Dear Friend,

I want to share with you an excerpt from correspondence I had with another who had read our letters.

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Ah, life. Just when you think you figured out your niche; just when you decide to settle in a bit; life pops the axle of your apple cart. But what amazing surprises we get in who stops to help.

I too am glad of the quirks of life by which we all come to share with one another, to render aid when life pops our axle, to, hopefully, also share apple pie when the crops are good!

There is a strong sense of caution in some of your text, a tentitiveness of the commitment in the face of such firey passion. Like biorythms rising and falling, your heart seems to be in control one letter, your mind in control the next. First passion and feeling flowing forth, your words, inspired by the heart, became soul poetry. Next, the mind would slap with a dose of reality and reason. The juxtiposition of the emotional with the rational brought tension. Conflict of passion and reason; fear of stopping and fear of continuing; this painted, for me, a picture of a real human going through a roller coaster of exhilerating joy and dreadful anguish. With your senses reeling, overloaded by the intensity of input, you are fighting with different needs - letting him follow his path, holding to your own path, grabbing for this incredible turn of events, trying to cross a chasm which may have no bridge . . . hoping, fearing, dreaming, holding, releasing . . .

You, kind sir, are most eloquent in word and in deed. Your letter was a wonderous Monday morning gift. Your words, each either bold stroke or muted accent, together a beautifully painted mural of thought and emotion. Your content, a soothing balm to a chaotic heart and soul. Your observations, a mirror to the turmoil I am too close to to focus on quite so clearly.

Peace profound. Along with the finding of the strong emotions of both joy and anguish, along with the upheaval and the pleasure, I find also, on my visible horizon now, a peace to be had in my soul. Strange that with such chaos would come a hope of peace. But, for me, the malstrom of emotions stirred up the sands of my desert being only to have those same grains float gently down and begin to settle into a zen garden of life within my soul.

While you write your letters to clear your own mind and soul, I receive them as a mirror reflecting part of myself. This chronicle of yours would not have affected me so if this were not true. Additionally, it holds out a hand of hope. Sure, there is pain and wrenching reevaluations of life and priorities. But there is hope of making a connection with someone. Oh, how I long to once again have incredible sex and true love.

When I stumbled into your story, I was lying to myself in some insideous ways. I call that my gremlin speaking. He insisted that deep emotional and sensual connections were a media myth. He couldn't get me to sulk, so the next best thing was to make me give up looking. My first reading of your letters literally slapped me. An electric flash burned my mind: this is real. This is not media pablum. This applies to me.

I too had somehow convinced myself that it was all media hype, to be found only in the pages of Harlequin. I had had a lifetime of aloneness within social crowds, a series of seemingly succesful relationships without any emotional commitment and had no dreams, no hope of a deep personal connection. For me, life, love was most definitely enjoyable and intense but somehow never truly profound. Perhaps that is why his unexpected gift of friendship in addition to the relationship, though startling, was such a treasure. I still feel, even now, the expansion in my heart, mind and life the emotions have made, are making.

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I have always realized the profound impact that our relationship, our friendship has made in my life and, hopefully, yours. I was, however, surprised and overwhelmed to find that it could somehow go outside the bounds of just us and impact another. What an incredible thing we share.

Bn.