What a weekend so far. 

There has been someone on my mind for years.  A friend that left such an impression on me, that after life took us in different directions – I found myself thinking of him a lot. 

Wondering what ever happened to him.  Laughing at silly things we did.  Smiling at the memories of us trying to put a comic book together based on a short story I wrote in college.  Sighing at the night he was there for me – during a very difficult time in my life.

I missed my friend.

A lot.

I have searched through the years – internet searches, inquiries to mutual friends  – nothing.  I searched Facebook and could not find him.

I have art he drew for me – poems he wrote for me. 

One poem in particular played a huge role in an intense conversation I had with my son about a year ago.

I won’t go into details. 

Suffice it to say, I wanted to reconnect.  I wanted to find out how he was.  Was he happy? Was he still drawing?  Was he married with children?  

I found a mutual friend on Facebook, who I’ve also looked for over the years, and lo and behold – he was friends with the person I was looking for.

I couldn’t have been happier. Sent friend request and waited.

He accepted my friend request.  (Isn’t that funny?  Your ‘real life’ friends have to approve your request for friendship.)

I got to speak to him via the internet today. 

I type fast – very fast.  And bombarded him with ‘OMG’s’ and a million questions. 

Of course one of the questions was if I could share some of his art with you here.  I won’t know until we talk again.  But, trust me when I say, if I DO get to share it – your socks will be blown off.

A-freaking-mazing.

I was shocked to see a couple of his photos on his page were of drawings he did of characters from my short story ‘Purple Haze’. 

No. Not the song. 

I maintain to this day that I hadn’t heard the Hendrix title when I wrote that story. 

My dad had been to New York, I begged him to get me something, anything from Bloomingdale’s. 

He came back with a see-through phone with pink neon inside.  With my lights out at night, my bedroom was awash in purple light.  THAT is where the name to my story came from.

Anyway, I was so inspired by our chat, that I decided to go to my mom’s house, over the river (yes, really.  No woods to go through though.) and finally retrieve my box containing memories and my writing from college.

Got it home and with nervous excitement, I opened what felt like a time capsule. 

Oh SO many things in there!  Photos, letters, autographed books, the scripts and press kits from Hannibal and Silence of the Lambs.  Yearbooks and primary school work books.  Nic’s ‘first year’ calendar.  A love letter from someone – I have no idea who?!

And, my creative writing folder.

I took it out gently, as if I were holding the holy grail.  In my head, golden light bathed the room and intense ‘ta-da’ chord came out of nowhere  (you know what I mean, that angelic-climactic sound.)

I opened the folder. 

Purple Haze part 2.  Okay …

Some poems.

Some works by fellow creative writing classmates.

Hand written short stories.

No Purple Haze part 1.

Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!

It has to be somewhere.  I’ll have to search through more boxes – I have lots and lots of ‘memory boxes’.  No, I’m not a hoarder – I’m sentimental. I keep every note, every card, every picture. 

If it’s meant to turn up, it will.  Like my friend, after 20 years of searching.

And I will share one picture with you – because it says ‘To Amanda’ on it and I think that means I’m allowed to? 

(I really need to google that whole ‘what can I post on my blog without permission’ thing one day.)