Initials

I am not sure exactly why, but initials have a strange effect on me.

There’s something delicious in the secrecy of initials on a valentine or bouquet card from a secret admirer, or those jotted flirtily on a note passed in class or slipped into a locker.

Perhaps that's why I also see romance and mystery in initials scrawled in beach sand or carved into an old desk, a wooden beam, a park bench or a tree.

I cannot help but speculate about who left these initials behind. Did they leave the initials of a loved one or their own initials? What were they thinking as they scribbled the initials? How long have the initials been there?

Even graffiti spray painted on overpasses and water towers makes me ponder what would drive someone to crudely scrawl those initials.

Or, if I spot a man with monogrammed cuff links in line ahead of me or seated at a nearby table, then I wonder what the initials stand for and whether the accessories were a gift.

I realize that initials are just two or three letters, but for me these simple symbols serve as a bridge between private and public worlds, new and old worlds, and for me that’s

AWESOME!