Wuv...Twue Wuv...Is What Bwings Us Togetho Today...

Artist: Alex Raymond: Flash Gordon

Cupid shot two arrows and this is where they landed...

Once upon a time there was a young woman from the East who loved life.

She was effervescent and sunshine sparkled in her laugh and shone out of her eyes. When she was old enough to travel and live on her own she packed her numerous bags and her music player, grabbed her coat, hugged her family and said goodbye as she launched herself into the sky on a grand new adventure.

During the course of her travels, she found and made herself a new home, deep into the West. She settled there and met many new people and had many new experiences, some of them good and some of them not so good.

After several years of living on her own, of making friends, working hard and sometimes not so hard, after mistakes and successes, she met a new and interesting person whom she did not expect.

One early Autumn night a tall, dark and handsome stranger with cornflower blue eyes and a ready, wry wit, appeared one evening at her door. A silly minded pair of ninnymuggins who at that time lived with her had invited him and some of his cohorts to her home.

Introductions were made all around and shortly thereafter, as she was not an invited party to the gathering, she made her excuses and stepped away with no idea whatsoever that fate had been set--the strands of two lives were now entwined and it was only time that would tell what this tapestry would look like.

During the next few days and weeks, this randy band of brothers came to visit quite often, quickly making good friends with the young woman and her best friend. There were all night sessions of conversations, laughter, flirtation, witticisms and occasionally donuts. There were movies and books and schooling discussed and a general air of electric camaraderie permeated their gatherings.

Gradually, over the course of time, a warming ember grew in the girls heart. She didn't acknowledge it as love but rather as excitement and joie de vivre and a little bit of danger. She and the young man were taking circling steps around each other, dancing the dance of the ages. They tested the water and the air and the mood for small changes and differences for encouragements and permissions to circle in more closely, to watch and feel the electric snappings that raised up between them. It was a very exciting time to be alive.

Now it may or may not be important to note that this dark stranger had no intention of entering into a serious or intended relationship. He had his own plans for travel and adventure that did not include a passionate affair. This was for *fun*.

The young woman had just gone through a massive heartbreak of her own and was planning on joining the Peace Corps and going to Africa to plant crops and then to China to save babies, and also had no intent of binding herself to another. She was just living in every moment that she could.

They were both of them deceived.

As the flirtations turned to secret handholding, which turned quickly into stolen kisses and impassioned embraces in the deep, dark of night in covert rendezvous in the forest by a wild midnight fire, the threads of fate began to draw in ever more tightly together. Hearts began to be bound unknowingly together, inextricably joined.

Because they both had plans and were not interested in love and binding, they proclaimed themselves to be the dearest of non-committed kissing friends, though neither had eyes or lips for any other. They shook hands on their non-commital commitment to each other. They proceeded onward with their covert kissing and hand holding interspersed with strawberry shakes and French fries and spent every waking, and a few unwaking, moments together.

He could not believe that she existed and called her "the girl who has never been born" and to her he was "so West, so wild" and so they did bow their heads together to talk and learn and breathe of one another, and they laughed and without knowing it, they loved.

One afternoon the young man felt the bands that had slowly tightened and proclaimed "Oh no! I've just got to be free. This cannot continue, I have plans!" and so he resolved to break the young girls heart and part himself from her.

When she saw his face and heard his words she knew that the tightness that she had felt and the embers that she had enjoyed were coming to an end, and though she hadn't consciously acknowledged them until she heard his words of grand parting, she realized that without intention she loved him and she felt his loss very keenly indeed.

But they had made a deal for friendship and not for love and she would not betray it to him with tears...at least no tears that he would ever see. If she had to lose his love she was determined not to lose his friendship, and so she stood up, and she embraced him with a sad smile as her heart within her cracked and cried out in sorrow that resounded deep into the universe.

The young man saw her grief and he knew that without intention, and perhaps without a knowledge of her own, that she loved him but was being brave, and he did love her even more as he turned and left her and walked out her door.

And so as deepening afternoon came on, with her newly shattered heart, she walked on and out her door for an evening of writing and wandering in the colossal university library where her sorrows could be comforted by the smell of books and paper and the ghosts that wandered the stacks.

The boy came to find his one true love later that evening because he could not stay away and in his own guilt he wanted to make sure that she was ok. But she was not to be found.

So, as the minutes ticked on, he sat and talked to the girl's best friend. They decided to get pizza and to wait for the girl.

Meanwhile, the girl, finding only dust and sorrow in the library that she usually loved to wander, saw no further reason to stay away from home. She was tired and sad and hungry as she walked out into the November night.

When she walked into her front door the last person she expected to see that night rushed down the hallway and stopped in front of her "Where have you been?"

"Out."

"Out where?"

"What does it matter to you?" (It’s true, she was feeling a little peevish and wanted to give off an air of you-haven’t-hurt-me-non-chalance.)

"Oh, we were just worried. Do you want some pizza."

