Of Affection and Walking...January 9, 2005
After several big exchamges of emails, Stephen goes for a VERY long walk along Elwood Beach near his house to clear his head, think things over, and figure out what our course should be.
"My dearest Joni,
Yep, you definitely managed it this time. I was completely dumbfounded by your email. Perhaps if I explain what happened… I got back to Melbourne with Dad about 5PM, and I read your email around 6PM. It was still daylight here and a pleasant evening, so I decided the best way to think over the things you raised would be to drive down to Elwood beach and think while taking a walk along the esplanade. So, I did this. It only really started to hit me as I walked and thought, and as your past and recent emails started scrolling though my mind, what really, really began to hammer in on me was how absolutely faultless as a girl you are. I swear, it was like being drunk, and I must have walked for miles (now I’ve calmed down a bit, my feet are certainly telling me I did!) thinking of you all the while. I can’t find the words for what I think of you, but here goes: After reading your email, all I wanted to do was have you there so that you could have walked for miles with me. I wanted then, and still feel it in myself to want it, to lavish on you all the affection and warmth that I could. I wanted to give you every good and desirable and precious thing that lay within my power. Sigh, I’m not getting this through clearly. I was blown away by the honesty of your email, how you’re having the same emotional confusion as I am, but yet you’re still willing to give it a shot. And moreover, that you’re willing to do that for ME! Great God, I’ve gone out of my way to tell you what I feel are my worst features, all the things about myself that should count against me, and to be fully honest with you, all because I wanted you to know exactly who it is you’re dealing with so as hopefully not to disappoint you – and yet you don’t seem to mind. It’s truly almost more than I can take in. If that sounds overly me-centric, it’s because I find it hard to believe that in any "us" I wouldn’t be the problem. Please please believe me when I say to you that I cannot imagine you being the problem. I just can’t. I haven’t found anything about you I haven’t liked, I can’t find anything about you I’d consider even a flaw. Double sigh [soft clink as I bang my head against the monitor], I’m still not getting my point across. All right, one more try: you said an earlier time that you felt the most you could hope for was to raise your kids in the middle of a swamp, hoping not to be too much of a nuisance to any man you loved. Well, please know that far from considering you a nuisance, you’re a girl for whom I would go to CONSIDERABLE trouble, to the point where if you asked it, I’d gladly send you money to buy the prettiest dress or the oldest whisky or the best fishing gear in Louisiana, whatever you wanted. Or if you want to ask me to send such a thing from here, well, I will do it.
Look, to hose myself down a little, I’m sure in due course my rational, cautious, pessimistic personality traits will kick in, and I’ll have the same uncertainties bubbling in my head as were evident in Friday’s email. But what I’ve found out today is that I think the feelings I’ve had for you seem to run a long way deeper than even I suspected they might. To go all oceanographic on you: if the shallows of my feelings are still, well, shallow, I think I’ve just also discovered that, not only do my feelings get a bit like the Tasman Sea, but they might also be like the Mariana Trench. And I’m suddenly stunned stunned stunned, and absolutely pleased to discover that. Really, I just think that you’re one of the best things I’ve ever found. You deserve every ounce of affection I can give to you, and I just wish I could make you see that.
OK, well, I guess I’ve run out of things to say in this email. Even though it’s shorter than your own email, I hope it’ll still be a worthy reply, as it’s (hopefully) responding to yours. And, by the way, I will indeed award you bonus Mellencamp points: The song was indeed "Key West Intermezzo"; the subtitle, and main line in the chorus, was "I saw you first". Well spotted!
Thine,
Stephen"
After several big exchamges of emails, Stephen goes for a VERY long walk along Elwood Beach near his house to clear his head, think things over, and figure out what our course should be.
"My dearest Joni,
Yep, you definitely managed it this time. I was completely dumbfounded by your email. Perhaps if I explain what happened… I got back to Melbourne with Dad about 5PM, and I read your email around 6PM. It was still daylight here and a pleasant evening, so I decided the best way to think over the things you raised would be to drive down to Elwood beach and think while taking a walk along the esplanade. So, I did this. It only really started to hit me as I walked and thought, and as your past and recent emails started scrolling though my mind, what really, really began to hammer in on me was how absolutely faultless as a girl you are. I swear, it was like being drunk, and I must have walked for miles (now I’ve calmed down a bit, my feet are certainly telling me I did!) thinking of you all the while. I can’t find the words for what I think of you, but here goes: After reading your email, all I wanted to do was have you there so that you could have walked for miles with me. I wanted then, and still feel it in myself to want it, to lavish on you all the affection and warmth that I could. I wanted to give you every good and desirable and precious thing that lay within my power. Sigh, I’m not getting this through clearly. I was blown away by the honesty of your email, how you’re having the same emotional confusion as I am, but yet you’re still willing to give it a shot. And moreover, that you’re willing to do that for ME! Great God, I’ve gone out of my way to tell you what I feel are my worst features, all the things about myself that should count against me, and to be fully honest with you, all because I wanted you to know exactly who it is you’re dealing with so as hopefully not to disappoint you – and yet you don’t seem to mind. It’s truly almost more than I can take in. If that sounds overly me-centric, it’s because I find it hard to believe that in any "us" I wouldn’t be the problem. Please please believe me when I say to you that I cannot imagine you being the problem. I just can’t. I haven’t found anything about you I haven’t liked, I can’t find anything about you I’d consider even a flaw. Double sigh [soft clink as I bang my head against the monitor], I’m still not getting my point across. All right, one more try: you said an earlier time that you felt the most you could hope for was to raise your kids in the middle of a swamp, hoping not to be too much of a nuisance to any man you loved. Well, please know that far from considering you a nuisance, you’re a girl for whom I would go to CONSIDERABLE trouble, to the point where if you asked it, I’d gladly send you money to buy the prettiest dress or the oldest whisky or the best fishing gear in Louisiana, whatever you wanted. Or if you want to ask me to send such a thing from here, well, I will do it.
Look, to hose myself down a little, I’m sure in due course my rational, cautious, pessimistic personality traits will kick in, and I’ll have the same uncertainties bubbling in my head as were evident in Friday’s email. But what I’ve found out today is that I think the feelings I’ve had for you seem to run a long way deeper than even I suspected they might. To go all oceanographic on you: if the shallows of my feelings are still, well, shallow, I think I’ve just also discovered that, not only do my feelings get a bit like the Tasman Sea, but they might also be like the Mariana Trench. And I’m suddenly stunned stunned stunned, and absolutely pleased to discover that. Really, I just think that you’re one of the best things I’ve ever found. You deserve every ounce of affection I can give to you, and I just wish I could make you see that.
OK, well, I guess I’ve run out of things to say in this email. Even though it’s shorter than your own email, I hope it’ll still be a worthy reply, as it’s (hopefully) responding to yours. And, by the way, I will indeed award you bonus Mellencamp points: The song was indeed "Key West Intermezzo"; the subtitle, and main line in the chorus, was "I saw you first". Well spotted!
Thine,
Stephen"
posted by Joni and Stephen | 6:21 PM
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