Reflections of Connie: Memories of a Sundered Love

By Shawn Michel de Montaigne

Do you remember your first love? Do you remember how it made you feel, how it changed everything for you?

In this bitingly personal essay, Shawn Michel de Montaigne, author of the beloved epic fantasy Melody and the Pier to Forever, takes us back forty years to 1972 and his fourth-grade year at Tavelli Elementary School in Fort Collins, Colorado, and the beautiful girl who would change his life forever.

Her name was Connie. And the love she and Shawn shared would bring into sharp, contrasting relief the serious, crippling dysfunction of his family, as well as the harsh realization, learned many years later, that what so many call love, what so many worship as love, what so many rape and murder and foul and destroy as love is anything but love. The Kingdom of God is a spacious land, wholly unpopulated. It's from that land and by the side of the angel that graced Shawn's life for nine short months that he looks out and forward upon the broader canvas of life. It is a unique viewpoint, made tragically more so by the fact that the angel—Connie—would not remember Shawn or their relationship after that year out of the need to protect the innocence that is the birthright of all children, and which was violated repeatedly by one of her own family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shawn Michel de Montaigne
• Release date: Sep 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301972074

Shawn Michel de Montaigne

I'm a writer, illustrator, and fractalist. A wonderer, wanderer, and an unapologetic introvert. I'm a romantic; I'm inspired by the epic, the authentic, the numinous, and the luminous. Most of all, I'm blessed. I'm very deeply involved with an extraordinary, beautiful woman who has been with me now for a decade. We have forged, through awful times and amazing ones, a life that I feel every morning is worth waking up to and contributing to. I'm interested in connecting with folks who enjoy my art and would like to be part of whichever world or worlds I've discovered and shared. I'm deeply political, philosophical, and opinionated; and I have no patience with manipulators, salespersons, stalkers, bullshit artists, and the psychotic and insane. For that reason, I'm not everyone's cup o' tea. I'm good with that. Most of all, as I said at the beginning, I'm blessed. If you would know anything about me or my attitude as I go through my days, that's the truest and most relevant one.