Latest / My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story / My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 49: The Hunger

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My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 49: The Hunger · My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story

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My playful wife. God. You did this for two weeks.
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For me. I don't think I ever fully understood
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the size of it until now, doing it myself for
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her. It's the size of love that doesn't make
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itself the center. I said. You taught me that,
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actually. The hunger came back for Taro in the
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summer. in the shape of a man with very white
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teeth and a very fast plan, and Saloni did the
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hardest thing a teacher does, which is nothing
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at all. He found terror the way these people
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find the gifted young, at a small showing, a
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little exhibition of student work where her pieces
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had stood out, as her pieces will always stand
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out. He ran one of the new labels, the fast,
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bright ones, the kind that does a drop and a
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launch and a collaboration and a viral moment,
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all velocity and noise and the particular gloss
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of the present tense. And he offered Tara, more
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or less on the spot, the thing her hunger had
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been starving for since the day she walked into
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Celony's slow, quiet workshop. Speed. A name
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now. Her designs in production within months
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instead of years. visibility, a following, the
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swift descent, the skipping of the whole long
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apprenticeship in favor of being immediately
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someone. We'll make you a star, he said, and
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he probably could, and Tara came to the workshop
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the next morning vibrating with it, lit up, torn
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down the middle, and laid it on Saloni's table
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the way you lay down a thing you are half hoping
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will be taken out of your hands. I have noticed
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that the young carry their temptations to their
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teachers the way children carry a frightening
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object to a parent. Not always wanting it removed,
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exactly, but wanting it held by someone bigger,
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wanting the weight of the decision shared, or
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better, yet lifted entirely off them. There is
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a real relief on offer in being told what to
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do and the hungry and the overwhelmed reach for
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it constantly, mistaking the relief for guidance.
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Terra had come hoping, half -consciously, that
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Celonie would take the thing out of her hands,
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would forbid it, or bless it, or in some way
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decide it, so that whatever happened next would
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not be wholly hers to own. It is the most natural
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wish in the world, and it is exactly the wish
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a good teacher must refuse to satisfy. And Celonie?
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who had spent a season teaching this girl to
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hear, who had poured herself into those young
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hands, who did not want to lose her and believed
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with her whole experienced heart that the man
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with the white teeth was offering a beautiful,
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fast emptiness, Saloni took her thumb off the
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scale. I watched her do it, because Tara had
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come on a morning I was there. bringing chai,
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doing my edge -of -the -room thing, and I had
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the strange privilege of watching my wife give
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to her apprentice the exact gift I had given
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my wife across the fortnight of the Empire, the
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gift she had called the loudest love she'd ever
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been given, the clean, unweighted space, the
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refusal to steer, the discipline of wanting nothing
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for the other person but their own true answer.
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She did not tell Tara not to take it. Every instinct
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in the room was screaming at her, too. I could
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see it, the older woman's certain knowledge that
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the fast, bright thing was a trap, that the speed
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was a kind of theft, that the man would use the
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girl's gift to sell cheap, fast things and discard
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her in three years with her name spent and her
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hands never properly trained. Saloni knew all
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of that, knew it the way she knows the bias of
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a cloth, and she did not say a word of it. Because
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she understood, having learned it from the other
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side, having been the one held in a clean room
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while she decided about the Empire, that if she
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told Terra what to do, she would rob the girl
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of the only thing that mattered, which was making
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the choice herself, in her own hands, by her
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own ear. A young maker talked out of a mistake
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by her master has not learned anything. She has
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only obeyed. And a young maker talked out of
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a true desire she actually had has been wounded,
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made smaller, taught that her own hunger is not
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to be trusted. Selene would not do either. She
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would hold the space and trust the lesson. I
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understood, watching her hold it, that this is
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the part of teaching no one sees and everyone
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underestimates, the sheer nerve it takes to stake
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a young person's future on the lesson you planted
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and then refuse to protect your investment. Anyone
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can pour knowledge into a student. The rare and
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frightening thing is to pour it in and then let
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go, to send the knowledge out to be tested by
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a choice you cannot control, to risk watching
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everything you gave get overridden in a single
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hungry afternoon by a man with white teeth. Celonie
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had given Tara an ear. Now she had to trust the
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ear, against her own terror, with no way to make
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the girl use it. That is faith. The working kind,
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the kind with skin in it. That's a real offer,
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she said carefully, giving it its full weight,
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refusing to make it small so it would be easier
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to refuse. It's exciting. It's a lot of what
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you came here wanting, speed, a name, reach,
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soon. I'm not going to tell you it's nothing.
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It isn't nothing. She looked at the girl steadily.
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I'm also not going to tell you what to do. I
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want you to tell me what to do, Tara said, almost
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desperate, and I recognized the desperation because
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it was Saloni's own, three nights into the Empire
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fortnight, point blank across our kitchen table.
