Les Yeux Ouverts

I spent a little time this weekend doing something that I haven't done in a long, long time. That is, I got to strengthen a budding friendship by showing off the town that I love so much. I walked on a favorite beach that I hadn't been on in more than four years; I found a perfect huckleberry bush; I shared a few of my favorite quirks that would go completely unnoticed by the uninitiated. I did it because it has been a really long time since I met someone who was worthy of the information. I didn't even get to do some of the best stuff with him: stand in the record library at Raven Radio and inhale the scent of vinyl or hunt cloudberries in the muskegs on Gavan Hill or walk the docks and stare wistfully at the sailboats that have already been all the way around the world. Maybe he'll come back, and I'll finish off the list. I hope so.

In my infatuation last week with On The Street Where You Live, I downloaded Harry Connick Jr.'s 25 and now I am humming Stardust to myself and thinking about holding hands. I have long expressed my concern over the dearth of handholding in the world today. I aim to remedy that... Just as soon as our paths cross again. Until then, I am making a playlist that includes the Frank Sinatra version of One For My Baby, Tommy Dorsey's Stardust, and Louis Armstrong blowing his mournful way through Dream a Little Dream of Me. I promise that I won't grow too starry eyed, because I'm not a romantic.

Right?