"We are lost."

"No, it will turn out well."

"How will it?"

"I don't know.  It's a mystery."

-Shakespeare in Love

---

My heart,

  It's been too long since I've seen you.  I know phone connections are hopeless between us right now, so I'm kicking it old-school with a letter.  When you think about it, it's surprising, what vast gulfs simple words on paper might span!

  My car is in the shop again.  Without you here, I never remember to get regular maintenance on it until something goes horribly awry.  So I'm back to the bus for now.  But it's not so bad, I can look out the windows and daydream, or read.  I remember our first conversation, on a bus just like this.  You took the seat next to me, made polite eye contact, then withdrew into your book.  I watched you from the corner of my eye.  You were so engrossed in the story, eyes sometimes widening, often chewing your lip absently.  So pretty, even then.  But you kept skipping several pages ahead, reading half a page, then going back.  I couldn't understand it, and my confusion somehow broke through my shyness, so I asked.

  You said the suspense got too much for you sometimes.  You had to peek ahead for a little warning, then you could go back and connect the dots more safely.  I couldn't imagine reading that way, as a writer it even offended me a little.  Stories have a sequence for a reason.  But even if you weren't experiencing it entirely as the author had intended, it was obviously engrossing, and isn't that the point?  I saw that it was a fantasy book, and asked if you'd read a different title.

  You said you had, but that it had "meandered all over" before getting to the "good bits".  I made some noncommittal noise and withdrew, hoping you wouldn't notice my cheeks burning.  We passed a few blocks in silence, then you asked if the title was a favorite of mine, sounding sorry.  Of course you'd noticed.  I equivocated for a moment, then admitted I'd actually written it.  I'm not sure which of us was more embarrassed, but I think me, because you recovered more quickly.

  You talked about my other book, which you'd liked better, and some other authors, drawing me out.  I'm pretty sure we both missed our stops.  You mentioned you had learning problems, a quirk of neurology, sometimes you had trouble piecing together a scene in your head.  Asked for my number, so if you ever got really stumped you could call a "real author" to ask.  I didn't recognize it at the time, no one but you ever looked at me the way you did, so I couldn't even tell that you were interested.  Thank God you somehow knew what I was looking for, before even I was sure.

   Halloween's coming soon.  Are you dressing up, where you are?  I'm not obviously, I need your courage and your pep-talks for that sort of thing.  I remember our first Halloween together.  You worked so hard to get me out of the house.  You suggested we go as Peter Pan and Tinkerbelle - with me as Tinkerbelle! - and I thought you were crazy.  I came back with Roger and Jessica Rabbit, so you could be glamorous and I could hide in a fursuit.  You somehow got me to agree to Harley and Ivy - even if my suit and thick makeup was nearly anonymous, I felt like a giant was squeezing me, my shapewear underneath was so tight.  But you swore I was adorable, and even if you were fibbing, at least you actually looked delicious, and we spent the whole night in various antics.  I felt so happy and free and even when it all got too overwheming and I cried and my makeup ran you just held me in Ash's bathroom and told me everything was going to be okay.  Then you took me to Denny's after the party for comfort pancakes with whipped cream!

  You always seem to know what I need, what's the exact right thing to say.  I'm so bad with that - if I have a week and a computer I can carve out a touching dialogue, but in the moment I'm hopeless.  I miss your warm eyes, your hand on my cheek, your comforting words.  I hope you'll be home soon, I feel cast adrift without you.

  Do you have a garden or a park there?  You always seem happiest in the garden.  Sometimes I'd watch you from the upstairs window while you worked.  I could sit for an hour and just bask in your energy and your contentedness, the way your vegetables bask in the sun, while you dug and pulled and planted.  When you're happily working, it's like you shine with your own light.

  I sang in the shower this morning.  I remember when we did the sing-along to the South Park movie.  I could barely bring myself to sing above a whisper, and you kept missing the timing but you were so enthusiastic, jumping up and waving your arms dramatically.  I like your singing better when you're a cappella.  When you set your own tempo it's like a bird flying into a headwind, irregular but still somehow graceful.

  Have you had any good meals lately?  I worry that without me to cook for you, it'll be nothing but pizza and microwave burritos.  It's not healthy!  Plus, eating that junk and still looking the way you do is just rude for the rest of us mortals.  I even love the faces you make if I try an experiment and it goes badly, somehow they're too cute to hurt my feelings.  But I have a new biscuit recipe that has cumin in it, I can't wait for you to try it.

  I know I'm dancing around the elephant in the room.  I don't like to talk about this part, but I guess I ought to.  I said it's been too long since I've seen you, and that's too true by far.  My whole life too long, to put it bluntly.  I've never met you, we've never spoken, I've laid no eye upon you save my mind's, seen neither face nor form nor photo.  But I swear it doesn't matter.  I am certain you exist, and I love the idea of you so fiercely it seems like it can't be anything but an echo of the love we'll actually feel when we finally do find each other.

   I know how sad that sounds.  I'm not completely naive, though.  I know that you won't be exactly as I see you now.  In the translation from fantasy to flesh how could there not be a compromise here and there?  Verbiage to tweak, idiom to adjust.  But not a jot less splendid for all that.  The electric brush of your touch, warm and real, actually hearing the chirp of your laugh, the brightness of your smile in person - all of that will flood aside my fragile memories of how you might have been, and instead it'll be as if I've always known you the way you truly are.

  Until then, we have each other in my dreams, and though on waking I may cry sometimes, I'll just remind myself that with each night I spend there, each morning I struggle out of bed, it means I'm a day closer to you.

  But please find me soon, okay?

Faithfully Yours,
 
  YJ