When you live with Maria – I am very lucky to live with Maria – beautiful things appear on windowsills and frames. I never see her put them there, and I never see her remove them, I just look up and see something that personifies grace and affirmation. I think of this flower as reaching for the sky, as I am reaching for the sky. I met someone tonight who was telling me about all of the money he had in the bank, and he was going to buy a boat this summer and take  his wife on a sail down the coast for a month, and then find a house on the coast of Maine to buy and live in. I did feel a pang of jealousy – I would love to do those things for Maria as she would perhaps love to do them for me.

But then I thought of my life and despite the turns in the road, I wouldn’t trade a minute of it for time anywhere else or make any different choices for a million dollars. I’d love to have a boat but I have also learned you don’t need a boat to be happy. I am just as happy walking with Maria and the dogs in the woods, just as excited by our plans to weed and hang around together and go get some Vietnamese food in Williamstown, Mass. That is a big lesson for me, and I have learned it. I wish my friend a good trip, I hope he is happy. It sounds wonderful.