Not from around here

Today I was having lunch with my girlfriend, Miriam, at the deli near work.

There are two small tables with a few chairs flanking the main entrance. At one table sat a pleasant looking man in his 50s; the other table was empty save for a bottle of Sobe.

As we placed our lunch on the seeming empty table a woman came outside and said to us, “Excuse me, I was sitting there.” She sat down and was later joined by another woman, neither one of them said a word to each other the entire time.

OK, OK, no problem. I picked up our things and was looking to sit elsewhere when the man sitting alone said, “You can sit here with me, if you like.”

And so we did.

We smiled and laughed and chatted as we ate our meals. The man was very nice and had led an interesting life. His descriptions of Colorado had us mesmerized.

And when the conversation turned towards, “Where are you from?” the man let us know that he was from Oklahoma.

“I knew you weren’t from California,” I said. The man smiled and asked me how I could have known that.

“Because you offered to let us sit at your table.”

I'm a rock

Tonight I hiked up the hill
behind my house
and sat on my favorite rock on the hill.

I looked out over the
San Francisco Bay
and watched the sun set beyond the coastal range.

My favorite rock waits
patiently
for me every day.

Do you think
that I
thought about her as the sky turned from blue to orange to red to black?

My favorite rock has room for two.

Indy

**********

She was close to me and my heart still aches for her.

We didn’t know each other long. But we saw each other almost every day. Sadly, she never knew. She never knew how I felt inside. I never told her.

I thought about her often. When I drove home from work, when I hiked the hillside trails alone, lying in my bed at night–my thoughts always returned to her.

The more time I spent with her, the more I talked to her, the more I discovered about her, the more I wanted. I wanted to know everything about her, and I wanted a lifetime to do it.

Say my name, just say it. And I would replay those moments in my head so many times. I would hang on her every word. And when she looked at me I would melt.

Just friends.

I wanted to share with her all my favorite spots around California. The mountains, the valleys, the secret campsites and hiking trails, little trout streams, small mountain towns… all those special places I’ve found during my wanderings and swore that I’d return to one day with someone special.

Someone very special she was, indeed. One of those special someones that makes a guy say, “wow” when you first meet her. She was that to me from the very first day, from the first hello.

It had been so very long since I’d had those feelings. So many long years. I wasn’t ready to meet someone like her. But I did. It happened.

I wished things could have been different. I wished *I* could have been different. I wished I could have been the guy she wanted. Or at least, the guy I *thought* she wanted. But I never knew. I never told her. Now all I have are memories of that special someone who got away.

I’m glad for those fleeting moments I had with her. That’s all I have.

That will have to be enough.

**********