Entry 1: Over The Rainbow




July 15, 1970


Dear Hippy Chick,


     Thank you for dropping this book on your way out of Cat Eye. Maybe my writing in your cardboard journal with a peace sign looped on the cover will make it a little less lonely at my summer hideout. I thought I was enjoying this sojourn until I caught the reddish gleam in your long brown hair against a lovely back. You were sitting cross-legged on the tumbled boulder that forms the iris of the blue hole at a bend of Anthony Creek. I was tucked up behind the rhododendrons that hide my rock overhang on the ledge that made this creek carve out a deep pool.

     I love the rainbow colors circling the bird foot you drew on the cover of this book, but did you know this symbol first stood for nuclear disarmament? Same difference as peace, I suppose, but I wish we could have discussed this beside the fire you and your friends left smoldering beside my natural bathtub. I'd tell you that it was an aversion to fighting that drove me to this solitary life in the West Virginia wilderness. I'd trust you with this secret, but those two guys vying for your attention would be risky witnesses to a third paramour's raison d'etre.

     So for now, since you'll probably never return to this remote swimming hole, I just want you to know that I see all the beauty in the world in you - the warmth of the summer sun seeping into my back at dusk from the dark boulder at the center of the pool; the shimmer of stars in the thin band of sky visible from this gorge; the honeyed scent of the nighttime blooms of smooth hydrangea lining the path out of this place; the dawn squeals of otter pups splashing into the depths from their den in the rocks; the eternal tinkling of the little waterfall that feeds this secluded basin and lulls me to sleep each morning.

 

                                                   Your secret friend,

                                                                             

                                                   Dogface



p.s. Your blond buddy wasn't just high when he caught a glimpse of a hairy man sneaking into your campsite in the night. Please thank him for the pseudonym as well as the roach I scavenged from the edge of the fire pit.

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