For the entire first year of his acquaintance with her he spent eight hours each day for five days each week working within twenty feet of her. Were one to add these numbers together or multiply them in seemingly obvious ways, one might come to a conclusion about the two of them, but that conclusion would be wrong. One should not feel embarrassed by this misfiguring. The calculus of human interaction is complicated and many of the variables are unknown. In truth, for that entire year he didn't even know her name. He thought he knew her name, but he had misheard it. Her name was actually something else. He worked mechanically among the machines to fulfill customer orders and then handed her binders and folders and books and stacks of warm, smelly printouts. She took them from his hand dozens of times each day. He didn't even know her name.
Dave once suggested to me that psychiatrists, psychologists and counselors are actually always just trying to figure out themselves. In saying this Dave demonstrated a common error, in my opinion. A truth, Dave, is not always a universal truth. Replace "always" with "sometimes" and get rid of "just" and I think you have a nice little truth there. It does not follow, however, that your truth is always applicable. It's not an absolute truth. It's subjective. There is only one absolute in the world, and this sentence is it. (The previous sentence is a formula I've created to replace the tired interchange in which one person says, "There are no absolutes" and another person replies, "Oh really? Are there absolutely no absolutes?" and then turns to high-five his frat buddies.)
Later in life he never felt comfortable when talking about how he met her, working in that little printing shop so many years ago. He always felt strange because, as far as he was concerned, that odd, backwards kid who met her wasn't him. That kid met her and then, together with her, began building the him that stood here today. "I never met her," he wanted to say. "He met her. I, on the other hand, have always known her."
Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Are you?
Love.
