LETTER TO SAM DECKER, JUNE 1953: My Dearest Darling, I did it. After all these months of writing and planning and worrying, getting on that bus was the second-hardest thing I’ve ever done. The hardest was telling Father that instead of enrolling at Ursuline College, as he and Mother expected, I plan to attend photography classes at the New School. It’s funny: since I was little, I knew I was meant to live differently from others, I just wasn’t sure how or why. And so I earned decent grades and washed the dishes and ironed my skirts and spoke in turn, which led people to see me as a “good” girl, when really I was just waiting for that different life to reveal itself. Just as I was beginning to worry that waiting was all there would ever be, I picked up a camera—but you know this already. You’re the only one who understands when I say that making pictures makes me fully and truly myself.

Thanks so much for the early anniversary present. I know how much we both like to complain about the mail but this time, at least, the army came through because it arrived the week before I left for New York. I don’t have pierced ears, but they’re such lovely earrings that I may need to change that so I can wear them properly—perhaps in time for our actual anniversary two months from now, especially if you’re back by then and we can celebrate together. In the meantime, they make marvelous pins to fasten to my blouse. Whenever I look at them, I imagine I was with you in Kyoto during those five days on leave. It’s hard to believe it’s only been ten months since my first letter introduced you to a certain Camera Club member who spent her junior year admiring you and your prints without ever saying hello. Even as I rue the distance between here and Korea, I cannot avoid the strange truth of us: had you stayed in Cleveland, I’d never have summoned the courage to make any introductions at all. If you hadn’t enlisted, we’d still be strangers, and I would probably be pinning an Ursuline pennant to my bedroom wall.