It was a crapshoot. As a Long Island senior in 1980, I visited only two colleges. SUNY New Paltz was all I had imagined college to be: tweedy green quads, white-bearded professors huddled over teapots in sun-moted offices. So I moved, not too far from family, yet far enough to live, with new rules to configure and old ones to discover as new.

I met my future ex-husband on campus. We Passovered at the Granit, paced the new Hudson Valley Mall with empty pockets, eyes full of each other. Then, after one too many black eyes, I packed up the car and returned to my parents' house, my first solo drive back. When I came back, it was to the Valley, not to him. I liked my job clerking in a classy independent bookstore. I liked the bright, artsy friends I had gathered up. Eventually I created a whole life.

I've adapted to the Valley. I've learned to break for bears. Two years ago I bought a house with wooden walls and a tilted yard. My day job is... well, it allows me a new car, as much seafood as I wish, and calls to my boyfriend in Syracuse every night.

This latest boyfriend (this 'love' thing again) is tied to Central New York by a pair of nine-year-old twins. Where did we meet? Twenty years ago, in the Hudson Valley. He is one of a charmed circle that lit up the Quimby Theatre at UCCC during the Lawson era. Back to visit a year ago last spring, recently separated, he and I had breakfast, exchanged e-mail addresses. The rest is living history.

Will I leap to the unknown North? I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, I'll commute to my lover, and continue to count stars in the Hudson Valley sky, numberless as the kinds of love.

Cheryl Rice is a poet living in the Hudson Valley. She is the founder and host of the Sylvia Plath Bake-Off, held each year in Kingston, perhaps the world's only combination open mic/baked goods competition.