Airplanes and deserts and winding hills everywhere, and as I gaze at the wonderful vistas before me, I am painfully aware of that familiar feeling inside that reminds me of the distance between us. Every new place awakens the part of me that feels like I am on my way home to you. You are everywhere I go, all the warm and rich voices that speak to me, all the tall and lanky strangers whose eyes linger on mine just a little while longer. You are in every new song about love. Longing. Regret.

I am hours closer to you, hoping for a chance for an unhurried conversation. I tell you that I wish I could ask you to hop on a plane, meet me in Monterey for an afternoon stroll and dinner that ambles on into the morning. You answer sweetly, “Wish I could, baby.”

I wish the same thing too.

I am imagining white cars and long stretches of quiet sand. Sunsets and sunrises and the lingering smell of answered prayers in the air. In my mind, our dreams have the color of fire, the feel of cotton, the taste of cloves. And the sound of a thousand songs and a thousand poems, all of them unable to adequately describe what you are to me, and how your love is my life.