Strange Times, My Dear

This is dedicated to Anna, who inspires me and challenges me, every day.  The simple fact that we even have a relationship, given the distance that separates us, is a blessing.

I live and work in Iraq, while Anna calls Manila her home.  She first caught my eye in the pages of a personals website, with two lovely pictures, and an engaging written profile.  Beautiful eyes, a confident expression that seemed to dare me to respond.  Educated, well-traveled.  And a nickname I just couldn’t figure out.  Everything about her demanded my attention, in a way others simply couldn’t.

I really had no idea what I was in for.

After reading and re-reading her profile, I took several drafts to write my own, emailed introduction.  I knew that I had to produce an email as engaging to her as her profile was to me.  Apparently, I succeeded, because she answered me within a day or two.  The notes and simple banter that followed were a delight to me.  Always engaging, with a teasing nature that brought my own sense of humor to the fore in each of my replies.  Happily, she seemed to enjoy all my quips and comments, and clearly relished the attention I gave her, as I drew her out with my words, attentive to every scrap of detail she offered me, eager to form a more complete picture of this mystery woman.  Did I hold her interest, as well?  The emails certainly seemed to say “yes”, but we both held back, enjoying contact, but not risking any real commitment.

One thing was certain – I felt alive, for the time every day it took to read, and re-read, her emails to me, reading her profile so often, I had nearly committed it to memory.

Then, something happened.  For four days, after more than a week of daily contact through website IMs and email, she was lost to me.  I was frantic – her profile was inactive, and no new emails crowded my inbox, demanding my attention, eager for my response.  All I could do was reread her old emails, and wish I’d known then how to download her profile pictures from the site.  Desperate, I turned to a friend who had always been willing to share his advice with me, I was certain there’d be something he could do to calm me, and free me from this dilemma.  I’d just met Ajay, and was certainly, in my smitten state, not ready to go “cold turkey”, by any stretch of the imagination.

I turned to Uncle Google .

Her online nick was distinctive – that’s where my search began.  What I found was a revelation – and a new appreciation of just how busy this girl’s day was.  You see, I found her blog.

I found a woman who has traveled more extensively in her lifetime than I have in my Military career.  Blogs compulsively about her enduring love affair with Manila, the Philippines, and Philippine cuisine.  Works as a columnist for the Manila Bulletin, with weekly entries in print and online, on a topic near and dear to my heart – gadgets!  Works in a casino – Hey! I worked in a casino once, too. Sort of.  Maybe there’s hope for us?  With over three years of posts, and 1600 pictures on Flickr, I was hooked. And sleepless – there was quite a bit of research to be done here, after all.

Uncle Google came through for me – in Spades.  But the most engaging part, for me, remained her writing about Manila – my Uncle’s words on Manila (he lives near Baguio) fell by the wayside, stories about the Philippines from old shipmates fell by the wayside.  Everything else fell by the wayside.  I had found a guide, willing to show me a new country, and a new culture, in answer to the wanderlust the Navy had given me, twenty years ago.

To put it simply, I was sprung.

But I was working with information that hadn’t been offered to me, at this point. I felt myself equal parts voyeur and trespasser – did I have the right?  For two days, I was torn, constantly rewriting or discarding my attempts to regain her attention – humor was a must, but I needed to tantalize her, engage her mind as completely as possible, and speak to a topic that would show my interest to learn more about her, and her world.  Couldn’t sound pathetic, either – even if I maligned myself jokingly as “a needy little b***h”.

I asked her about blogging, of course.  With a simple question that showed I was aware of her own blog. Finally, she writes me back! Her response floored me.  With her usual humor and teasing, even if she professed to “hate” Google. Surprised that I’d found her online, when she used an email address created specifically so she could distance herself from a troublesome suitor.  I couldn’t read her mood well, though, and her last words chilled me, a phrase commonly used in the States to show disinterest.

Ugh.  Now I’ve gone and done it.  Then, she emails me the next day – seems she can’t match my own results with Google, and wants me to explain how, exactly, I found her!

Since that day, we have been simply “stealing time”, using every scrap of free time and imagination we have to hold each other’s attention, and affection, and keep one another close in our thoughts and our hearts.

I wrote this post in response to a teasing challenge from Ajay, when Noemi invited her to participate in the Love-Struck Writing Contest, after Ajay “outed” me on her blog!  She demurred, saying  her new love story couldn’t hope to compete with the “old-timers”, even though it was clear that she was intrigued by the offer.

In classic Girl Friend fashion, the post became MY responsibility, added to my “honeydew” list (Honey, do this, Honey do that!)

Here’s to you, Mah Dear!

Thanks must go to Noemi, as well, for an engaging contest that captured my imagination. My sincere thanks to everyone who takes the time to read this.