Walk Through the Woods

I’m sitting at Wood’s Coffee in the historic Fairhaven neighborhood of Bellingham, reading my book and trying to let my mind wander. As always, part of the distraction of public society is the awareness of those around me. Being a single romantic, I’m particularly aware of women around me. In a college town like this, my assumption is that most women are girls and likely too young for me, but since my thoughts are relatively chaste, I allow myself to craft imaginary relationships of equal chastity and flirtation. The girl to my right is quietly working on her laptop and writing something—most likely a student, so it’s easier to dismiss any romantic thoughts, but her posture lends itself well to curious speculation—what she might be like, what she might be thinking about while working alone in this crowd of other young people. Does she regard me? What does she focus on? What does she hope for the world and her place in it? What would love look like for her?

Another girl is tall and well built with curly red hair and freckles. She is chatting with a friend to my left in between working on her laptop. She seems comfortable and self-assured and friendly. These are often traits of those who are young and vibrant, but also of those in a familiar environment. Realistically, it’s the same behavior I might exhibit if I were sitting with friends in my home town. She could easily be closer to my age, but ultimately, I’m more interested in observing either of these women as fellow humans with whom I might connect on a human level—with or without intimacy. I don’t want to contaminate the fantasy, but mostly because I find most contaminations to be unnecessarily distracting—politics or other facade passions are not interesting to me. Comfortable honest exchanges with close friends reveal what they actually care about and allow for the possibility for them to share something genuine.

A Quick Identity Check

A man of conflict and balance.

Romantic, yet pragmatic

I believe in everything, yet remain skeptical of when everything will be relevant or true.

In the daytime, I have no fear of death or the natural world around me, though I may keep a cautious eye on my environment; yet, at night, a supernatural world contains an equal reality and holds sway over my judgement.

Fantasy version:

I travel from town to town—Seattle to Bellingham to Butte to Casper to Kalispell—watching the people and imagining the heart of their lives. I see women and hold them in fantastic romantic regard, with the unexplored possibility of what might be without considering the mundane reality of a life of routine, practical concerns, or pain.

These are villages from a bygone age where the folks still had thoughts and dreams and passions in another context, but with the same soul.

What if my steed was more than the Subaru Outback, a motorcycle, or horseback?

What if shelter wasn’t an apartment, hostel, or tent?

What if my whim and will determined reality? How then would I solve issues of survival and human interaction? 

*I create a pocket existence that obscures me from observation (a la Tardis)…perhaps the level of security radiates to other lifeforms (aliens? supernatural beings? divine?) in other worlds and dimensions…or those magical passersby sensitive to such things. I’ve lived with these gifts for some time, but they still seem new to me. Each time I achieve a new manifestation—creating a pocket sanctuary or instantly transporting to another location—I run the risk of attracting attention from something of greater ability. So far, these encounters have been minimally distracting and rarely hostile, but that doesn’t mean the next encounter will be so.