Dandelionseeds

One of the best relationships I've ever had only lasted about ten days and it was about ten years ago. He and I just corresponded last week for the first time since then. Today he arrives in Los Angeles from Toronto. He is now doing exactly what he told me he wanted to do as he boarded a plane that would take him back to London at age nineteen. “I’m going to be a film maker and an actor, I have to go home and complete my time at the university”. We cried as we said goodbye. I was twenty-four years old. We wrote letters that came in envelopes, with stamps and paper, real handwriting, the works. We kept it up for two months or so and then we just stopped.
I met "J" while my friend Alex and I were staying at a youth hostel on Oahu's North Shore. We were on our way back to the Big Island after having spent a month and a half in Tahiti living it up with the locals. We didn't really have a plan, we were just going back to where we left from and we had been happy there. For Alex and I being happy was something you didn’t walk away from. Our last months in San Francisco hadn’t been easy ones. We had both experienced the kind of heartbreak that changes a person forever. Waipio Valley had started to become home. We had a way there, a way of being good, I mean really good- hearted and easy going, and the payoff of that kind of natural allowing was big. That was the freest I’ve ever felt. I had time. She had money and time. We had each other; we could walk for hours and talk about nothing or the biggest things. We took pleasure in any body of water, in meeting any new person, in a simple trip to town. Even the toughest local guys softened up around us. We were in scary situations once in a while but somehow those are now the funniest stories we have. Like getting lost for 6 hours in the woods in Paauilo still in our pajamas and in the middle of a 4 day fast. We ended up on a highway 3 miles from the house. I’ve never been so hungry or thirsty. Then there was the time we nearly got trampled in the dark by galloping wild horses. It was only funny because we didn’t get trampled and that was the first time our knees knocked together. They actually knocked with fear (and from the long walk down the steepest hill ever). We thought that was just an expression. It didn’t matter how long anything took because we had time. That perspective becomes less accessible as I approach my thirty-sixth year. I struggle with my inability to “grow up” and my desire to continue a youthful outlook is never ending. I don’t know how to be thirty-six. I knew exactly how to be twenty-six.
I was always the talker. I can talk to anyone. I was resourceful in a pinch.
Alex was the shy, natural beauty with a quiet but high voice. She was so uncomfortable in her own skin that it was endearing and lovely to everyone. The combination was a good one. Sometimes I got mad at her for thinking things she didn’t say when she was mad and she got mad at me for saying how mad I was too easily. I always said it was the exact same thing. I was just louder. Her face would tell everything she felt, she has never been able to hide a thought from me and I know it was exhausting for her sometimes, because I could never ignore her expressions. I had to call her on it. I always regretted upsetting her later though. I wanted to protect her from everything, including me.
I liked to be sexy and I usually got attention from men because I didn’t mind running around half naked while she wore big board shorts and long T-shirts. Men wanted to have sex with me, men wanted to marry Alex. Our current circumstances are exactly as I knew they would be. She is pregnant with her third child, has a helpful, loving, responsible husband, a great house, and pets. She calls me in tears every now then because she hasn’t slept in 5 years and can’t cope. It passes in a day usually. I let her know that I chose the easy route. She took on a braver path than I am capable of. This I know. People always said I would be a great mom. Everyone was sure I would have kids but I knew it wouldn’t happen. That takes a totally different kind of courage than I come with. I’m an adventurer. Motherhood requires sitting for long periods and staying for years.
"J" walked by me as Alex and I sat on the cement ground outside the door to our room at the hostel. We were buzzed from whatever we had been drinking with other twenty-something travelers. I slurred some ridiculous thing to him like “you look like arch angel Gabriel”. He was (is) lovely. He had curly blond hair, glinty blue eyes and full pink lips. He sat down next to me and we didn’t part for 10 days. We told each other we loved each other that night on the beach. I don’t think we slept until 5 am.
He came with us to Waipio Valley. We had a big house on 3 acres of tropical land and it was our job to clean and maintain the other houses that were rented out by tourists. One of those houses was thirty feet up in a monkey pod tree. We picked the tourist up in a four-wheel drive Jeep and bounced across 7 rivers, water slopping up on the windshield at times, and eventually delivering them to their specified cabins. "J" and I frolicked around the jungle. We cooked, and hiked, talked, had sex, drank with Alex and the other two caretakers (who, coincidently, also happened to be from London) and laughed.
It was healthy and friendly and he’s here. I can’t wait to see him.
I just received this e-mail 3 minutes ago… Such is life!

Hey you! Sorry I've been bombarded with a task to find Canadian directors for a 'live earth' festival in London in July. I've also managed to contract bronchitis! Yummy! So I've postponed my trip out :(
I'll call you soon anyway - hope all is swell.