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| Waiting for that tap, tap, tapping. |
Out of the blue a friend called today. I was so glad to see it was someone who had lived like I do for a while because I had a story. I knew he would understand. I asked him what in his thought processes out there alone was the greatest fantasy. Without hesitation his response was “a woman coming to the door.”
I laughed and then said, “That’s what happened to me last night.”
Explanation: As I was watching a DVD McGyver episode (wishing I had been pondering a tome of forgotten yore) there came a tapping, tapping at my door. No, it wasn’t a raven, but it was a vision I had dreamed of for years.
In the drizzling rain stood a gorgeous young woman, water dripping off her hat, her two dogs milling about around her legs. Not only gorgeous, she was obviously Alaskan, dressed in a full suit of Helly Hanson rain gear and muddied from her shoulders to her XTRATuff boots.
She asked if I could give her a ride home, telling me she lived only three miles down the road. My first thought was, “I’d drive you to Florida if that’s where home is.”
What I said was, “sure,” hoping she couldn’t see my heart trying beat its way out of my chest. She told me her four-wheeler broke down about four miles along the trail that leads to the East Pole. She had hiked the four miles of muddy, puddled, slippery wet trail to reach the trail head where I have been high-centered for about a month
I quickly grabbed some outside clothes and a drop cloth to protect my back seat from her muddy dogs. I was so flabbergasted I almost drove off with my generator still running in the bed of the truck and still connected to the trailer by the power supply cord. Fortunately I realized it and stopped before it came up tight and did some damage.
On the road I believe we told about half our life stories including a bear encounter from each of us. We reached her house in short order, long before we could have reached Florida. Incidentally I had us married by the time we drove through Montana.
Out of the car at her house she actually hugged me, something I returned probably with enough enthusiasm to scare her. Still she told me her name, I told her mine and the she said good night before heading into her house with the dogs. Halfway back to my trailer I realized I had done nothing to memorize her name and it has been lost to me. I do remember where she lives, but I have no intention of making her any more nervous about me than she already might be. I am hoping to catch her when she and her father come past on the way to rescue her machine.
Meanwhile I have that moment of fantasy realized burned into my brain.
And it doesn't take too much imagination to go this way: Only three more miles along that trail and two months back in time this could have had an awesome big production number at the end of the story. And of course, there's the reality of that hug to cherish, the first in how long? Years?
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