Ti Voglio....

          Life is not like water. Things in life don't necessarily flow over the shortest possible route.

                                                                                                           Haruki Murakami 






Ellen looked inside the paper bag to be sure the barista gave her the right order. Two cheese danish and a few almond biscotti wrapped separately. Good, she thought. The sun's rays were brilliant that morning and they blinded her temporarily as she walked through the open glass door and into the parking lot. People everywhere in a hustle and bustle doing whatever they felt was so important at that very moment. For Ellen--- her life was standing still.

The love of her life was waiting for her and those cheese danish. His name was Joe. He was the most beautiful man she'd ever laid her eyes on. They met at a bus stop 32 years ago after she was nearly assaulted by another passenger for playing her music a bit too loud. When the bus met their destination, Ellen and Joe stepped off  one after the other. She thanked him  politely for coming to her rescue, he accepted with a wry smile and they both began to go their separate ways and in opposite directions. Both admitted years later that it was at that moment they both felt invisibly connected together. As though a very long red thread tethered their hearts in tandem.

Ellen didn't ever regret that life did in fact take them their separate ways after a lover's long weekend. How they became inseparable after that day on the bus when they both turned around and decided to go for coffee then drinks on a sunny September day 32 years ago. Days that burned in their hearts for a lifetime. Joe fed his heart in the years of his loveless marriage with the memories of her and the days they spent on a quiet New England beach. Her white linen dress, how she walked about barefoot and how she filled him up like like an empty vessel with anything and everything. Her words, her scent, her touch, her thoughts, her love, her passion. If he was a parched and dying man in the dessert, she was his ocean. Not a mirage but very real.

Joe was the one man she never ever forgot. He stayed in her mind and in her heart for the decades of restless travel, jobs, affairs and a two failed marriages that followed that weekend by the seaside. He became a barometer that she unknowingly measured other men by....or maybe she did know. A couple of handsome sons were her joy from her last marriage. Dizzying years of child rearing, career changes and a heart that always seemed a little bit empty.

Eventually, Joe returned to the small town by the sea after his long over due divorce. He opened a small, laid back coffee shop there and he spent long lazy days just enjoying a simple life. On every corner he saw Ellen, on every beach stroll...he felt her. He ached for her.

Until one day she walked into his coffee shop...she too, feeling a pull to go back to their place.

There they were. As if time stood still. He wanted her. She wanted him. Their aching never stopped.

Ellen saw him sitting on the bench in the distance looking out to the sea as she walked toward him with the bag of danish. Yes, she thought... the most beautiful man she'd ever seen. Sitting closely to him, as close as she could--she stared into his dark brown eyes. His grin was wry as always.

'Ti voglio' she said. Ti voglio.