A Pond, A Stone and A Tree

She stood for a moment on a rock near, but out of reach of the lapping waters. First looking across the pond then, turning slowly, taking in every detail of the spot she knew intimately in her dreams.

It had been more than three years since he found her online. She remembered the conversation so clearly. She remembered that time of her life vividly. Life then had been full of confusion and choices had to be made using a new set of skills...

At the age of 44 she had become a child again, learning lessons brought on by her separation and eventual divorce. A child of the 60's and 70's but a woman shaped by a marriage that had ended long before the day her husband moved out. Old rules no longer applied and no one could give her the answers she desperately wanted.

While she tried to make sense of thoughts that refused to be organized and labeled she would turn on the computer to escape the voices in her head. It was easy to push them to the back if she found people to talk to who had never known her, or the way she had lived until then. Talking to people on line gave her freedom to be anyone they thought she might be and fairy tales were easy to write. A perfect world would exist until the moment she knew she was tired enough to sleep... to dream the dreams other people had painted while they talked.

Then one night, as she fielded the usual "Beantown" remarks that inevitably used up the bulk of her time online, he found her. The program they used sent a small instant picture with each message so she could see it was dusk where he sat in the cab of his truck. The angle of his picture showed that his camera sat on the dashboard and she could see his laptop computer propped between him and the steering wheel. She learned later that it was plugged into internet service at a roadside truck stop.

A cowboy hat and cocky grin made her curious. At first she played the game she was becoming used to. One-line, sarcastic, remarks were sent in response to most of his messages. Soon, after several screens, she began to realize that she was waiting for his answers almost exclusively, ignoring the sound of other incoming messages while she waited. At some point she realized she was talking with no one else... she was talking only to him.

Dusk turned to night in the mountains where he rested. The overhead light of the truck lit his face but cast shadows over the rest of the cab, and they talked...about nothing...about everything...until the sun came up where she sat.

They would talk most nights. He told her he was a writer and a poet. Some nights, between rest stops, he would send her some of his writings to read and she was impressed.

One night, a few weeks into their friendship he ended their usual conversation with an imaginary love story, one that could happen between them...

"Listen to me....

I walked to the water's edge. There was ice glinting on the rocks, small fingers and slivers reaching out a few feet The water was flat, almost still, heaving with languid slow movements. I walked down and picked up a stone. It was black and flat and there was a speckle on it. The sun's bright light seemed to make it glow in my hand... it sparkled. I bent low and hurled the rock out over the water and it flew, long, but slow and eventually hit the water with a feeble splash making fat ripples on it's surface, like a cappuccino foam. Small ripples to begin in the center of where it had landed and they soon began to radiate out from there. Closer to shore they came until they began to lap at my feet. As I watched, I slowly turned and there you were, sitting under a tree, taking it all in. You smiled as I walked to you. I bent low, looked into your eyes, slowly removed your glasses and placed a gentle kiss upon your lips...you smiled!!!"

Her mind's eye saw it so clearly in the dark night that surrounded her while they talked. It went so deep into her mind that the next day she wrote her side of the love story...

"I don't know how long I had been sitting there. I didn't hear you but suddenly you were there, staring intently at the ice covered rocks and then at the water. I could see it gentle you almost instantly...just as it had me. You moved closer to the waters edge, reached down and picked up something... a stone. You turned it over in your hand and stared thoughtfully at it, then with swift force you flung it so far that I lost sight of it until it hit the water... breaking the calm surface into dancing ripples radiating back to all but disappear at your feet. I must have moved then because you turned, saw me there and slowly walked towards me. There was no fear, only anticipation, as you leaned down and gently removed my glasses I knew the
sweetness of the kiss that would follow...you smiled...."

He opened a door to her mind that she never expected. Not the obvious door to a new lover but a door to a new love. The new love...writing.

He eventually moved on and so did she but the pond, the stone and the tree stayed constant in her mind.

As time passed she found a man who answered her questions and calmed the voices in her head with a very real love. He encouraged her writing and read everything she wrote seeing the heart behind the words instead of the grammar or punctuation. He noticed the details. He knew the story of the truck driver and there was no jealousy in his voice when they talked about his role in her life.

That man, the one who loved her so well, leaned against the tree watching her walk in that dream that had started her writing, a real place he had known the moment he saw it for the first time.

She turned to see him looking at her.

He is the one story she could never write because words would not begin to explain how he has touched her.

The pond, the stone and the tree...planted in her mind by someone so long ago...a gift now from the man meant to stand in this place with her...