am i crazy?

Dear Soulmate,

It’s cold here in Boston now. The streets are blanketed with snow that finally fell after swirling around on the backs of frigid gusts that have finally quieted.

Christmas has passed now, without any word from someone half way around the world who meant everything to me for ten beautiful days this summer. I still can’t stop thinking about him.

Should I feel hurt? Should I feel neglected that the holidays passed without hearing from him? Or should I just accept that he left and we’ve fallen out of touch.

I miss him. I remember how he told me that I gave him something to come back to. Now I’m not sure he’ll ever come back from New Zealand. I want to cry. I want to crawl into my bed and forget I met someone so wonderful who was so good to me, for such a short time. I want to start over.

My parents and friends are surprised that I haven’t spoken to him in months. I’ve defended him and said that he’s difficult to get in touch as he’s been traveling. He doesn’t have very much Internet access, and he doesn’t have a phone.

But in the quiet moments I keep to myself, I wonder if I’m crazy for giving him so much slack. They say if you love someone that you should let them go. But if this is all I do–all I’ve ever done–will I ever find love that really lasts?

…Something to think about.

Love, I suppose, R

i wish i had a river i could skate away on

Dear Soulmate,

Sometimes I feel like Joni Mitchell’s “River” says all there needs to be said about winter. I’m watching the snow twirl around outside my bedroom window and feeling so homesick for summer, a time when the world was alive and in bloom. Now, all is quiet, silenced under the weight of freshly fallen snow that buries the tracks of summers barefoot steps.

On gray days like these in Boston, I feel like Joni Mitchell when I say that I wish I had a river I could skate away on.

I close my eyes and remember little moments, little memories of love. I remember the way his hands felt in mine, how they fit so beautifully as through they were made for each other. I remember the way he introduced me by my full name to his father. I blushed and smiled.

I remember the way we painted his mother’s shed. I stood in his clothes covered with splotches of white paint on my tanned bare arms and legs. I laughed as we drove to the lake in the afternoon heat. I watched him dive headfirst from the rocky cliff into the water below. I stood in my bathing suit with my hands on my hips, hesitant about jumping into water whose depth seemed uncertain. Still, I dove in anyway, testing the waters. When I surfaced we both laughed and he pulled me toward him under the water.

When I write, he comes back to me. Little moments like these held in time. It’s all I can ask for on days like these when I only wish I had a river I could skate away on… and be brought back to you.

Love Love, R

beach chairs in boston

Dear Soulmate,

I love Boston in the snow. I feel like I own the city. The streets become sidewalks, and I walk down them I feeling like they have been plowed for me.

Alone in my heavy boots, the city belongs once more to the people who live here. Flights are cancelled, tourists are turned away, and the residents of the city can posess their own piece of shoveled pavement by simply unfolding a beach chair to validate their parking space.

I can hear my breath and even see it against the Custom’s tower and the Garden. The Zakim bridge is nearly empty, only minimal traffic moves cautiously across I-93 before sliding below ground and into the tunnel.

Finally, I feel at home.

Today I remembered why I love this city so much. For the first time in a long time, like seeing an old friend, I felt genuine nostalgia for this city. I remembered all the reasons why I had always returned to Boston- why I had always called it home.

I recalled looking out my plane window and watching the Bunker Hill monument disappear through the clouds, and wishing the plane would turn around. I recalled anytime I heard Boston in casual conversation and how my eyes would light up. I recalled how I felt upon seeing signs for Boston in Hartford, Portland, Concord as I made my way back home.

This feeling is a lot like love- the kind you fall into over and over again, unsure if the last time was really that pivotal moment that changed everything.

This feeling is how I will feel about you- like coming home. And in the quiet of a fresh snowfall I will be able to hear you breathe beside me as we leave footprints behind us in the snow.

Love, R

on my way to you

Dear Soulmate,

January is beginning to take its wear on Boston. The sidewalks are coated with patches of unwanted ice and periodically sprinkled with sand and salt that accumulate to form a messy wintry slush. The subway and buses are crowded with tired scarf wrapped faces and newspapers printed with repetitive and discouraging headlines.

The phrase ‘happy new year’ seems as out of context as having a good day. Yes, it is January. And yes, it is the middle of winter. But resolutions aside, it is a hopeful time.

Although the 9 to 5 grind is  inconvenienced by freezing temperatures, and a a commute often riddled by inclement weather, the days are getting longer and a time of change is around the corner.

Winston Churchill once said that change is only good if it’s in the right direction. As I stood shivering in the cold waiting for the train to arrive at the station, I felt as though any change would suffice as an improvement. But it’s easy to feel this way when you are standing alone.

I recently heard a story about a man in his 70′s who had never been married but did in fact still date. While people may cast criticism on a seemingly eccentric serial dater, I saw a much different situation. In many ways I felt sympathetic and heartbroken.

The truth is that life is hard enough. Imagine going through it alone. I would wish that upon no one.

As the train took me through downtown, winding through underground tunnels, I felt that my direction of travel may not have been the one that led me to you- but it at least led me closer.

Every day I am moving toward you. Bit by bit, little by little we are getting closer. And when we finally meet we will both learn that the time we spent apart was worth the wait to find one another.

Love, R

peace of mind

Dear Soulmate,

If meteorologists get it right this time then we are in for quite the snow storm. Or if you are a like me and desensitized by New England’s seasonal snow squalls, then we are in for a mere “dusting.”

footprints in the snow

Right now though, the view from my window looks promising for a blizzard ripe with the potential for dumping a foot of snow on Boston.

This is not the kind of snowfall that is terribly romantic. Rather than fall delicately it instead swirls around, lost in the biting wind before finally settling on the pavement- much to a shovler’s dismay.

