There's an anniversary of sorts I haven't mentioned--January 28--two years since I met KC, two years since the ball was set in motion and so many things changed for me. Looking back, my only regret is how we've left it and that there's been no consistent space in us for a friendship to fill in the gap left by our love affair. This morning, I opened old emails, dug around a bit, just on the beginning days. Back then, today marked the seventh day of our friendship. And we were reeling.

Hawks and Homecoming Queens

My first to her:

I'm taking a slow stroll through my thoughts, savoring the memory of you, enjoying the stirring in my body, how sensitive every place of feeling on my flesh is right now. I feel charged. It's a surreal feeling like being high, but I have a clarity that rarely accompanies those altered states. One of the best ways I've ever heard the feeling described is Rumi. He said, "You dance inside my chest."

But it's not simply that that's changed, not simply my body's beating for you that's new. I feel like I got perspective. You gave me space to slow down, look around, reflect. You brought something out of me I needed to be reminded of. I feel our meeting was fateful in so many ways, even if I never see you or speak to you again. And I'm not sure I can explain all that right now, but I want you to know I have a deep sense of gratitude and happiness about the time we shared.

My sleepiness is setting in and I'm remembering our whispers like a dream, moving in and out of sleep with you last night. So I sit here with my silly smile, gather the pictures of you in my mind, roll them around on my tongue for the taste once more and put them in a place in my memory that will always be yours.

Muddy Shoeprints on My Heart

Her first to me:

I have finally surfaced and as I came up for my first breath of my life here in Chicago I tasted you.... So Precious and fragile, like a drifting lifeboat full of lost children at sea. The cliff winds laced with tears danced across our faces. I tasted the divine breath of nature as it spoon fed me some much needed truth in my life. It is all bound together with us, time within timelessness, forever.There is nothing I ever care to change about any of it.

So far beyond words is the immeasurable happiness I feel, that the girl- the one that may have had a little too much to drink, said hello-so glad that the dizzy girl held my hand and walked me home-so glad that the girl pushed her total being deep inside of me as every part of her life, good and bad, whispered to me through her melting hair. It was you Wendi that could see the things in me that nobody ever does. I have no desire to explain the things that happened. I think they are sacred, truly sacred. This chapter may be written, but as you know a book has many more...................biting my lips, kelly xo

February 4, 2002