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Searching for John Wood

A love story with no ending....yet....

by M.L. Danielle Daoust

September, 1976, we’re landed and breathing finally in a friendly family co-op.... . Still reeling after a horrendous move cross country ended an intense 4-year relationship that turned out to be intensely awful. I was a deep yellow and utterly exhausted with the hepatitis that had reoccurred through the ugliness of the summer. And alone in a new city with a desperately frightened 6 year-old in tow... Not a pretty picture... But he sure was.... Beautifully tanned, sandy blond curls poking out from under his cap, sparkling blue eyes, wonderful dimples and a smile that wouldn’t stop. He could have stepped out of a magazine. He was a charmer all right, and I definitely agreed with my new roommate, Renee that he’d make a good addition to our household, even if it was just for a few weeks... worth it to have this gorgeous body traipsing around the house.

He’d already picked up my spirits.John was a bush pilot, in Edmonton for a few weeks on a fire-fighting run. He loved the scary kind of flying that made my heart sink. He was a crop-duster and water-bomber and for the next nine years I never knew when I might hear from him or where he might be, or even how to find him.... It didn’t really matter. Right from the start, this was one of those special relationships that you just leave alone and float with... He noticed immediately that I was ill. Within a week of moving in, he was rushing home evenings, "get your coat lady, you need a break" and off we’d go to some local haunt to find some laughter and good conversation. The few weeks in Edmonton stretched into a few months, and soon I was sneaking home on my lunch hours to get hot and sweaty in the only time we could grab to really be alone. It was wonderful. Perfect. No strings or expectations, just a beautiful love affair.He moved on and so did I, sort of. John had itchy feet, so I never knew if he’d be arriving next from a sailing jaunt in Jamaica, or from delivering CARE packages in Africa or from crop-dusting in the Maritimes. In the meantime, I set about getting life in order for me and my son and was on the move with my career - Edmonton proved to be a great place to make progress. Once or twice a year, sometimes more often, sometimes less, John would arrive at my door with his bag in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other, "Danielle, I’ve got a thousand questions for you...." and so it would begin again.We always talked long into the night on those first nights together. He understood me better than any other man I had known, "I know what you’re on about, Danielle, it’s power you want, but you’d be too afraid to call it that, you’ll call it control." Yes, he knew me well. He encouraged me and laughed with me and refused to let me get lost in my pain. He was healing....Around midnight I’d notice him making love to me with his eyes, but he still had at least three hundred more questions... so the conversation continued, eyes boring deep into the other’s soul... now moving to be touching, stretched out on the floor, caressing, talking, touching, feeling, reaching into and knowing the other once more.... Perfect. Perfect heaven. Somewhere around three in the morning, we’d find ourselves so tightly wound into each other that we’d literally trip over each other getting into bed.John was a wild man, he brought out the wild woman in me.... what more can I say about those nights of blessed freedom, the moments of pure joy, the connections so true?

He’d always drive me to the office the next morning.... I never questioned this part of our routine together until the day he told me: "I love seeing you change into Danielle, The Career Woman as you walk in the door of the office - I love knowing how smart you are and that only I know the real you, the one who’s been fucking her brains out with me all night." And I loved his knowing me this way...

Searching First for Me....

There was only one blip. It started when John dashed in for a fast two-day visit, just bursting, "Danielle, it’s been seven years that I’ve been running back to Edmonton just to catch some time with you, don’t you think we ought to do something about it?" We were both free to marry from the beginning of the relationship, it had just never come up. But now that I thought of it, I realized that Us As A Couple really wasn’t a very good idea. "John, things are perfect as they are, why would we want to ruin a good thing?" We fought for several months after that and then didn’t see each other for almost a year.As the years had passed, I’d gained my freedom in lots of ways... I had mended my broken heart, dealt with my fourth spinal fusion, regrouped after losing everything in a house fire, launched a soaring consulting career... All this and more, alone, with no one but a few friends to see me through... and John arriving every few months to perk me up. But he was never there in the really bad times. I didn’t think he could be. And I knew he had a secret that he couldn’t quite bring himself to tell me...But he couldn’t stay away. Somehow we talked it through, regained our balance, chalked the whole time up to "the middle-aged crazies" and got back to simply loving each other again. Perhaps John had foreseen the future for us.... we had always been tuned in psychically to each other. I could usually tell where he was generally on the globe, how he was doing, when he was thinking of me, and when he’d be back...Nine years into the relationship, the fateful phone call came. I was being transferred to Boston. Within the month, I was gone. No way and no one to leave word for John. It was over.

Searching Now for John Wood

I was sitting in the doctor’s office waiting for my son, one June afternoon of the following year when I "heard" him arrive in Edmonton to find me gone. His voice was so strong in my head that I ran out to the car so I could focus, to tune into him psychically.... John roaring, angry as I had never heard him - "Danielle, where the f.... are you? Why did you go, what are we supposed to do now? How am I supposed to find you?" He never expected me to leave Edmonton, never thought I might not be there when he returned one day, never thought to make it easy for me to find him.... so it was over. As easily and simply as it had begun.In the heat of passion one night, John made this promise: "Danielle, when you’re 87 and I’m 84, I’ll come sidling along beside your yacht one day in my rubber dinghy, and you’ll still jump over the side to be with me." He was right... some twenty odd years later, I’m still searching for John Wood....and wondering if he’s searching for me....

Here’s his description: Now about 57 years old, a Libra, originally from Regina, Sask., now probably on the west coast or somewhere warm, sunny and dry... His father taught economics at the University in Regina. He’s about 5’11", blue eyes, sandy blond hair, probably not that much left of it by now, but I expect he’s still got a great bod, with skin that’s soft as a babe’s, and well-tanned! He had been in advertising, but spent most of his younger years as a pilot. When I last saw him, he was planning to retire from flying to get into art dealing on Vancouver Island. One friend thought she had heard of him selling art at a flea market or some such in Victoria.

If you run into him, tell him Danielle’s been searching for him.... and give him my phone number... I’ll be grateful....and maybe he will be too! Then drop me a note!

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