Seabiscuit and I have exchanged 90 emails now. What happens when we cross that 100 mark? Will we finally get to meet face-to-face? Will we finally have dinner and go out on a date?
I have mentioned it a few times, but he always seems to talk about some other thing. I wonder now if he has the same worries that I do: what happens next? What if it doesn’t work out? What if the spark only lasts behind the veil of email? What if we lose this friendship we have started? It is a marvel to realize we have exchanged so many words in a little over a month. It was exactly one month three days ago.
In his last email to me, he said he liked the idea of reading to me and that “it seems intimate, like sharing a photo.” I wait now as he decides what he should record for me. He asked me for a few ideas. I said it could be a song (he has mentioned enjoying singing) or some of his favorite poems. I even told him it might be funny to hear him read the poem I wrote for him read back to me — surely, he would read it differently. It would be fun to hear the tones and inflections, what he would emphasize. It could have a completely different reading.
He mentioned one of his favorite poems is T. S. Elliott’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, and that is one of my favorites too. I am very excited about hearing his voice. I want to hear it before bedtime, before I sleep. He has already started to fill my head at that late hour…
Would I be a woman you would have an adventure with? Would I be a woman you’d enjoy sharing your time with? Could we be more than friends? I already feel myself falling — but then there is Lord Byron, who I still am getting to know, whose age remains a mystery, but is rather handsome in the photo I managed to peek at from his book. For all I know, he and Seabiscuit could be the same age.
I have written another poem while thinking about him; it’s titled “Thoughts of You”, but I keep this one, and its inspiration a secret. He will hear the poem eventually, provided I finish this poetry-CD project and send him one… will he know? Will he suspect it was written with him in my mind?