7 days

overlooking the small marshy area just above the crescent beach

At the end of a long, long day
There is not much more to say then love
I'm so glad I met you

Royal Wood

If you know me well, you'll know that I am a heart on sleeve kind of girl.

Originally I loved this song because it expressed the huge and simple love that I felt for my big red dog Jake. Now suddenly it has added meaning. The jigs up, after a month of M. Universe pelting me with a series of larger and larger good things she's finally knocked me down with the ultimate good thing. I have fallen ... truly, madly, deeply ... in one week, 7 days and I feel as if I've been run over by the most beautiful train. Turns out that the cowboy and I were two souls and hearts drifting around endlessly in a fog of resignation, in a blinding suffocatingly thick this is how my life is and always will be - so get used to it ! fog of acceptance.

You know what they always say ... just when you least expect it.

Well those sturdy rafts we each were floating on, drifted out of that fog and smacked into each other in a rather dramatic fashion one sunny September evening in the park. When I went home that night I couldn't stop thinking about him and his tears. I decided to be bold, on Tuesday I sent him a card - this image and a note about how sorry I was about his dog Abby, I told him more about my own grief and that I hoped we'd meet again in the park one day. I didn't sign my last name or write a return address because I did not want him to feel obligation but I hoped to make an impression.

I waited and nothing happened.

Each evening at the same time Winn and I would go for our walk down into the park and much to my dismay no cowboys with chocolate puppies ever came running toward us in slow motion. How could that be ? I had felt such a strong connection. I guessed I'd been wrong - I'd been very wrong many times before. Nearly two weeks later Sue from the post office, Sue who I power walk with every lunch that it's not pouring rain, called me and said with a lilt in her voice he hasn't picked up his mail. He hadn't yet received the card.

Hallelujah and some rejoicing from 29 Black Street.

And then he called, the day he finally went to the post office and found my card. He left me a wonderfully kind and polite thank you message. It sounded nothing but platonic and there were no questions asked, no reason really for me to call him back. I archived the message and listened to it many more times than I would ever admit to.

Nearly a month passed. No more calls, no cowboy sightings. More fog, more resignation tinged with sadness and melancholy rolled in thick again. I wondered if I wasn't being a tad dramatic and then I reminded myself that I'm allowed, it's OK to be dramatic - girlfriend you do forget from time to time that you are a human being. On our lunch time walks through pastures filled with black and white cows, walking fast toward the ocean Sue allowed me to babble on about the cowboy she listened and made wishes for me, like good friends do.

Last Thursday afternoon, back at the TTD after our lovely energizing walk and chat through hay fields Sue called me and said Guess what I just did ? She had called the cowboy. She had decided a little overt matchmaking was required. She and I chatted for 10 mins or so as she told me about their conversation, what she said to him and how he had reacted to her little bug in his ear with instant immense delight and enthusiasm. When Sue and I said goodbye and I hung up the phone there was a message waiting for me from the cowboy.

That was 7 days ago yesterday, our lives immediately became tangled together.