As I lay across from Brian on the couch, our gaze is fixed on the Olympic show before us from Italy. Brian loves Snow boarding, so he is anxious to see how the American women will perform. The pairs skating takes me back mentally to the many years of my own ballet lessons and figure skating life. I realize I haven't watched the Winter Olympics for 8 years. The last time it was in Nagano Japan. I was working on finishing up the final legalities of my divorce, and Brian and I were still living in the country bungalow. It seems like a lifetime ago.
Brian was 2 going on 3.
I was working for NAMC and often sat on my couch with my laptop on my lap chatting away to this person or that from across the United States. The Internet was still in it's innocent phase. It was more fun before it was marketed and sold to the world to be ruined.
My friend Vincent (Vincentay as I liked to call him) from San Jose was a brilliant tech head suffering through loving to date Barbie doll looking women, but turned on by brains and a quick mind. He was never quite able to find a Barbie with the brains he was seeking (I am not saying that they aren't out there somewhere - he just wasn't finding it). He was at a loss as to how to find his perfect woman and stumbled upon my dry banter online one winter night when Trace was visiting me from Minnesota.
Our Internet chats were an explosion of words and we became instant friends. Our chats crackled like sparks from a fire and often he would leave me laughing out loud so hard that my ribs would hurt the next day. He also rescued me a few times in my life before moving back east. Seems some airport was always stranding me somewhere in those days, and Vince was more than happy to find me, pick me up and drive my tired frustrated butt back home. He had the most beautiful long hair I have ever seen on a man. His perfect white teeth exposed a wide loving smile and his eyes sparkled of trouble. Yes, he played the guitar and was a rock musician in a past career before settling down to raise his son. I loved how much he koved his teenage son.
I always seem to be a girl being rescued by some studly guy. don't I?
Vincent once played hockey and had a past life in skating, so during the men's Olympic skating we each sat at our computers chatting about what we were watching on TV. There we were writing our own play by play commentary to each other, while glued to the TV. We liked the same skaters, and picked apart their techniques. We were arm chair judges exchanging our own point system, leaning heavily toward the Americans, but in awe of the Russians. I was never to look at skating the same again.
So there I was watching the skating and wondering how Vince is doing. It is amazing to me how people can cross our paths. touch our souls and we are forever changed. They bring us gifts that can't be measured in coin. They give us a small cherished piece of themselves - unconditionally, in the hope that we will preserve it in our hearts and call upon it when needed.
Vince pushed me to take on a higher level tech position saying "You are brilliant and can handle it in the boys club. Hell move closer and work with me ...of course I'd get nailed for sexual harassment." I would always laugh, but was smart enough to listen to his advise. We lost contact in the shuffle of his move and the change of all my contact information.
But whenever I watch someone skate, that piece of him is with me still and it comforts my soul.
Until next time-
C
