Corresponding with Sylvia

June 2005

My correspondence with Sylvia was at its best the week I was in Kuwait. We hadn’t met yet, my trip causing the delay. We wrote every night. And what we wrote seemed full of promise.

When you meet someone for the first time, you know within minutes whether a relationship is possible. For me, intimacy is immediate. Something in our communication, our language, spoke of this potential for us.

One night, I wrote:

‘As I sleep, my spirit is free to roam, it knows no boundaries. It could go anywhere, do anything, but it doesn't. Each night it follows the same course, to a room in London. There, it stands guard, its duty to protect the angel that sleeps there. I know not the address, and I cannot describe a single detail of the room, but I am beginning to know a little of the lady herself. I trust my spirit, I know it chooses well. And I know too, that it is guiding me, showing me the way to paradise..........my paradise.’

Another time, she wrote to me:

‘I have read your letter without taking a breath for a minute or even more, and I wouldn’t believe you are real, if I did not have your picture in front, looking down at me with that mysterious little smile, which brightness my day at work.I would love to walk with you in the park, or even the wildest forest. Maybe, if we start walking, the sun will set. In between the fine food and the wine, between the passions and desires, I will dance for you with the rhythm of your breathing….’