Dearest readers,

Dearest readers,

Where does this letter find you? What tragedy has befallen you since last we conversed? What gifts have fallen into your lap—simple surprises of appreciated lightness—since our most recent meeting? What paths have faded behind you, and what trail has possessed your feet? Has your heart flown to new heights? Has your soul experienced shattering? Has your spirit found a twin spirit with which it resonates or one that which repulses it? Have you run away from battles too fierce, and victories too sweet? Have the winds of fate and change drifted into your life, and swept you into a world you’d never known? What have you lost and what have you gained? Has this summer brought you joys and tears? What of broken hearts and healing wounds? What of song and dance? What of dreams and wishes? What of starry nights in green meadows, with the company that pleases you most? What of promises and betrayals? What of journeys that took you out of time, to a place out of reality? What of love that stole you, comforted you, and possessed you? What magic has touched you? What of ultimatums and surrenders?

What of life?

Well, readers, never mind all of the above questions. I asked them, because in one way or another, I’ve experienced a large quantity of them. The main reason I asked, however, was to get you in the same mindset as myself. I want us to be on the same wave lengths, in the same boat, on the same page…..something like that.

Ah, time. Nothing exists without it. Without time, no actions can be taken, because the choice to commit it them is not possible. Nothing can be done without choice or instinct, and both take time, no matter how small.

Time is what mends broken hearts. Time is what sooths grudges and numbs treachery. It kisses away deep pains and softens the daily ones that typically remain a constant. Time is every human’s companion, though not always a best friend. You cannot escape it. You cannot forget it. You can, however, ignore it, and most do.

“Live in the present,” people say. “Live for the moment,” people urge. It’s not that simple. You try living a day without thinking to the future, planning, organizing, constantly thinking. Every email you type, every call you make, every letter you write, every IM you send…..they all are either based on the past or future. “I want to do this, or I did this.” None of them sit with you. They’re either located behind you, or lie distantly ahead. You’re always working towards something, or telling someone of something you’ve already accomplished.

I try to live in the Now. I read Elkhart Toll’s book, “The Power Of Now,” in which he explains that enlightenment can only be gained through living in the present, and not through seeing the world in the eyes of the past or future.

But when sorrow lies in the past, it’s been known to linger. You know what I mean. You’ve probably experienced something similar. It is often the same with joys.

My mom had kidney stones. She’s had surgery and is recovering. Her good health brings a constant addition of joy to my life.

My eldest brother Caspian is branching out. (I’m not using his nickname anymore. I think it was Venture. I am writing on my laptop this time, so I don’t have the LONGGGGGGGGGGGG list of names) my brother is gaining friends, learning his place in the world. His feet have found a path, and are freely traveling it.

We’ve taken a vacation, during which I got to see an old friend, the only one to have ever seen me cry. I revisited my childhood sanctuary, experienced forgotten memories, and said goodbye to that which I knew I wouldn’t see again for a long time.

Some joys linger, just as some grudges and some sorrows.

Despite how close I am growing with my Search and Rescue Unit, I am mostly separate from my friends. Our lives have done this. Jobs, college, love. These are the…..passions, which have parted us from each other. I do not pull them back. The strings that used to intertwine us, bond us, keep us tied together….I could try and yank them. The action might draw them together again, make us whole, but no. I am leaving that to others.

I have just returned from a trip out of town that I hadn’t thought I would be attending. Scheduling and other previous engagements were going to keep me away, but with the kind assistance of my mom and some last minute nagging from Fairy, plans were changed, organizing was done, and several days later, I was off to a camp ground up in the mountains, two hours past Eugene.

I felt a bit the outsider, but that hardest part about it was I felt I couldn’t tap into the magic like I wanted to. I always feel a type of resonation out in the wilderness. There is even one spot out there. It’s a sort of grove. It has a small pond and when the sunlight falls just right on the pool, the moss on the bottom lights up. It looks like golden kale. Shades, Fairy and I call it Kale Grove. It has always been tradition to visit there each year, and to kneel down in it (its only three feet deep) and go underwater. It’s the coldest I’ve ever touched, and that’s saying something considering all my outdoor experience. It is therefore a challenge, but there is a certain magic in the victory of it.

I’ve never failed in the tradition, until this year. I wouldn’t quite call it failure, readers, but a natural decision. There were too many people. So many of us were sitting round that special pool that I think the magic went to sleep. It laid dormant, quiet, so subtle that although I could sense it, although I could touch it in the tingle across my senses, I couldn’t resonate with it, and I couldn’t get it to touch my heart and soul. The atmosphere was a party, of excitement, and not of peace and gentle solitude.

Shades referred to the trip as a place out of time. I agree with her. My friends, I felt a connection with them that feels difficult to obtain out here in the modern world.

Brimstone.

Dearest Brim.

We’re talking, readers. The connection has been reestablished, but she is a new girl. Look in her eyes. The color is the same….the persona is altered.

There are the simple changes, the ones that everybody else has noticed too.

Her hair is orange and straight. (I remember when it was waist-length—crimson elegance—and fell in graceful curls.)

Her style of dress is casual, stylish, but casual.

Her eyes are bright, lively, searching, but searching for something different than before.

And then there are the things only I notice:

She used to always get a passion iced tea from Starbucks, half iced tea and half lemonade. Now she gets iced coffee. I haven’t once seen her get her old drink.

She never dyed her hair. She approved of others doing it. Always talked about doing it herself, but never did. Now it’s been too many colors to remember, though I remember each one.

She doesn’t burst into song. She still sings of course, in performances, still on her road to an actress, but she doesn’t burst into song randomly, just as I haven’t seen her dance in the rain.

Sigh.

I remember last year on NBTSC, and she danced in the rain. I watched her from a distance, laughing, smiling, amused. We were the same in that instant, yet different. Dancer of the body, dancer of the soul. It was a dance we both participated in. Hers was of the body, mine was of my soul.

No more dances.

She danced last year upon a beach. It was just after Patrick’s Point. It was set before the ocean, a red sun (yes, red) and she danced. I watched from the roadside, still smiling, still laughing, still amused. She was a dancer playing both parts then, and she is still dancing, but I’m standing still….I think I’ve forgotten the steps.

The trip into the mountains with a group of friends I hadn’t seen in ages. It was indeed a place out of time. Laughter rang from my lips, teases and taunts slipped from my tongue, expressions of amusement and enjoyment that had previously been internally contained and withheld.

But alas, I do not know to move forward now.

Must a place out of time remain there? Must places and time stay separate? That’s how I’ve preferred it in the past, to escape time and forget it for a while. But didn’t I say that’s impossible? Didn’t I say that lies beyond reach and can only be reached my dreams and wishful thinking?

Out of time sounds nice. A place out of time…..

That is what touched my heart. That is what resonated with my soul. Perhaps I did touch magic, but perhaps it was of a different sort.

Perhaps.