Orton tending to his McIntoshes.

After an arduous but rather unremarkably difficult drive, I met Jon for brunch at an absolutely packed, poorly-located restaurant. Over the next hour and a half, we laughed and talked and laughed and talked and in that uncanny way he does, he reminded me that life exists outside of my head, that my real life exists outside of these current conditions of struggle and strain.

I've tried to convince him, tried to explain how powerful it is, how strange it is, that he changes my mind about these things so simply. People are full of platitudes, in my experience, even those who mean well, and when I have sunken into typical post-breakup fear and sadness, no amount of "you'll find someone better, no really" is likely to help.

However, when someone listens to your silly orchard fantasies and then gives you something like this a week later, something so small but so full of meaning, so that when you're lonely, you can look at it and think of that silly orchard fantasy...that is the kind of thing you can come back to on a day when life seems off in the distance. It's the kind of thing that lets you start to believe your silly orchard really does exist and that you might actually be headed toward it (however slowly).

And that is a wonderful thing.