An Olive by an Other Name

What exactly is an olive branch?

A friend of mine told me that she recently reached out to someone who was very special to her, to try to close the chasm between them after a really big disagreement caused them to lose touch. So, against her natural inclination to save face, she sent out a peace offering via a flirty little text message and called it an olive branch. The only problem with that was her friend, unfamiliar with the term, called her back later to find out what the heck an olive branch was.

But the point is, he called. Just as she had hoped he would. In the end, he was happy to receive any kind of invitation to renewing a lost romance. And she was more than happy that he accepted it.

So, does it really matter what it's called or even how it's delivered? It could have been a white flag, it could have been a letter sent with a hint of perfume. It could have been anything at all, so long as the sender and recipient both wanted a way out of the stalemate. It seems to me that an olive by any other name, still tastes as sweet.

The same thing just happened to me in a way. I met someone several months ago who I felt an instant spark with. That elusive X-factor if you will. It's a long story that remains utterly unbelievable even to me, but it involves me caught in the middle of a misdemeanor, some Tim Horton's coffee and digits handed over in lieu of an otherwise just fine to fit the crime. But as chance would have it, despite exchanging numbers and staying in touch, it was not meant to be because we both had timing issues and previous commitments. As time passed, we chatted less and less and the spark burned into a cinder that was barely perceptible. I eventually found myself chalking the chance meeting up to a very happy accident and expected nothing more than to be able to look back upon it fondly.

But fast forward six months later, no longer entangled in any commitments, but too pathetic to reach out to my guardian angel for fear that I might have been forgotten, I had given up any hope that the spark could re-ignite. Then somehow, on a Friday night, as I was sitting at home, in my laundry-day sluff wear with my hair pulled back in a raggedy pony tail and looking like I had wandered out of the woods, spending my evening cramming for a test and feeling sorry for myself for not being out living la vide loca somewhere, that's when the surprise happened. Just like the olive branch I had heard about earlier, my cell phone gave way to a tell tale buzzzzzzzz of an incoming text message. Quite certain that it was a text from one of my very dear friends telling me exactly how much fun I was missing somewhere, my jaw dropped and time stood still when I read the following simple but fantastic message: "Hey stranger, how have you been?".

Having devoured the likes of Shakespeare, Robbie Burns and countless other fellow high priests of prose, I am quite certain that these words were not the most musical, the most poetic, or the most expertly crafted, but at the very same time, these may have been the sweetest and the most exciting words I have read...in a very long time. And I grasped that olive branch that was handed out towards me without thought or hesitation and wrote my own little flirty response involving a faux apology for a disappearing act due to a misdemeanour gone terribly wrong without a guardian angel around to set it right.

And as I sit here and type this, enjoying a small plate of olives and all the sweet joys that they promise, I eagerly look forward to my chance to reconnect with an angel sometime next week and all the sweet fruit that may follow.