"No thank you, I'm not hungry."

And inside she wondered why he cared and why he was there and man, did that pizza look good. But no pizza! No favors! Not right now. She didn’t need anything from his devastatingly beautiful and funny amazing self.

Inside she sighed.

Outside she smirked a flirty smile and said “So what’s going on tonight?” The beautiful boy blinked and said “Oh, I was just waiting for you to make sure you were safe. I’ll see you later.” And out the door he went.

And so she sighed again and grabbed a piece of his precious pizza and moped back to her room.

The next morning, she stayed home from her classes and listened to Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares to You” way too loud and lost count of how many times she hit the “Replay” button. As she sat cross-legged on the floor of her bedroom in her pajamas and tousled hair, she called her little old Latvian grandma and sighed and lamented her woes out to her. Her grandma said, “Shush, shush, it’s alright. He will be back and he will marry you and you will see that everything will work out.”

The girl laughed at how ridiculously optimistic her grandma was and smiled through her sadness and chose to believe her grandma even though she knew it wasn’t true. So up she got, showered and got ready for her day and off she went like a shot, ready to start a new day with best feet forward. No time like the present to move on from a heart break.

That afternoon, as she walked home alongside the granite mountainside with late Fall sunshine warming her face, she kicked around the past 24 hours since her life had unexpectedly exploded and thought of what course of action she should take next.

She decided that the Peace Corps was very definitely in order and that the babies in China were calling her name stronger than ever before. She was sure that there were some Romanian babies calling her name as well, and that there were always seeds to be planted and wells to be dug in Africa.

Yes, with a renewed purpose to do good in the world she quickened her pace and happily went home to watch Days of Our Lives before starting in with homework, and waiting for her best friend to get home from work so they could go get big Diet Cokes and frosted pink sugar cookies from the local convenience store.

Many hearts have been mended on caffeine, sugar and soap operas, why not hers?

Unbeknownst to her, the boy had the pretty, perky girl on his mind. How could she love him? Why did she do that? This was supposed to be a just-kissing-friends kind of a deal and then she went and fell in love. It was all her fault and now he was missing her and wanting her. He would not go over there. He would not call. Better to break it off now anyway.

And so he paced and pondered and was annoyed. Why did she have to be so fantastic? He wasn’t intending on getting married before he turned 30 and had lived a little bit. That was 9 years away. She was too early. Married?!?!?! Did he just think that awful word?? He meant…he meant…he meant something else is what he meant. Arghhh! She’s too soon!

And so another lonely evening descended on the two broken love birds. Her pride was prickled and she would not be the flower that chased the bee, let alone the first one to say “Come back, I love you. Be mine.”

And so she lost herself in her friends and in her own thoughts while she missed him and wished to be in his arms peppered by his hot kisses. And the young man pondered late into the night on what to do and he lost himself in his work, with visions of a dark haired beauty girl who had never been born dancing through his mind.

A new day dawned and where there had been pain and confusion, change and a new light were found.

That afternoon, the girl received a phone call from the boy who said he needed to talk to her and could he come by. She was giddy and her brain felt silly and overcome as she said “Yes. I will see you when you get here.” And so she ran to the bathroom to pinch her cheeks, touch up her makeup and fluff her hair and she quickly spritzed herself with perfume, and with one mad glance back and a giggle of a thought “O.K. What does he want??” she calmly went to the door.

And so he walked the short walk, and knocked a brief knock, and came in and saw her and she was just as beautiful and amazing as ever and he couldn’t imagine why he had walked away from those sweet lips, and tender loving arms and that funny, quippy brain. What had he been thinking?

And when she saw him the butterflies threatened to burst out of her chest like some kind of weird Technicolor alien rainbow. Oh he was amazing and beautiful and brilliant and funny and “I hope he stays and that he has changed his mind!” All the while thinking “Do not dare to hope!”

As he walked towards her he whispered “I was wrong—I don’t just like you. I don’t want to be just hugging friends.” And he took her in his arms and put his cheek to her cheek and whispered sweet words next to her ears and then her lips, lips that were so tantalizingly close that she dared not move for fear of ending the moment, her brain fairly screaming “Kiss me. Kiss me! KISS ME!”

And he must have heard her mind, because he bent his head to her and he kissed the girls lips and it was like a first kiss all over again only better—so much better because it was without doubt and fear and was full of confidence and light and joy. And her heart exploded in a cacophony of song and so she fell and spiraled down and up and all around and her world was a kaleidoscope of colors and a whirlwind of sensations and she felt like she was made of sunshine and there was nothing else in the world at that moment but them.

And so this is the story of how two became one.

It is the story of love unveiled, of friendship cemented and loyalty bound so tightly as to be undivided through the eternities.

This is the story of one boy and one girl, of one Guardian and one Angel, how once found, two halves were made whole forevermore.

❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
Happy Valentine's Day.
Live by the sun.
Love by the moon.