Dear K,

It's sunny in San Francisco and I'm having visions of a black Jeep Cherokee up or down the California coast, the dreams we threw to the wind on our journeys there.

This weekend was a series of challenges, a weekend for me to reconnect with my dad, who I love so much and with whom I feel so disappointed on so many levels. Having seen him only once since he moved to Chicago, I would have much rather had the time to shoot the shit and relax, without so much weighing on my mind. But I know myself and the committments I've made not to hold back, so I had to be honest with him about how I was feeling, what I thought of him and that, despite everything, I'll always give him the credit he rightfully deserves for helping to raise me right. I'm learning to be more polished in my delivery, learning that I don't have to drop the bomb all at once or rain on anyone's parade (or mine for that matter) to get my message across.

It's you I'm writing to in this moment, because there are so many unsent letters to you in my head, so many times in my life that I think to tell you this or that thing that's happening in my life or that I'm working on or struggling through, and being with family, being on the water, reeling in fish, laughing and working through difficult times, it would have been impossible not to think of you. How, at this moment in life, you must be feeling, how much of your career is tied to your history, a little girl fishing with her father, one who isn't around to share her success because he's chosen not to be there. Can I possibly articulate to you how absolutely connected all these things are in my mind? That while they seem to stem from such different places, they all feel like they have the same source: my love. The deepest love I have for people in my life, that I have for you and for my dad, who I want to see and believe the best of and who have both disappointed me so deeply. How much I want to move through the disappointment to see what's on the other side.

Saturday morning, I woke from a dream so vivid my body was shaken by tears. This year, losing you, and more than that, all the hopes and dreams I had wrapped up in our future, losing so much with my family breaking up and going through so many changes, the ability to release my pain through tears has simply evaded me. I felt like the well opened. My tears were so primal. As I tried to calm my breathing so I could begin to convey to my sister and my dad what was going on with me, I almost panicked, feeling now that the tears were coming, they'd have no end.

The dream? I'm at a tennis club that's kind of a cross between yours and the one I belonged to when I was younger. I was spending part of my time playing ball and the majority establishing relationships with different people that were around me. It's such a real parallel, my dating, knowing I need to move on, feeling drawn to people for different reasons, someone I'd pursue is unavailable...all of these relationships manifested themselves in my dream. And then, feeling upset that the person (of two) I really wanted to see showed up too late, only to find me with someone else and leave angrily.

I walked out for some air and there you were. There you were with a casual, "Hey." Everything in me rushing toward you, almost a year's worth of not seeing your face and I'm trying to understand how you can hold back, be so cavalier. As we begin to talk, though the details have melted together, leaving me with a blur of feelings I experienced as we talked, I'm surprized to learn that you fault me for much of the relationship's demise, that you feel like I had plenty of chances I let slide by, I could have moved there sooner, that my hesitation made you feel like it wasn't right for me to come there, made you question whether I was really in it or not. You answer my questions as I tell you I need closure and as the conversation winds down, I say, "As stupid as it would be, in spite of everything, I'd take you back if I could."

"Do you mean that?" you ask, for the first time sounding like yourself.

And before I can utter my "yes" you're in my arms and we're holding onto each other through tears and I love you's.

A knock at the door brings me back to reality and my stomach aches, my heart drops out of my chest and the tears come. The well isn't dry after all.

June 19, 2001