Letters to Marie 1 São Paulo, Brazil July 18, 2018 Sweet Marie I have decided to write to you just to tell you my plans for the future. I plan to have a house in a pleasant place, surrounded by trees, with a large field of the most green grass and nearby a lake. I want to have with me in this house the woman who's the love of my life, two children (a girl and a boy), a furry white cat and a dog. I want to have a big and comfortable couch and a guitar. I really can not play a guitar but I'll learn how to play it just to play for my love. I want to have upstairs in this house a big room with a large windows and two painting easels where she and I are going to painting together, enjoying the sunlight that will come in through the windows everyday of our lifes. She and I are going to grow old in this house and then, in thirty years from today I will go upstairs with our grandson and I'll show him a woman's portrait and tell him: "look, here is my woman. For more than thirty years she was my love, my friend, my accomplice and my inspiration for painting and living. I hope you have the luck of meeting a woman like her and if you have, hold forth her hand and never let she goes away". Then I'll show him your portrait. Forever yours Rubens