On crisp, rainy days like this I have the strongest urge to come see you. I start up my car for my daily liturgy of a short drive accompanied by the classic rock station. I think about things I want to tell you, but mostly am soothed by imagery of pine trees and winding roads and a human who to me has all the sexuality of a mountain man and the seduction of a muse.

You're like all those times I pull out my dictionary to look up a word, and to my surprise find myself scanning the text for a different collection of letters entirely. We have a lexicon all to ourselves.

Likewise, I drive to get the kids from school, but Lou Reed comes on the radio, singing about walking on the wild side. I want to hear again what he has to say on the subject. I have a soft spot in my heart for the superfluous use of petnames. With your mellow voice, you can 'hey baby' all you like.

Driving past the kids' school out on Mountain View Road, I think that it doesn't matter, the few instances I allow myself of materialized whimsical behavior. The places I go in my internal revelings more than make up for external vicariousness. But then, sometimes, I think I want to touch these things I fantasize about, to indulge in some participant observation. You said we've already paid for experiences like these. I say truly, but what then do we do after we become real to each other? With every experience, you only lose your virginity once. Am I saving you? Am I waiting until I'm good enough? Am I allowing my chicken-sh*t tendencies to make my decisions for me? My youth leaches away while I philosophize my life to the point of distraction and inaction. But with you, these questions never become desperate. I wonder what makes the difference.

I allow myself to roll to a stop on a random right turn I've made. Stalks of wheat clamor quietly in the wind as they have for as long as I can remember. I've always been that girl that has to stop and listen sometimes. I have to let it rain on me, I have to let the winter make me cold. I have to run my hands over tree bark in the summer and kiss the leaf buds in the spring. My environment is an alloy of which I'm an integral part. As are you. I wonder when next I'll run my hands over you. At that time, will I allow myself to forget to stop?

Before I start the car up, I look out again through the cracked windshield. I'm on Mountain View Road, and I can see the mountains. Everything with you becomes a metaphor for things I don't give myself the opportunity to say outright. It's good to have a secret that makes me smile to myself.