June 1, 2011

My dearest,

There’s this scene in the film THE HOURS, where Mrs. Dalloway (as played by the redoubtable Meryl Streep) lies on her bed with her daughter by her side, after a day of cleaning up the apartment for a party later in the evening, exhausted in every possible way, and she turns to her daughter and she shares a story about her youth, about what might have been her first love, about finding something so precious and elusive:

I remember one morning getting up at dawn, there was such a sense of possibility. You know, that feeling? And I remember thinking to myself this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And of course there will always be more. It never occurred to me it wasn’t the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment. Right then.

And I turn to look at you, and we are having dinner with two very good friends (one of whom was there to babysit me when we were first separated, barely a week after we started dating, when you had to fly to Australia, and he made sure that I was never sad though I missed you every day till I saw your face again at the arrivals hall; the other is a surprise and a revelation – a legend in her own time – whom I would have never imagined I would encounter much less befriend, and she reminds us what it is like to be joyful, honest, true and of the importance of being able to laugh at ourselves as much as we do with each other) and the jokes fly faster than supermen or speeding bullets (and none of you notice that everyone – the other patrons, the waitresses, even the sushi chef – is staring at us, curious how four people could create such a din as to fill the whole room with glee and guffaws, and I don’t let on, for I know the secret of our mirth and I understand why they would love to join if they could and partake in something so hearty and so good), but for a moment, this moment, I forget the charming conversation and the sparkling wit and I am only looking at you. At you, at you.

I am so in love with you; I’ve never been more. I love you, in this moment, and should it pass, then we would mourn it and move on, and if it doesn’t, then may we grow together, older and wiser, every year doubling in our knowledge of each other, and deeper may the wrinkles on our faces be, every line a witness, a memory.

Which shall pass, we won’t know. We can’t.

But this I know. Right now. This is the moment. This is happiness.

Yours, ever and always.