41. ETERNAL SPRING

You were sitting on a huge log among 20,000 people

On the biggest nude beach in North America

The most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life.

I didn't know if you would even talk to me

In your beautiful French accent

That day twenty-two years ago.

You did more than talk to me.

You became the best part of my life.

You walked beside me on all my travels

We built a shack on a sea coast and lived there a year

We hitchhiked to Alaska and wintered out-of-doors!

We spent a year in the forests of Vermont in a log cabin.

We bicycled across Canada, coast to coast.

We bicycled Mexico to Canada along highway 101.

We created the Bicycle Bus

To travel around fixing bikes on Indian reservations

And tiny towns.

We love hotsprings.

You were my first model

You are my best friend

You love these wonderful sisters I photograph

You fix coffee for us while we work.

The other side is

You have endured undeserved hardships --

This road has not always been kind to us...

But we have weathered all storms

Side by side.

Thank you for everything.

The beauty of your heart

Fills me like an

Eternal Spring.