I once loved a girl, her skin it was bronze.
With the innocence of a lamb, she was gentle like a fawn.
I courted her proudly but now she is gone,
Gone as the season she’s taken.
Bob Dylan, “Ballad in Plain D”

When you see through love’s illusions, there lies the danger
And your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool
So you go running off in search of a perfect stranger
While this loneliness seems to spring from your life
Like a fountain from a pool…
Jackson Browne, “Fountain of Sorrow”

It was a time I won’t forget
For the sorrow and regret
And the shape of a heart
And the shape of a heart
Jackson Browne, “In The Shape of a Heart”

The dance was good. Now let it end.
Roger Zelazny, “A Rose for Ecclesiastes”

I did love a girl. Her skin it was bronze, especially when she sunned. On June 14, 1971, I fell for her hard. In January of 1979 I left her. In August of that year we went to Colorado together for a week, but things were not the same between us and would never be so again. In midsummer 1990 she called me and asked me to come see her, and I did, and it provided some closure for me, and I hope for her. In March of 1993 I did a marathon in the city where she lived (and lives), staying as a guest in her house while she stayed with her husband-to-be. I haven’t seen her since. We used to call each other on our birthdays, but we haven’t done so this century.

There’s a lot left out of the above paragraph, just as there’s a lot of detail lost in the page I scanned and selectively deresolutioned. Restored, it reveals a portrait of her very young self and a double acrostic poem based on her name. She deserves her privacy, and I need a shorter leash on my spilling-my-guts tendency. But this blog, which will be the chief trace of myself left over after my death, is intended to be holographic, and I could not leave her out of it.