because in 1974 I went to Bryn Mawr (PA) train station in the late afternoon.
I had graduated from nearby Haverford College in 1973, and was living in the area. I was on the way to a friend in Philadelphia for a party, and thought I'd wander around Center City for a while. I had stopped by Bryn Mawr College to chat with another friend, and then walked to the station.
It was a warm afternoon, almost Indian Summer, but not too hot.
As I stood on the platform, a familiar figure walked by me without saying anything.
I called to her, someone I knew slightly from attending the same church, teasing her for not saying hello. She came over and we began to chat. She had been visiting her sister, a senior at the prep school from which she had graduated a few months earlier. She was heading home, which required her to go into Philly and then catch another train out to the small town in which she lived. But the train for which we were waiting was late, and she would miss her connection.
And so it began, the now 36-year relationship that defines my life.
When we realized she was going to miss her connection I suggested she not change at 30th Street but come in to Center City with me, where I'd buy her a cup of coffee and a piece of pie. We did, and we chatted for perhaps 40 minutes before I walked her to the next train to her home.
She was - and is - remarkable in her intelligence. In this, our first extended conversation, I found out how remarkable she was, not only in her intelligence, but as a person. I had wondered about that when I first saw her almost 2 years earlier when she came into a music class with the wife of one of our German professors. She did not believe me when I told her that was when I first noticed her, but when I described what she had been wearing, she was surprised and acknowledged my description was accurate.
Today is personal, although today we will not be together, as she is in TN and I have back to school night.
Yesterday one of my AP students asked how I had met my wife - adolescents are funny: in exposing their curiosity about a teacher they are indicating their willingness to engage beyond the requirements of class, they are beginning to trust, knowing that if I respond to such a question it changes our relationship in such a way. When I answer I am indicating that I trust them, and am equally interested in knowing about them.
Leaves was 17, having completed high school a year ahead of herself, just as had I in 1963. Yep, I was almost 11 years older, having turned 28 in May to her 17 the January before that. When they hear that, my kids are always amazed, and tease me. Thinking back, I am amazed as well.
And yet, not really. I had been watching her at church, as her mother and next oldest sibling had noticed. She had not. She had not yet discovered boys, having been focused on poetry and art and most of all ballet. In fact, it was because of ballet that we met one another at that train station. She was taking a year off before attending Harvard to seriously study ballet, at which she was gifted, although in some ways she was unsuited: she had a mind she wanted to use, and she had curves that most ballet dancers lacked. In our first passing conversation a few months earlier at Easter, at about 2 AM or so, I had asked when she planned to discover boys and she told me that it would be when she got to Harvard.
I guess she never did. At 28 I really didn't qualify as a boy, despite some boyish qualities.
The following Friday would be our first formal date, September 27, 1974. She was apartment sitting for the same faculty couple. I walked her to dinner at a restaurant where we had hamburgers, then pack to the apartment where we talked about music (I played some Bach), and poetry (I introduced her to William Blake). I found myself fascinated by this young lady, who it turns out knew more about Beethoven than I did.
Within a few weeks I was head over heels . . . I stepped back a bit, explaining that I did not want to overwhelm her. At first she was confused. For several days we did not talk, because I was giving her room. I stayed in touch checking in by phone with her mother.
Then one evening I was calling from a pay phone at a bar in Bryn Mawr that was a hangout for Villanova students. It was noisy, but her mother asked me to hang on and got her daughter, who informed me that she loved me.
It was almost a mile to the room I was renting in a house in Rosemont, all uphill. It did not matter. I do not remember my feet touching the ground.
On Monday we will celebrate again our first date. That is sacred.
Today? We will be almost 500 miles apart. We will be separated by different responsibilities, her working on turning her dissertation into a book, taking breaks by mountain walks, me teaching and then meeting my parents at Back to School Night.
There are many websites to which I can go to read about events of this days, births and deaths of famous people.
I do not need to know about those.
Today is personal.
Today marks 36 years since we began our relationship.
Today Leaves on the Current officially entered my life.
Thanks for letting me remember, and share it with you.
Peace.