As I See It

Desire: Caught by a Song

Desire. It can seep into the smallest, darkest crevices of your soul without you even knowing it. It can be the beginning of the most incredible journey you have ever taken or be the entrance to a cavern you wished you had passed by. If you have ever felt a longing for something or someone, or somewhere, and could never put your finger on why. If you felt the longing well up from a depth you didn’t know you had, then you know what I mean.
Timing, this key element, plays a valuable role. How many things must happen in just a certain way in order to achieve a specific outcome? Think about this for a moment. You walk the same exact route to work every morning for five years and leave at the same time. But this morning, your alarm doesn’t ring and now you’re thirty minutes late. In your haste, you decide to take another route, thinking you can save yourself a little time. You make a turn, and standing on the next corner waiting to cross the street, is someone you know, someone you’ve missed. You recognize the face, even if you haven’t seen it in ten years. Is it timing, fate, destiny or all of the above?
A suggestion for a Mother’s Day gift, a concert, a song and a voice, what do these things have to do with desire? Let me tell you. A husband suggests to his wife to get concert tickets for her mother. She agrees that this would make a great gift and proceeds to purchase the tickets. Remember timing? Mother’s Day is in May, but the concert isn’t until August. In July, she agrees to become a member of a Bible study group that will start in September knowing nothing of the speaker or content. This piece will rear its head up again a bit later. Things fall into place; the concert is on, and the young woman hears a song that absolutely captures her heart. The voice, the lyrics, the melody are wonderful! She goes home and immediately tracks down the song, loads it onto the computer, her MP3 player, her phone, and her laptop. She is enthralled and can’t stop listening to it.
She decides to write to the artist, thinking that this is what most people do when they like or dislike something an artist has done. But when the letter comes back marked “undeliverable,” she’s a little disheartened. She tries again, using a more specific address, but again, the letter comes back. The desire to contact him to let him know how this song has affected her is now overwhelming, but how can she get through to him?
“I can only assume that you’ve had trouble with ‘fan’ mail in the past and would rather remain unreachable to the public. Let me say that, I’m not a journalist or an up-and-coming artist. I’m not sure that I qualify as a fan, and I hate the word ‘groupie’. I’m too old to want your baby and not poor enough to want your money, nor am I love starved enough to force myself on you. I’d never say anything that I believe would be hurtful or offensive. I’m reaching across the miles, always open, honest, and tender, so, here goes.

Your time is often spent with extraordinary women within your profession. How does an ordinary woman get to just talk with an extraordinary man? I’ll dare to try something a little different. I’ll start this way. May I simply invite you for coffee or tea? Wherever you are, at your convenience__ just tuck me away until then __ I’ll wait for you.

Maybe it’s a pre-dawn morning before time becomes that monster that presses upon one. Please sit with your favorite beverage in one hand and my letter in the other. At the same time picture me here, coffee in hand, as I sit on my deck, with the pink of dawn just beginning to show in the sky. Sit back, relax, and we’ll just talk a while, I guess I’ll be doing most of the talking, but you can chime in with a little laugh now and then. I want you to know that someone out there is thinking of you in a very special way, but I don’t want it to seem like you’ve just inherited another ‘admirer’. My hope is that you and I will write each other long enough to become new friends. I understand that you probably don’t do this often; just sit and talk over coffee with ordinary women. I know I don’t get to spend much time with extraordinary men, and to be honest, you’d be the first. I’m glad it’s you though because you stir something in me I’ve never felt. And though it could be all in my head I may be able to tell the first time we meet. I’ll be able to sense if what I’m feeling is real or not and I’m unsure of which answer I’d prefer. I believe either way would be a little problematic. If my love for you is real, then determining how best to fit into each other’s lives will take time, but time is not on our side. If it’s not real then how I manage to cleanse you emotionally from my heart will be another timely process. Either way I need an answer, I’m not sure I could get you out of my head without one.

My sunrise has been fabulous. Thank you for the chance to talk to you. You’ve shared your morning, your music, and this cup of coffee with me and this has been the best morning I’ve had in a long time. Hmm. Coffee with a hint of sunrise and you; do you think it would sell? And most of all, thank you for re-igniting in me a love for your voice and your music.”