I met Maria one very particular evening in Berkeley, when several people had gathered for a meeting at my home. I remember that the doorbell had rung, and that I had opened the door to find her standing there alone on my porch, smiling at me rather hesitatingly, like a stranger about to meet a stranger. I remember that I recognized her with an amazing certainty, immediately: this woman— whoever she was— was to become my wife, for the remainder of my life.
We didn’t speak much at that moment, outside of the formalities at the door as I relieved her of her coat and guided her ahead into the meeting that was already quickly getting underway. Throughout the evening my eyes would drift towards this stranger, astonished, wondering at my certainty of her— whoever she was. I studied her, and myself: why this woman, and why now? I was happily single, busy with my practice and with raising a daughter, and with my rock opera now finally in production over in San Francisco. Why did she have to show up now?
But my questions could not ignore the fact that she was indeed finally here, in my life— whoever she was. During a break she introduced herself to someone else within earshot, and I listened closely to learn as much as I could about her, circling her but too timid to interrupt the conversation I was eavesdropping upon.
She was telling the story of a hike she had taken the day before, out near the coast, following the dry bed of a stream to where a waterfall had once emptied into a now vacant pool. When I heard how she had positioned herself, crossing her legs— where the water would have fallen— and had closed her eyes to meditate upon and within the memory of the waterfall— experiencing its flow about her— I understood why I would marry her.
And then I heard the impossible: already she had sold and given almost everything she owned away, because she had been accepted at a school in San Diego, at the other end of California, and was leaving very soon, in a matter of days. That could not be true, I thought— at least, I could not let that be true.
The meeting was breaking up, however, and I realized I would have to think fast if what I knew must take place would take place. I asked if I could walk her to the car, it being late at night by now, and she agreed. As we walked up the block I kept thinking frantically: what do I do now? what do I say now? —and as she unlocked her car and paused to say goodnight, goodby, I stammered out the only thing I could think: “could we meet for coffee tomorrow?” And then I quickly added, “—because I want to learn more about you— because I love you.”
There was a sharp intake of breath, a gasp, hers as well as my own, as we each stood there staring at one another, astonished at what I had just said. And then she slowly, very slowly, smiled again and said the wonderful thing: “That would be nice.”
Maria tells a different story about the following days but, as I remember, we did meet the following day for coffee— although she drank tea— and I asked her all kinds of questions, wanting to learn everything I could about her but also just wanting to hear her musical voice. As the afternoon stretched out towards the evening I asked if she would like to go to dinner at a French restaurant nearby, and to a performance of my rock opera afterwards.
That wonderful night lasted well into the next morning, when I told her about the promise I had made my daughter: that I would not ask a woman to live with us unless we married— and would she come live with us, and marry me? A heartbeat later she said she would. Twenty-five years have passed since that encounter, rich, hard and wonderful years in which we raised our family up here in the country where I was raised a half century before; and I am grateful, so very grateful, for the time we have been together.