Miss Lubov that day was like a little bit of sphere poking through my plane of freshman existence. I was so limited I ought only to have been able to see a set of growing circles but somehow, through her passion and some sort of grace, I actually got to glimpse the shape of something bigger than I’d ever known before.

She said she’d keep my journal for awhile. Maybe I was supposed to visit her that summer. I almost remember where she lived. But we lost touch. I didn’t think it a bad trade to let her have my little journal in exchange for that big chunk of perspective. Even if she wasn’t right I’m glad I got to hear it. I didn’t see her after that. But I didn’t forget her.

Now there she was, three full years later. Those years for me, from age 18 to 21, were outstandingly full and long, years when a three-month relationship seemed permanent, when more events were packed into a season than a middle-aged I can collect in a decade. For Eleanor Lubov Carter they were rich but not frantic. She seemed even wiser.

We were delighted to see each other. I’m sorry, Gail (wherever you are), but I don’t recall her paying you any attention. Perhaps I left and she stayed on and made it up to you? I don’t remember anything after the reading.

We sat on the floor drinking wine and smiling into each others’ faces. I think her husband may have been in the room; I have a vague impression of a short man talking to the guys in the corner by the window. I can recollect Gail perched on the arm of the upholstered brown chair, Jean in the seat of it, Susan leaning over the back. I remember seeing the circular water stain on the hardwood floor, noting the absence of the big Boston fern that stood there for two years. Then Mrs. Carter offered to give me a Tarot reading and I stopped seeing anything else in the room.

“You won’t get it together to write till you’re 40.” That’s what she said to me. I know there was a lot more, although nothing else was as specific.

I was 21 at the time. I wanted to write. I wanted to disregard what she was saying. I didn’t believe in the Tarot anyway. I liked the way the cards looked but I was a rationalist.

“Listen to me,” she said with a serious gray look. “You will write. Of course you can do it before then. But the cards say that only after you are 40 will you really get it together. Hey: you’re going to get it together.”

I remember little else about that evening. Again my journal was mentioned. She still had it. I was invited by to get it. Given another address.

I never went. As far as I know, she still has the old journal. I continue to consider it a fair trade for the strange illumination she brought into my life.

I gave up my ovaries to the surgeon’s knife when I was 35. This body doesn’t know hormonal cycles any more. I suspended my attempts at loving partnership when I was 39. I’d found I wasn’t good at it, and didn’t enjoy it, and no longer needed it. Then I started to write.

This time with perspective. Now with authority. Not a bad bargain.

I wouldn’t be surprised to encounter Eleanor Lubov Carter again. Although the years are less eventful now they proceed with increasing pace. She ought to be by any day.