Words from a notebook

My home is scattered with notebooks and sketchbooks. Some are still blank, waiting to be filled. Others are dotted - or clotted - with half-baked ideas and images. Projects abandoned, ideas scribbled, threads lost. But when I reopen one of these used books, I often find rough, but fundamentally good concepts and wonder why I ditched them. Once in a while, I just find lines of hurried text and I can't remember where I was when I wrote them. And sometimes, I can't quite read my own handwriting. Meanings get muddled and changed.

I just opened a small, fat, green notebook, looking for blank pages to jot down some expectations I have about my health and what exercise I'm doing daily. Turning through page after page of conference call doodles and car accident information (far too much of that!) I came to an empty page at last.

Facing that first empty page were these words:

I can't see the face of the guy across from me - hidden by mirror - but he has the sexiest voice and good shoes.

But, on my initial squinty reading of my crabbed writing, I thought it read "he has the secret voice and good shoes."

And I sat here, trying to remember this moment, and wondered, just what was this secret voice? How did he use it? Will I ever hear it again?

Then, I squinted, and saw my mistake. Ah! Sexiest voice and good shoes. Got it.

But it was less mysterious. Less interesting.

I like my erroneous read better. I like the thought of a man with a secret voice. One only I could hear. There's some strange power there.

I'd like to hear it again.

Must have been a helluva pair of shoes, too.