Cause I just don't know.  In a
way, it did seem like a mystical thing.  Like a religion, with me
a lone worshipper (well, there may have been other worshippers, but
we never congegrated) and you a reluctant goddess.  Little rituals
were established- especially the communication by the laptop,
indirect, like a 2-way prayer.  I saw a mysticism and beauty in
what you would write, and would throw everything I had into my response-
when ever I look back at what I had written, it seems so much better
than anything I write now.  There was also your body- a mere vessel
for the goddess, if as flesh it couldn't be divine than it certainly
seemed to be molded absolutely flawlessly, perfect in loveliness and line.
	Also your eyes- that's one thing I was reminded of Friday
night.  To the true-believer/worshipper me, they reflected a part
of the universe, something very deep and fundamental.  I could just
look at them and look at them.
	And like so many things, it had to end all too soon.  A few
times it had almost collapsed under its own weight, but the
relationship kept on, somehow, or was reborn.  The last ending,
though, was horrible, a nightmare.  I had never tried to decieve
you, or keep anything from you.  To be honest, looking back now,
I don't think I ever put you at much risk for anything, but with the
way things worked out, maybe that didn't matter, it was the idea
of it that was so horrible, so gut-wrenchingly bad.  (Actually, it
looks like now I might never have to get a lipsore like that again,
I'm regularly taking this pretty powerful anti-virus stuff- expensiveish,
but it works.)
	My mind is all confused as to what happened after that break-up,
I have memories, focused and out-of-time, of being physically close
to you after that, and being oh-so-careful to keep my lips from yours.
So I don't remember what those times were about, or how those times
ended, in particular.




I just took a break (got new mail) and read what I had written so far.
I thought this was going to be some sort of magnum opus, but I guess not.

It's Sunday morning now, about 3:00 AM.  I love how still my hall is now,
very empty feeling.  I put on my new Simon & Garfunkel disc, and
wonderful brisk spring breezes blow over me, pushed by the fan, as
I sit in the chair.  (You know the one :-)  It's good, very good.

Do you wonder why I write letters like this?  Sometimes I do.  I'm
usually a really content person, just someone who is very comfortable
with life.  I got it from my mom, this kind of optimism. Not that life
is always going to be perfection, but when it isn't, it will still be
ok.  My mom's survived alot, and is still the most loving person I know.
Sort of like this quote I heard about Dixieland music "We sing because
life is beautiful, and even when it isn't, we're gonna sing anyway,
cause it's all we got."  But these letters seem to be purposefully
settng myself up to get hurt.  Maybe it's because I believe that life
is sweet, and reminding myself of a kind of sorrow makes it taste
that much sweeter.  Or maybe that's just so-much pseudo-psycho
nonsenese that means I'm staying up way too late.

But that wouldn't explain all of it.  There must be a part of me,
that clownish naive optimist, that still looks at you and senses
possibility, however remote and unlikely.  The part that remembers
a poem that you once wrote, the poem that said "perhaps..." perhaps
we will never speak again, and perhaps we will wonder why we ever
parted, but that part of me only can see the hopeful part.  The part
that yearns for your voice, and for your touch.  Your refusal to
deny the possibility of anything romantic ever happening between us
again brings it joy, joy and agony and frustration.  If you
read this and decide that no, nothing will ever happen like that between
us, and if you tell me that, I think it would be like a physical shock.
Though if you ever feel that, and are absolutly certain, you should
tell me.  I could then get over it, though I'm sure I wouldn't want
to- sometimes possibilities are all that I survive on.

One thing that I didn't mention in my letter that I wrote
yesterday morning- you were absolutely gorgeous last night.
I believe that the designer of the one piece whatchamacallit
had you in mind as he or she designed it.  Specifically you.
That, and your eyes...yikes.

Sometimes I ache to be touched by you again.  You, or any woman?
Well, of course partially the 'any': but you in particular.  I
loved the boldness that you projected, and that green night shirt.
You said I was good at touching you, and I always took that as
a complement.  It is a learning process for me, and I've felt I've
learned quite a lot since then, about rhythms and moods, and
communication.  You've probably learned alot too, more than me
quite probably.

Maybe the problem is you never seem lonely, while I often do.
Maybe that makes any possibility of a stronger relationship
too assymetrical to be likely.  Do you get lonely?  How close
do you let yourself get to people.  In that respect, sometimes
I think you're very different from me.  I'm pretty uniform
throughout, laughably easy to read once you get past a thin
shell (that shell that lets me get through my job at Eaton
without telling the person who refuses to learn the difference
between the A: and the C: drive what I *really* think
of him...)  You, I dunno.  Even at the closest I was able to get
to you, everything was a swell of currents of emotion, and I don't
think I would be able to get at what was underneath.

Ramble ramble ramble.

I still wonder about what happened or didn't happen between us.
Everything seemed so secretive sometimes, so furitive.  (Is that
the word?  Something like that.)  Like in your car, and you covertly
reaching back a hand to hold mine, or at the Museum, behind your
back. It was kind of odd.

Ok.  Enough of this, time for this naive prince to go to bed.

I hope you'll write me back.  And maybe tell me a little more about
what went on in your mind, and what you think of all this now.
I guesss I could hope for a lot of things.

					Goodnight, boo'ful.

							kirk