Dabs and Chloe
Romance is at the heart of most great novels and movies. It is also still alive in the heart of the country. This is the story of a romance now almost a quarter of a century into its journey--one marked and recorded in miles, landscapes, experiences and letters. Carefully saved letters, notes and postcards penned over the span of years now fill a thick, clothbound journal that strains at the spine and closes only with the help of cloth ties at the side. The letters are in two hands and have been assembled so that the thoughts of the two correspondents can be read independent of the other—one from front to center and then the other from back to center when the book is turned over and around.
The journal chronicles what English poet John Donne referred to in his 16th century writings as “a mingling of souls.” The writings are those of a couple affectionately known to each other as Dabs and Chloe, exchanged at times when they were separated and became what the poet compared to the legs of a compass:
If they be two, they are two so
As stiffe twin compasses are two,
Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’ other do.
September 6, 1977. Supai, AZ 86435. A postcard from Chloe to Dabs begins it all. It pictures travertine pools and blue-green waters at the base of Mooney Falls, and is postmarked with a stamp noting that it traveled from the Havasupai Indian Reservation via the last existing mule train mail in the country. On the card carefully penned in tiny script, she describes the canyon’s isolated beauty and her hope to bring him there one day—
“I look forward to many quiet roads and byways with you, my sweet friend, my reason to wander yonder, to poke and fiddlefoot, easy and slow-go. The narrow canyons I have walked through lead finally to a crystalline jewel waterfall set in reddish-brown stone. Below the falls, water spray mists the dry air, creating a garden of maidenhair ferns untouched by canyon dust. It would be heaven, but you are not here with me.”
Fall, 1977. Los Angeles, CA. Chloe leaves an early morning note on the windshield of Dabs’ car. Their romance is in its early stages, a time when poetry and humor abound. Chloe writes—
“Dearest Friend, I have bought you a St. Bernard. His name is ‘Great Reluctance.’ Now when I must leave you, you will know that I am leaving you with Great Reluctance.”
November 1, 1977. Los Angeles, CA. Dabs learns that his love has never had a nickname. Being a wordsmith at heart, he decides to create one for her. Noting that her license plate, California 200 LQE, he crowns her ‘the last queen of England’ which soon evolves into Chloe. She immediately takes to her new name and soon thereafter pens a note on a postcard of Queen Elizabeth addressed to the giver of the name she still treasures all these years hence—
“To my sweet subject…the subject of my thoughts,
There will always be room for you by my ear. Stay near.
Tell me stories in little bits without ends. That way, there will always be more. Lovingly, CLQE
Spring 1982, The Cottage, Los Angeles, CA. A postcard from Dabs to Chloe is tucked into her luggage, to be read while she is away. It is a Winslow Homer print of a bearded man and young boy in a boat on a pond. A large black and white hunting dog in the water rests his large head in the hands of the old man in the boat. On the card, Dabs reflects on his life with Chloe, not knowing at the time they would one day inhabit a scene much like the one depicted in Homer’s painting. He writes—
“You are forever the axis of my life,
You are the compass, the pen and ink,
The watertight compartment of my ship of experience. Thank you so very much
For caring so much about so many things.”
February 2001, somewhere in Missouri. Almost twenty years later, Dabs and Chloe continue to travel and to write about their romance with the road and with each other. The following note in their journal recalls an unscheduled side trip in 1997 while traveling along Highway 5 near Ava, MO—
“Romance, MO. A town with a great name at the end of Route Y on the map. A place people were drawn to once. Still sweet for some; a disappointment that never lived up to its name for others. Romance. Not always easy to find. Still, a detour worth revisiting.”
February 2024, The Lodge, Grass Valley, CA. Chloe and Kit sit close together in the lobby of the Lodge where Kit has spent the past ten months of rehab and care following a series of falls. For more than an hour they pore over pages in a clothbound book that chronicles the story of their romance. Theirs has been and continues to be a mingling of souls. A romance worthy of revisiting each Valentine’s Day now and forever.
