From Fernando. All That I Am.

Dear Garret,

I also woke to rainfall, the sloshing sounds of a great gushing downpour and to the ringing laughter of a stranger on the street. A gray, languid light leaned lazily against my window and a wild wind circled the house with howling declarations. I walked into the nearly empty city, huddled in my coat with the collar raised and scraping painfully against my chapped and chilly ears. Raindrops gathered on my eyelashes and drizzled down my cheeks when I blinked. I stomped through puddles in my inadequate shoes until my toes were cold and wrinkled. The pavement was one great shining mirror. Dangling white blossoms tangled as they flew into the air. I crossed the sodden wooden planks of the foot bridge as it waved and creaked beneath me. The beaten, battered face of the river rose and fell in mighty oceanic swells.

I walked into work shaking the rain from my hair and squinting into the flourescent light, exhaling my exhiliration in loud, joyful laughter. And I admit that I wasn't thinking at all about my surroundings as I strolled through those narrow halls grinning broadly with raindrops on my lips. Instead, I was thinking about Catherine, whom I met by the water and who once kissed me in a sudden rainfall while her fingers carved furrows in my soggy hair. She peered up at me, gently, steadily, seeking something of my self. And what she saw she stole away and secreted behind a demure tuck of her glance. And I pressed against her trying to take it back, sweetened as it was now by her innocence. I held her and the days we had together delicately, in fear and hope, because they were precious and fleeting.

But now she sends me her words. They pour out of her with such honesty and strength. She brushed by me like the first gentle breath of spring and faded away like the echo of a laugh. But in words we can find again all hope and passion and the stormy day. Life remains, solid and true, held enclosed in simple lines. I covet her words and yours as well, my friend. I shuffle through them greedily. And I reach in and grab my own words in fistfuls and pour them at my feet. And nothing is lost. And I am whole, all that I am.

Fernando