A thing has happened.  A thing that I knew would eventually happen but wasn’t sure when.  A thing that makes no difference, other then I think about it now when I didn’t before.

People who know me have found me.  More specifically, they’ve found this place.  This writing.

But so far only two, which isn’t such a big thing.  The first I barely, hardly even know, except in passing at a coffeehouse.  I know she works hard and drinks coffee and likes words and has a boyfriend or husband or something whose name just happens to be Keith - which for various reasons is an obvious plus.  But I don’t think that is the reason that Jill found her way to these words.  That wouldn’t be much of a reason at all, would it?

Interestingly, Imaginary Keith and I have almost always had someone in our life whose name was also Keith.  We like Keiths, and imagine the Keiths of the world spaced few and far between, so that to find one of the good ones is a challenge.  Imaginary Keith and I have always enjoyed a good challenge.

And now, just yesterday, someone else found their way here.  But this time it’s someone a tiny bit closer to the core of the matter then a girl in a coffeehouse.  Brian and Imaginary Keith have had conversations and worked together, so to speak.  Imaginary Keith’s task was to redesign and install a pleasing landscape for Brian and his wife, which he did over the course of a couple of months several years ago.  And when Imaginary Keith wasn’t sitting there staring ten years into the future, dreaming of how Japanese maples would arch up and over the edge of the flagstone staircases, or how red thyme would fill a particularly steep slope and grow around an outcropping of rock and burst into a vibrant splash of fuchsia color each spring and frame the softer hues of the azaleas and rhododendrons, or where a boulder should go or how much earth should be moved or a million other things - Brian and Imaginary Keith would talk and get to know each other a bit.

I suppose in time, others will find their way here.  People will follow Imaginary Keith home or ask him politely for the directions, and he’ll just tell them without a second thought.  He’s a great imaginary friend, but he doesn’t know how to keep anything to himself.