Letters to the moon.

Jenny,

Yesterday I was sat behind the language huts thinking that you didn't seem real anymore. It seemed too long ago; too long since I'd seen you. I can still remember how your face sounds because I remember things like that - I can remember your face exactly because your photo is on my shelf. I will never forget the memories. Most of all, you felt so very, very far away.

And it doesn't change things that I know where you are. It helps, like the idea of lights at the end of the road: of a welcoming, cosy house and a warm bed at the end of a long journey home from far away adventures that linger like a dream in your tired mind. It has mountains where the sun rises in the morning - it pulls itself up on a rope of silvery-blue and skims the backs of the mountains and hills of the valley where you live.

The valley is a pretty valley, like the Salinas Valley in California. The land is dry in summer and wet in winter. When you're in summer you wait for the cold rain of November; when it's winter you long for the warm, hot sun on your shoulders which no longer bear the weight of other peoples' quandaries which you happily took on board so that they may live with a cloud that didn't shower down so many worries upon them. You live happily, amongst friends who see you every day and who have been through the same things you have. They waved goodbye to their old life - in a way, and entered the shores of this new life, here in the valley.

You like it here. You don't miss your old life, although sometimes you sit under the willow trees at the foots of the hills and remember those you once loved. You still love them, of course, but you don't feel the pain of the loss of this love because the love wasn't ever lost.

Every time the sun shines your heart beats faster - because I know it's still beating, in it's own, new, reformed way, in this place by the valley. You feel warmer because you remember how we loved you, and how you loved all of us. When the moon takes patrol in the midnight sky you smile because it reminds you of Paul and how he was your moon. When the stars shine you cry a little cry of nostagia as you remember your daughters and your sun, your grandchildren. And the flowers - who could forget the flowers? The flowers smile up at you, each one a personal reminder of every friend you ever had. You can't forget us, because in that secret place where nobody knows - in the valley where you are, we are all around you. And in the real world, where we carry on living best we can, you are all around us: in the wind; the trees; the grass...the churches; the castles; the beaches and coves; the clouds, the sky and the rain. You are everywhere. I don't feel any pain.

I love you Jenny, and nothing would ever stop me loving you.

If, in a few years time I don't miss you quite so bad,
I'll know that - whilst you're far away - you're happy, and I'm not sad.
<3