I wear my sunglasses...so I can?

Dearest D.,

Such weirdness as of late. And yes, though you’ll no doubt find this difficult to believe, it’s been weirder than usual.

The past couple of weeks have been in a word for shit. Okay that’s two words. Also, fall is traditionally very difficult for me as well, and this year is proving to be no different. Plus, I have the added benefit of any number difficult situations adding to the familiar feeling of October angst.  As a result, I often find myself retreating into the comfortable world of self-created fantasy where I retreat to when times are tough. A place that feels all too familar, and a place that honestly I’ve grown wearing of visiting time and time again to escape from the harsh realities of life.

Regretfully, the reality is that at times life is harsh.

The place to where I retreat is a place I get everything the way I’d like it. You know, a world where people in general  (and especially guys in whom I’m romantically interested) are honest and up front and don’t play idiotic head games. A place where individuals actually live the truth they espouse and are supportive and encouraging rather than being negative, duplicitous, condescending and critical. If only I might find a way to transform the reality of my daily existence into a resemblance of my secret garden.

Each year as this time of year rolls around, I typically do my best to connect with the things that bring me comfort to get me through. One of the things I love about this time of year is the ancient belief that as the dark overtakes the light the veil between worlds is ever thinner. And when this veil is evermore permeable, there is the opportunity to walk between worlds and connect with spirits and energies more easily than usually might be possible.

While I know you don’t believe in such things, I have found from my own personal experience, these connections can be made. Today was just one of those days.

Last weekend I decided to make a vat of apple butter from some apples that my cousin brought to my parents a couple of weekends ago. I spent the better part of Saturday last week peeling, coring, and whipping the apples into a mondo batch of apple butter which rivals that my granny used to make. Tho’ I had every intention of canning the sweet cinnamon-laced nectar last weekend as well, it never happened.

So today’s task, come hell or high water, was to can up the country-fied confection for long-term storage and portability for gift giving. For some reason, I was sure that I had purchased a set of canning tongs the last time I did a bunch of canning. So this morning one of the first missions was to find the canning tongs that I was sure had gone missing.

I searched the kitchen and several closets to no avail and began to search the more out of the way nooks and crannies to see if I might find the tongs in question. As I searched the buffet cabinet in the dining room, I came upon an old pair of wrap-around sunglasses that I’d forgotten that I had. They’re a pair of Killer Loop sunglasses that I bought in the late ’90s early ’00s. I had tucked them away in a drawer in the buffet cabinet as I purchased a pair of Oakley’s for myself one year for my birthday and they became my “go to” pair. The trusty Killer Loops were out of sight and out of mind until this morning.

I took the glasses from their microfiber cloth, looked them over, chuckled and thought—Wrap-arounds! Man I forgot I had these… I slipped them back into their bag, placed them on the dining room table to throw in the RAV4 later as a backup pair and thought nothing more about them.

Until later in the day.

While I was waiting for the mason jars to come to a boil to sterilize them before canning the apple butter, I decided to check the web stats of ye olde blog as I’d not done so today. As I logged in and checked the recent keyword searches, I let out yet another good chuckle and thought, that’s fucking weird!

The first keyword search for the day by a curious web surfer in Italy, “osho wrap around sunglasses”, was roughly a couple of hours prior and was nearly concurrent with the moment I uncovered my wrap-around sunglasses tucked away in the drawer of my buffet cabinet.

Oh but it get’s even weirder.

The letter the keyword search hit was a letter I’d written to you on Valentine’s Day this year concerning a gentleman I’d gone out with a couple of times earlier in the year. In that letter, I lamented about how much I wished I were able to transpose that gentleman’s personality into your body. The other thing that I mentioned in the letter is that I’d found a photograph of the guy wearing these cool wrap-around sunglasses that harked back to the ’80s.

As I re-read the letter, chills went up my spine.

There was of course a deeper irony with the keyword hit and the associated letter. The fact that in the letter I vented to you about my continued bitterness about what happened between we two. About the time I found the sunglasses tucked away, and a netizen hit the blog from half a planet away, I thought of you.

But rather than think of you in a way that’s bitter or angry, I merely thought of how much I miss you. How much I miss the sound of your voice, how much I’d love nothing more than to touch your alabaster skin once more. I even for a very brief moment thought about sending you yet another letter or card. But after considering it, realized it would be a waste of time and energy. As you, no doubt, will never come to realize how amazing I am and what might have been, as you’d say.

I hope this finds you well.

Much love!