Yury

8:47 pm

On February 15th, six years ago, I met my husband and the father of my son.  It was a random encounter.  I had just come back from a journey to Costa Rica a week before. I was alone for the second two weeks of my trip.  I was twenty-seven and ready to find a life partner.  My time in Costa Rica I spent traveling and writing in my journal.  I  did not want to make any friends on this trip because I knew that new friends would tear me away from my task.

My task was to redefine my views of love.  I did not know how to meditate at the time.  My meditation came in the form of sitting in the shade on the beach and writing.  My writing was not going to be read.  I wrote my dreams, my fears, and anything that came to mind but most importantly, my first vision of my true mate.

I came back to NY, refreshed and full of life.  Before I left, I made sure to break up with the guy I did not like. I knew it was not going anywhere and I wanted to leave for my trip with no ties.  He did not understand.  He said, well why don’t we just see what happens when you come back, I insisted.  I knew what would happen when I came back.

When I came back, Valentine’s day happened.  The dooms day for all the singles.  After a nice trip to Costa Rica, it did not feel depressing.  I went out with two single lady friends and we had a lovely Valentine’s day dinner in the sea of couples.

The next day, I did something that was out of the ordinary.  I worked from home at the time.  Other then my trips, I was a homebody.  My dear friend Kristianne was staying with me.  She finished law school in New Orleans and wanted to move to NY.  She was living in my apartment and was sharing my bed.  Every day she took her laptop to a cute Japanese cafe, Supercore, nearby to look for jobs.  She did it like a job.  On this day, I decided to join her.  I was preparing a drawing for an FIT class so I took my giant pad with me.  All the tables at the cafe were small, except for one table by the window.  I asked the boy, if it was ok for me to sit there.  He said yes.  I did not notice him until I sat down.

He had a stack of papers and a white iBook.  He was looking at his computer screen and his papers.  I was looking at my drawing and at him.  He was positioned directly by the window so to look at the window I had to look at him.  I liked his face.  A thought flashed in my head of our wedding together.  The next thought was, I am crazy.  I walk out of the house and instantly, I am picking out husbands?  I could not believe how unfocused I was.  I went back to drawing but I could not stop my mind.

He had a Jewish face, I thought.  His face was interesting, he was attractive but not boring attractive, interesting attractive.  I decided to do an experiment.  If I thought “Talk to me” long enough, would he talk to me?  Talk to me, talk to me, talk to me.  He did not talk to me.

My phone rang, I picked it up.  The voice said, “Privet!” (hi in Russian).  Privet, I said, kak dela?  I did not know who it was at first.  It was Coco, a girl from my FIT class who I was supposed to meet later that afternoon.  She wanted to buy jewelry from me.  She told me before that she studied Russian in High School, but I never heard her speak until that day when she called me.

I do not know how long we sat there.  Talk to me, Talk to me, talk to me.  He started packing up his stuff.  Oh well, I guess he is not going to talk to me.  That got me focused on my work again.  The thought of talking to him first did not even cross my mind.  I guess I was not as brave as I am now.  Now I think, I would talk to him.

As he walked by me with his back pack in hand, he said,

“Are you a graphic designer?”

“No, I am a jewelry designer.”

Our conversation was easy.  I do not remember it.  We jumped through few topics.  We landed on studio spaces.  I was looking for one and he was working at one that had space.  This was a good excuse to exchange information.  He wrote down his email address and phone number and handed it to me.  Until then, I did not know his name.  I looked down and it said, “Yury”.

“Yury?” I said, laughing.  Your name is Yury?

My name is Olia.

That sealed it.  He knew I was Russian, he heard me on the phone with my American friend, of all people. He told me later, that he was collecting his cards but he was not going to show them.  The last one, was an Ace –Yury.

… bo be continued

9:27 pm, 9:13 pm

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