anti:freeze

Wendy breezed into Portland yesterday, bringing her own personal weatherfront. Clouds dissipated. Chilly fall winds warmed up to summer temperatures. The sky - sinus-headache gray since early September - was suddenly blue again. It is hard to imagine that Wendy ever lived in the Pacific Northwest at all; she is so at odds with its climate.

It was strange to hear her voice again after more than a year of email and letters - sweeter and smoother than I remembered, like when I bought Nutella recently for the first time in years and licked a glob straight from the spoon.

I gave her a Yorkie,

and we laughed at the ridiculous label. It's Not For Girls. Somehow, it made us want the chocolate even more.

On Hawthorne, we walked past the display window of a vintage clothing store and kneeled to peek up the skirt of a scantily-clad mannequin.

Her apparatus is showing! Wendy said, laughing.*

So much of Wendy is lost in email. The graceful way she asks waiters to read signs that are too far away. (I would most surely be awkward.) Her straight back as she sits in a restaurant booth. How she notices boarded-up windows on the top floors of neglected buildings, wondering what might be inside. The way she snaps unposed, unannounced photographs, peeking through the viewfinder until you can almost forget she is doing it (but also with respect, giving you ample time to look away.) Her warm smile and intense interest as she listens. The way she nods, slowly and with control, so you can almost see her holding court (as a queen or even a judge). Her thick, black hair, so shiny it hardly seems real - like a Pantene commercial or a glossy fashion spread.

Seeing her made me miss her even more.

At least one thing is gained in our electronic missives: we get each other in writing. For two writers, this can bring its own rich (and Nutella-like) rewards.

*Hee hee. Turns out Wendy actually said mechanism. It cracks me up to think that I rememberd it as apparatus Wonder what that says about me. Hmmm.