The story begins again

I found her.

After 25 years of searching, I finally found her. Life will be very different from now on. Life is already very different. I'll tell you about it.

Her name is Belinda. In ten days, from the very first time I saw her profile on Match, to today, she has suddenly become the center of my life. All these years, I thought someone like her could exist... the odds said that someone, somewhere had to be like her, and so indeed, she does exist.

Even more, she likes me.

She lives in Philadelphia. Originally from Texas, and by way of New York and Colorado, she's finishing up a medical residency and looking ahead to taking up practice. Her father was a well-known classical musician, and her mother an excellent pianist. Belinda plays flute and sings, and her apartment in Philadelphia is home to a nice Baldwin baby grand piano that looks out over the city. She has a Segway.

We met as part of an adventure. I found her profile on Match when doing a search for "Segway," and she was about the only woman who referred to Segway correctly... all the others were misusing "segway" when they meant "segue." Her words practically reached out of the screen and punched me in the face... they were challenging, daring, coy, rich, tempting, elegant. They were properly spelled. Her image was vibrant and attractive, her smile compelling and sexy.

I wrote to her, taking an enormous chance and abandoning the studiously-detached style one often has to take on Match, lest you be thought of as "desperate." I wrote a bright streak of hope, an appeal, a challenge in kind.

Within hours, I had a response. Within a day, we talked on the phone for hours and hours... her voice was dark and elegant, formal in an almost antique way, with an uncommon accent and cadence that made me initially think she might be Canadian or British. The next time we talked, we came up with an adventure: to go to New York to see Christo's "The Gates" before it was taken down after its absurdly short life. We'd take the train up... I from Baltimore, she from Philadelphia, meet and talk on the train, spend the day in New York, then come back.

That was the basic plan.

As it worked out, I took the train from BWI station near Baltimore, all sparks and worries and anticipation, and when she got on the train at Philadelphia's 30th Street Station, I recognized her immediately. We shared a table in the cafe car, and started a high-speed, high-depth talk that didn't flag all day. Belinda had brought a backpack full of interesting things: a flask of good wine, some nice smoked meats and cheeses, some breads, and a cup of raspberries and blueberries to share. By Newark, we had talked about our ex-spouses, our work, a little about our families, and about cats. By Pennsylvania Station in New York, we were all ready to wander the city.

It's 17 blocks from Penn Station to 59th Street, where Central Park begins. It was a breezy, sunny and cold day, and the crush of tourists in Times Square made getting to the park a challenge. As we came to Columbus Circle, though, we could see the Gates -- big orange draped frameworks, thousands of them -- all over the paths in the Park. Thousands of people were there, walking around, looking, taking pictures.

We walked around the park for several hours, as the light got lower and the sunlight on the Gates changed their look minute by minute. We never let up talking with each other, the conversation continuing about our former spouses, about work, about previous trips to New York, about travel, about weather and cats and everything else.

I could not take my eyes off her. She was gorgeous... dark hair, a kind, open face, hazel eyes, and a way of moving that was self-assured, delicate, elegant. I had felt instantly comfortable with her from the first moment on the train hours earlier, and we walked more and more slowly as the afternoon wound down... she went over to talk to some squirrels and offer them an almond from the pocket in her down vest, and it was the most natural thing in the world that when she returned from talking to the squirrels, I kissed her.

She looked thoughtful for a moment, as if she was deciding if she liked it. Apparently she did.

We watched the horse-drawn carriages plodding up the parkways, saw the old carousel turn and heard the old Wurlitzer band organ play, and then decided to go looking for other adventures. We had taken lots of images of the Gates, and had marveled at the sheer scale of it, but we hadn't spent a lot of time speculating about its meaning. We were probably in the minority in that respect... it seemed like everyone, even if they enjoyed it, wondered what the hell it meant.

Leaving Central Park, we wandered down Seventh Avenue to the Ben Ash deli, stopping in to have some hot chocolate and figure out what to do next. The idea of trying to see Avenue Q came up and went down, since we couldn't possibly make our 9:00pm return train fi we saw the show, assuming we could even find tickets. The next idea was to relax a bit at the old Algonquin Hotel, where Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley held court so many years ago. We hiked down Fifth Avenue, and after a quick stop at the Cornell Club (Belinda did her undergrad work at Cornell), we soon found chairs in the Blue Bar at the Algonquin, enjoying a scotch (her) and a martini (me) and having some dim sum.

Lo and behold, Matilda the Algonquin Hotel Cat appeared. A big silky and elegant cat she is, wandering around the lobby checking on everything.

Belinda and I talked for a couple of hours, until it came time to go back to the train. We took a short detour, and as we passed the lions on the steps of the New York Public Library, she suddenly stopped, stepped up on the bottom step, and said, "come here, I want to kiss you." And she did. Right there on the steps of the Public Library, with people wandering by ignoring us, with the bums sleeping on the sidewalk.

And it was great.

We then looked at our watches and realized we were going to be late for the train. We almost literally ran the remaining eight blocks to Penn Station, hustled down the escalator, to discover the train just then boarding, having arrived from Boston a few minutes late. We got on, piled into seats, and collapsed all over each other.

At Philadelphia, it was the most natural thing in the world for me to get off the train with her.

We spent the evening, and all the next day, in her apartment, talking, touching, exploring, crying with each other, laughing, asking questions, telling stories, listening to each other's hearts and minds. I can't remember how we found time to sleep. The next evening, she took me back to 30th Street Station, extracting from me a promise to come up Monday after work, and I got on the train to come home.

The next day, it snowed a lot. I got into work, and when they closed the office at 4, I was on the road in the white Saab, headed for Philadelphia. I finally got up there around 6:30, and she and I took up where we'd left off, as if there had been no break since our last sentences. She made poached salmon for dinner, and we listened to Paul Desmond on the iBook as we had dinner by candlelight in her apartment overlooking the city.

We knew. We knew without even having to say it. We are the ones we have been looking for all our lives. We had both almost given up looking for the other, consoling ourselves with being with someone who was "good enough" but not perfect in the way that we knew we are for each other.

I know what she's thinking. I can feel her energy from a distance, a distance that gets greater the more I know her. I want to wrap every part of her around me and me around her, and not just physically, but mentally, spiritually.

She is the one I always knew was out there, and I have found her. She has found me. We have found... us.

She is my mate. My match. My girl. My love.

It is amazing.

I'm writing about it here just so that I have a record of what this feels like right now. I don't expect you all to understand. It's OK... I understand. I've prepared for this my whole life. It's second nature to me now.

I have found her. And we are just beginning.