My dearest dear, melting into thoughts of you, wondering where you are. What wouldn't I give to be lying next to you, saying hi, touching your cheek, looking into your eyes, embarking on the project of memorizing every detail of your facial structure, your nose, via regarding and nuzzling. I conjure these reveries as I type. Late afternoon sun spills into the aerie, hot water burbles in the pipes, and the aroma of clay pot chicken rises up the stairs.

Dearest love, that was as far as I got yesterday afternoon with sitting down to write you a proper post. I was full of amorous thoughts and at the same time reticent. "Words came halting forth," to quote Sir Philip Sidney. It didn't help that I've been thinking of elegiac love couplets, reading Ovid's Amores. I would love to write something as beautiful as that about you and me. As much as I fantasize though, part of me doesn't wish to set it on paper so it doesn't become a script we feel compelled on some level to fulfill. (You might be thinking - isn't the horse out of that barn door already? No darling, that was a different apartment I had described.) I'd rather experience whatever it is we're going to experience and then later, in the fullness of poetic remembrance and reverie, set down the impressions and memories as they come. Still, I couldn't let go of the elegiac love couplet idea, trying to get the cadence down in my head so that perhaps my words might flow easily into the form. I realized that Ruth Reichl often seems to naturally fall into that rhythm in her tweets. Perhaps others do as well, that pithy form lends itself to poetic expression, but hers is the only twitter account I feel intrigued enough to follow.

Siesta time in sultry summer.
I lay relaxed on the divan.
One shutter closed, the other ajar,
made sylvan semi-darkness. -- Ovid, Amores, Book 1, No. 5

Forsythia spills over central park walls.
Golden promise on this cold morning.
Salmon roe on crackers, dab of sour cream.
Spring is coming. - Ruth Reichl tweet, 25 March 2011

My darling, let me send this little note off to you right away. A cup of Strongtrees awaits me, as the sun rises and robins chirp. Ah, bliss in a cup. I will use tiny scattered treats such as that as steppingstones to carry me through the next twenty-three days until we can say hi.