AS LONG AS I LIVED ON THE ISLAND, I KEPT THINKING that I would be able to break through the isolation and find him on the other side.

We recognized so much in each other. Perhaps we were too much alike.

Sometimes he said that we were.

I used to dream about a great togetherness and was sure that we could achieve it.

But with the break came the final isolation—and I knew it would never happen.

And then something broke inside me.

The girl within me wept and wept. She made all of me, who after all was thirty, into a little thirteen-year-old again.

Until I had no more tears. and realized it was impossible to live as if my life could only be fulfilled through another person. Pointless to seek refuge in someone else from what was my loneliness and insecurity.

Ingmar was no longer in my life as before. That was a fact, and nothing could alter it.

But I still had myself, contact with my own being, everything in me that wanted to continue onward.

I missed Ingmar’s daily presence, but I knew I had his friendship and it was up to me, who at that moment needed it most, to find a new point of contact at which we could both meet.

With all the power I owned, I built a bridge between us, and after that everything was better.

For a time we used to phone each other several times a day. I read him pieces of my old compositions. He played me his favorite records.

Love has many faces.