“The Tide Of Love Has Risen So High let me flood over you.”  — Hafiz

This Sunday is June 12, our sixth wedding anniversary. I take it for granted that I will leave the world before Maria, she is 17 years younger than I am. But I had a dream last week in which she died first, and I was reminded of something people rarely talk about: it is wonderful to find the truest kind of love, but the dark side of that is you finally have something to lose that seems unbearable.

It was an upsetting dream, a morbid dream. Maria has had several like it, only I die. I do  not, of course, know how I would handle such a thing, although I do know a number of strong and brave people who have survived it and moved on. The dream reminded me how much I love Maria and how my life changed so completely after we met and  fell in love.

Six years ago, I could not have imagined the life I have now, and she is such a big part of it. I always wanted to find love, but I never knew what a difference it would make in my life, that part really shocks me every time I think about it. I think meeting her saved my life, and finally gave it some authentic direction.

We encourage and support one another every day and have built our own palace of love and trust. It is modest by many standards but glorious to us.

What can really be said about love that is new? The greatest poets and writers and painters on earth have portrayed love in so many different ways. For me, love is connection, a fusing of the souls, a ballet of love and encouragement. It gives me strength to know such a person can love me, it tells me finally, and at long last, that I must be a good and worthy person to receive such a gift.

Maria is the sweetest and most genuine person I have ever known, and also the most passionate and gifted. We are so different yet we seem to see the world in the same way.

For the first time in six years, we are not going anywhere for our anniversary, no inns or treks to the water or to New York City. We want to be at home, with one another, on the farm, with the animals. We plan to go to a nursery in Vermont and buy a shade tree to plant and replace the one that fell over onto the pasture fence last year.

I got Maria a small gift, she will yell at me for getting it,  but she will also like it. She will have made something quite wonderful for me, there is no boundary between her art and her life, and that includes me. She never stops being an artist, and I suppose I never stop being a writer.

I plan to write on this blog on my anniversary.

It’s a good thing we are both like that, otherwise we might drive each other mad.

So Sunday we might go to brunch at the Round House, then head out to choose our tree, and then spend the afternoon planting it, sitting and talking, visiting with the animals, tending and watering our gardens.

Sunday will be one of the best days of my life, as it has been for the past six years. More gratitude than I can express, with all of my words.

I hope to take a few minutes to remember our wedding, in the big old barn at Bedlam Farm, the big doors wide open, a misty rain falling, we were attended by donkeys and dogs and bewildered relatives and many friends.

Like the poet wrote, I know the ecstasy of the falcon’s wings, when they make love against the sky, and the sun and the moon sometimes argue over who will tuck me in at night.

If you think I am happier and having more fun than anyone on this planet, you are absolutely correct.