White out conditions remind me a lot of the fog. My mind lingers back to that mysterious lingering mist that hangs over the islands in Maine where the pine trees cast errie silhoutetes.

In the midst of winter, I am reminded of summer.

It is in this same fog and whitewash where I feel slightly trapped but slightly comforted. The beauty of this contraditiction is felt in the silence I feel in both situations.

When it snows, the city silences itself. Traffic becomes less frequent and even walking down an unshoevled sidewalk feels like trespassing. The city pauses for a few moments to breathe.

When the fog rolls in boats drop their sails. The once windy bay is motioness, calm and untouched like a mirror.

Both of these scenarios lend me tremendous peace of mind. But more importantly when I am standing on the dock of a fog shrouded harbor or walking down city streets blanketed by fresh snow, I find forgiveness for things I cannot change.

The fog and snow teach you to look at the present moment, neither ahead nor behind. The restricted visibility allow you to concentrate on the here and now.

So I wonder, why aren’t you here now?

All my love, R

where love used to be

Dear Soulmate,

Is it possible to miss someone whom you have never met?

This question has been on my mind for quite some time now. Perhaps it is the absence of a love that used to be that makes me long for a restorative kind of love to fill the void.

Because once you have walked beside someone you have loved, the walk is that much longer alone. Once you have held the hand of someone you have loved, your hands no longer feel as warm in their absence. Once you have sat in silence beside someone you have loved, you long for some kind of distracting noise when they have left. Anything to fill the silence- to fill the empty space where love used to be.

Where are you, dear soulmate? The first snow of the season has fallen outside my window and I dare not venture outside to make footprints in the snow without you.

This is the season for romance, a time for love.

Someday I know you will walk with me for miles, in what will feel like only a few feet in your company. Someday I know you will warm my cold hands. You will sit beside me and I will wonder, in silence, how I ever lived my life without you.

I know these things because I believe in you that much.

Love, R

are you ready?

Dear Soulmate,

I am always intrigued when people ask others if they are ready for something, particularly love. What I find more fascinating is the response to this question.

Over Sunday morning coffee with an old friend I began to wonder, is anybody ready for love?

As the rain outside started to turn into a snowy drizzle, I sat across from my friend who argued that you have to go out looking for love if you ever hope to find it.

But I believe my odds of finding love are the same regardless if I am standing in a crowded bar or wandering alone alongside the ocean. There are no great ways to increase your chances of finding love. It finds you.

While I did not agree with my friend on many of the points he made, we did agree that timing is everything, which begs my original question, how then, can one be ready?

The most simple answer is that you can never be ready to fall in love any more than you can be ready for any of the other curve balls that life throws at you. Think for a moment how dull life would be if you were ready for most everything that came your way. You would be completely unsurprised and where there was once mystery and excitement there’s instead dullness and predictability.

That is perhaps what makes love all the more fascinating; the twists and turns, expecting the unexpected, never knowing who you will meet and when you will meet them.

To return to my friend’s argument, there is certainly logic in the rational that going out every weekend will greatly increase one’s chances of meeting someone special. But how uninteresting and mundane it would be to be to sweep someone off their feet when they see it coming.

The really great love stories are the ones you never really expected to read, in places you never really expected to find.

So then the question remains, are you ready for a good story?

Love, R

against the violet hues

Dear Soulmate,

Who am I, you ask?

I’m the one who drives with the windows down in 30 degree weather and does not mind what it does to my hair. I’m the one who sips iced coffee even when it snows. I wear flip flops all year long. I never get tired of looking at the ocean. I am fascinated with the belief that everyone has their own story, and it is beautiful in its own way.

I’m the one who believes that everybody has an eternal summer within them.

It is fair to assume from today’s wind chill that winter has finally arrived here in New England. The leaves have all been swept away from storm drains and front steps- where they clung stubbornly for weeks.  Bare tree branches sway back and forth outside my window, stark and colorless. Alas the seasons of warmth, color and light have all faded into memories of the past like photographs in a box in the attic.

Where are you? Perhaps maybe you are on a chairlift in British Columbia, with your face tilted toward the brilliant sun as your skis dangle freely against the snow covered mountain below. Perhaps you are lying on a beach, hiking a scenic trail, sitting by a fire or sleeping. Perhaps you are standing on a pier watching the moon rise against the violet hues of the evening. Perhaps it is here, in this enchanting scene, where you are reminded of me.

Wherever you are just know that I love you. With that thought, I promise that you will stay warm.

Love, R

stay warm

Dear Soulmate,

If you were in Boston today you may have been just as unpleasantly surprised as I by the dramatic shift in temperature that finally cast all my doubts aside that winter is finally here.

Much to my dismay the wind did not make any direction for walking favorable. The wind even chased my footsteps down the stairs of the subway and underground I finally found relief.

Sometimes Boston in the winter can feel very much like being stuck in a dark subway tunnel. This is when I would much prefer to hibernate.

But then there are those moments when in the passing of strangers you comiserate with one another. With expressions of unenthused understanding you say you would much prefer to be walking in shorts and a tee shirt that having your visibility obstructed by hats and scarfs that hide your face.

Perhaps now would be a good time for me to tell you that I hope you enjoy the winter. This way you may enlighen me with the more glamorous side of winter that I tend to overlook in my anticipation for summer.

Tell me how you used to play in the snow for hours when you were younger. Tell me how much you love the sun on your face when you close your eyes as you ride the charlift. Tell me you love the sound of freshly fallen snow crunching beneath your boots as you walk. Tell me that you’ll keep me warm despite that my hands are always cold.

Tell me that you love me and I’ll stay warm forever.

All my love, R