Having to start this story somewhere, I will begin by saying that I was thirty-one years old when Faye and I moved into our four thousand square foot two-story redwood dream house. It overlooked the Pacific from a lofty height of black granite rock and a cluster of cypress, sequoia, and spruce. My weekly syndicated radio call-in talk show, Love Doctor Frank, was syndicated on twelve stations. Two books I'd written were selling well; the first one seeing its third printing, and my Internet Zine, Doctor Frank's Corner, was growing in popularity. My private practice kept me occupied during the week and my weekends were spent luxuriating at the Northern California country club where I was a member, or kicking back to contemplate my navel at home. How smug and complacent I was at that time in my life and how sure I was that things would always work out the way I dreamed they would. To understand why I felt that way, however, it is necessary to know something about my Faye.
I met her when we were both attending the University of California at Berkeley. She was two years younger and majoring in art. I was pre-med. But our first date turned into an adventure that sealed our union. A group of us decided to go camping during spring break. We chose a spot deep in a redwood forest along the Eel River about fifty miles north of Garberville. I'd recently broken up with Mona Hardin, a beautiful busty blonde and the hottest girl on campus. I was measuring beauty by the high standards she'd set, so initially I'd hardly noticed Faye in the group of eight we made. She was the direct opposite of my former girlfriend, having curly raven dark hair with no glaring assets, nearsighted and always adjusting her eyeglasses. The librarian type is how I'd classified Faye Annette Barrett.
Early the second morning of the camping trip, as I wandered along the banks of the Eel River, I saw her sitting alone. The sky was just beginning to grow light and the pastel colors of dawn magically peeked through a green redwood canopy that reached so high above. She had her back against an oak tree and was writing in a small notebook when I approached. The twittering of songbirds and the wind in the trees and rushing river water filled the air. I was only a few feet away when she looked up and noticed me, adjusting her glasses as though I might be an illusion. Then she smiled.
"You're up early this morning," I remarked.
"Likewise for you I see."
"I didn't want to miss all this nature surrounding us."
"It is beautiful and so tranquil, too."
We were only on a first name basis at the time. Nevertheless, for some reason, those opening lines made me feel as though she was someone I would benefit by knowing better. With that one thought, suddenly the gloom I was under, like a five-hundred pound backpack, dissipated the way the aria of a symphony can lift the spirit and transcend the mundane, replacing it with a healthy surge of optimism.
We spent about twenty minutes chatting before heading back to camp for coffee. I learned that she was from a small town in Wyoming and sometimes felt lost and out of place in the big city. But it was her light blue eyes, the way they sparkled in the sunlight, and her smooth peach-colored skin and the way she smiled that kept me captivated. The more I studied her, the more I could see that she was the personification of femininity, without the overstated figure that Mona had. She was tall and had a slender waist, but all the right curves where they should be. Before too long, I was mentally stripping her clothes off for a closer, more intimate look.
Later that afternoon, we left the others behind to take a hike. About a quarter of a mile from the campsite, we left the churning banks of the Eel River to venture inland. The farther we hiked, the more our surroundings seemed to embrace us in a natural wonderland of sorts, as though we were the fist humans in ages to set foot where we were. The tranquil sounds of the many songbirds and the breeze tickling through the trees made me feel as though we were in the most sacred of all cathedrals. To quench our thirst from a canteen, we stopped and stretched out on a soft bed of fallen needles. The cool air provided the rich scent of earth and the invigorating green rich smell of life.
"So far from the rush and noise of the city," I commented.
"So far from all the cares that go with it, too," she said. "It's like living in another time."
"A brand new time for me. Helps me put things into perspective."
"What things?"
"Breaking up with a girlfriend for instance," I said, feeling as though I'd shed old skin by merely confiding that much to her.
"I thought you looked a little depressed when we were setting up camp yesterday. Like you were someone who would rather be somewhere else. Something told me it was love on the rocks." "Insightful! Does that mean you have ESPN? I mean...ESP?"
She laughed at my joke and pushed a lock of her shoulder-length hair back and focused her eyes on me. "No... I wouldn't go so far as to say that. It simply means I pay attention to the things that go on around me."
The simplicity of her words helped me focus on all that I saw and felt around me at the moment. The lushness of nature in the middle of spring, Fay's radiant nearness, the rising of my temperature with each new intake of fresh pollution-free air. Everything seemed in be in perfect harmony.
I also felt as though I was seeing the world with new eyes. Eyes that had failed to see just how physically beautiful Faye was at first glance. I was tempted to blurt all of this out. Instead, I told her about recent research which proved that the section of the brain, which becomes most active when emotions like love are involved, is also the same one less capable of reasoning at those times of heightened electrical wave impulses.
"So the poets were right when they said love is blind," she quipped. "Makes perfect sense to me. Because love always requires some overlooking and compromising to hope for a fighting chance to stay alive."
