It’s unexpected, but I fall in ephemeral love with you all the time. I sit at my computer, imagining my music is coming from your local radio station, and all of a sudden, I’m so in love with you. Or, more precisely, in love with you and your city. I love to picture you set between the mountains, walking along the water, along long stretches of desert, hills and valleys, oceans and forests and art-deco. Places I’ve never been. I don’t even have to be in the picture; I love you all the more for being there without me. There’s something about the confluence of person and place, specifically in this case, that I find inexorably appealing. Maybe there’s some muddled area between envy and pining where I could put myself and my restless feet when I’m thinking of you. In this fantasy, also, you’re unemployed. Or, rather, independently wealthy and unencumbered by the restraints of the work day or deadlines. You’ve lots of time to watch the sun go down and drink glasses of wine. Your face stays kind of vague and you don’t do much talking. You do smile a lot, though, and spend several of your unencumbered hours with good friends. When you think of me – it happens rarely and I appreciate that – your smile changes but it doesn’t fade – and I appreciate that too. I like to imagine you in transition, moving through all the places you’ve been. When you’re traveling you’re always alone – I’m sorry for that, but when I imagine it, that’s the way you prefer. Sometimes I bring you back here to sit with me on the porch, mostly when it’s storming. Not that I’m frightened or need protecting, or even that I want you here to allow myself to see the beauty. Only because I think you’d like it too. Occasionally I wonder where our fantasies might intersect. Do we ever encounter our respective silent selves on a beach somewhere at the outskirts of childhood vacation memories? Do I do much talking?