Dear Stuart,
A few weeks shy of our third anniversary, we went to the Catskills, to what I can’t help thinking of as “our” cottage, and the best thing about our vacation was all the talking we did. And I mean, we’re normally pretty talkative but that week, I feel like we talked about literally everything. We talked about planets and chipmunks and raising teenagers and first loves and writing and ambition and family and dog names and weather patterns and that’s just what I remember from our nights outside under the inky black sky, drinking wine and trying to figure out which one was the North Star.
We talked so much out in the garden, and on our drives into and around the mountains. I remember, at one point, we started talking about fate. I said at the time, I don’t believe in fate, so I’ve had a hard time explaining us to myself. If I don’t believe in destiny, does that mean it’s absolute chance that we met? Can I really give no credit to anything but dumb luck, that I met the perfect man for me out of all the millions of people in the world?
How does dumb luck explain us?
Two nights before we met, I was in Brazil. I had recently, for the millionth time, made a stupid choice about a boy. I sat on my friend’s balcony smoking a cigarette and I remember clearly, SO clearly, telling myself something very profound and true. I said, Universe, that is enough. I am done with stupid boys and my stupidity regarding them. Here’s the deal, Universe, I’ll wait. I remember saying those words to myself. I will wait until you find me a decent man to love and cherish and honor but until then I am done road-testing them. This one, I said, you’ve got to show me up front that he’s right before I even so much as bat an eyelash. And then I went to bed and flew to New York the next day. And met you.
Now, I know it might seem hard to believe, but I already loved you before I batted my eyelashes at you, five days after this conversation with the Universe in Brazil. I loved the way you’d come into New York like a true explorer, taking the subway and a bus to Shiv’s apartment from the airport in a city you didn’t know. I loved how you’d argued with me about Hemingway twenty minutes after meeting me. I loved how you delighted in ordering Chinese food and I loved how your first day here, you walked from Park Slope to Times Square just to get the lay of the land. And I loved how you bought me a book that day, simply because you thought I’d like it.
So was it dumb luck? Is there a fate, a destiny? Or is the Universe inside of me, a part of me, and it was simply a matter of admitting to myself that I needed to be looking for the right person and not just a right person?
I don’t know. I think I believe both, contradictory though it may be. I powerfully believe that we met right when we were ready for this impact and no sooner and no later. I believe we met by chance but knew each other by design. But I also believe that something true and profound happened to me when I addressed the Universe, either within or without myself. And I know, crazily, that I promised to be patient with myself and my desires, and then was engaged less than two weeks later.
So, there’s no way to know if it was sheer chance or, as Barrie would say, b’shert. I know that something – perhaps some combination of the two – brought you into my life and me into yours, and damnit if we were going to let some tiny concern like Continents or Time or Sanity get in our way. And I know that we were right to trust ourselves and jump. I hold that truth to be self-evident – contrary to all logic, we were right. I just don’t know who to thank for that.
But I know that I fell in love with you, Stuart, and whatever forces I have to thank for that, then my offering of gratitude is this: every day and every conversation and every kiss and every hurdle and every victory and every sweet goodnight. I am not a spiritual woman but I know you are the one man in all the world for me and I am the one woman for you. So if it’s fate or luck, I’m equally grateful.
Happy, happy, happy anniversary. I love you.

Kaaterskill creek, September 2007.

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