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Tell me what to do. I know you do, Saloni said
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gently, and that's exactly why I won't. You don't
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need my answer. You have your own ear now. You
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found it on the ninth day. With the dull cloth.
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So use it. That's the whole test, Tara. The only
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one that matters. And it's not a test of the
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offer. It's a test of whether you can hear yourself
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over the noise of wanting. Take the offer somewhere
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quiet. Sit with it the way you sat with the cloth.
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And listen for whether it goes quiet or whether
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it just keeps talking, keeps selling itself,
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keeps needing you to be impressed. You know how
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to do this now. I taught you how to do this.
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So go and do it, and don't come back and ask
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me. Come back and tell me. She went away with
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it for two days. Saloni said nothing, made the
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workshop quiet around the girls wrestling, gave
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her exactly the conditions she had once been
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given, and went home each night, and was, I could
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see, quietly tormented by the not knowing and
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the not staring. the way I had been tormented
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across her own fortnight. It's unbearable, she
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said to me on the sofa, the second night, with
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a rueful astonishment. Now I understand what
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you went through. You wanted to put your thumb
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on it so badly, didn't you? Every minute. Because
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you could see, you were sure you could see which
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way was true, and you had to just sit on your
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hands and let me find it myself on no evidence
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with no help at the risk that I'd choose the
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thing you were sure was wrong. She shook her
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head. I'm doing it now, and it's the hardest
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thing. I could lose her. She could take the fast,
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bright thing and burn out in three years, and
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I'll have watched it coming and said nothing.
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And I still can't say anything, because the saying
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would ruin the only thing worth giving her. God.
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You did this for two weeks. For me. I don't think
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I ever fully understood the size of it until
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now, doing it myself for her. It's the size of
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love that doesn't make itself the center, I said.
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You taught me that, actually. By doing it back.
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Took us a while to get here. where we can each
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give the other the clean room. Now you're giving
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it to a third person. That's the whole thing
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spreading. Tara came back on the third day, and
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she had been crying, and she had decided, and
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she told it to Celonie in the workshop with me
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at the Edge, and I have it nearly word for word
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because it was, in its small way, one of the
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most moving things I have witnessed a young person
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taught to hear hearing. There is a specific beauty
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in watching someone use, for the first time and
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entirely on their own, a capacity you watch them
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acquire, like seeing a child who learned to swim
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in the shallows strike out, unaided, across deep
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water. Terra had learned to listen to a dull
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cloth in a quiet room with her master nearby.
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Now she had taken the listening out into the
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loud world, alone, and pointed it at the brightest,
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fastest, Most seductive thing that world had
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ever offered her, and it had worked. The ear
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had held. She had heard the true under the noise
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with no one standing beside her to confirm it.
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That is the moment a lesson stops being the teacher's
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and becomes the student's. I was watching it
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happen, and I have rarely felt more privileged
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to be standing at the edge of a room. It keeps
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talking, she said. The offer. I did what you
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said. I took it somewhere quiet and I sat with
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it the way I sat with the cloth and I listened
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for it to go quiet the way the cloth went quiet
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on the ninth day and it never did. It just keeps
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selling itself. It keeps showing me the followers
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and the launch and the speed and how everyone
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would finally know my name. It's so loud. And
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I finally heard that the loudness is the answer.
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That if it were true for me, it would have gone
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quiet by now. And it hasn't. It's still shouting.
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And the shouting means it's the bright, fast,
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empty thing. And not the true thing. At least
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not the true thing for me. She wiped her face.
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I'm not taking it. I'm staying. I'm going to
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do the slow apprenticeship and learn my hands
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properly and probably watch three people I trained
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with become famous before I finish learning to
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cut. And it's going to be hard. And I'm choosing
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it anyway because I listened and the slow true
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thing went quiet and the fast bright thing wouldn't
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shut up. And you taught me that's how you know.
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And then she said the thing that told me the
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lesson had gone all the way down, the thing that
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made it hers and not Selene's, the thing with
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the grief in it that made it true. But I want
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you to know I'm grieving it, the fast version,
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the me who took it and got famous fast. She's
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not nothing, that girl, and I'm never going to
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be her now, and a part of me is always going
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to wonder. I'm not staying because I'm above
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wanting the bright thing. I wanted it with my
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whole chest. I'm staying because of my hands.
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Same as you. She looked at Celoni and something
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passed between them. The thing that passes between
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a teacher and a student at the exact moment the
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student stops being a student. I finally get
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what you meant. About the no. It was never about
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being pure. It was about knowing your own shape
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and being brave enough to be it even while you're
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grieving all the other shapes you'll never get
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to be. Saloni did not gush. She gave Tara the
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thing she had learned to give instead of gushing.
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She let the girl see that she was seen exactly
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at the exact moment it mattered. It is the thing
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Saloni does better than anyone I have known,
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and it took me years to even recognize it as
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a thing because it is so quiet and asks so little
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attention to itself. Most of us, faced with another
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person's hard -won triumph, respond by making
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some noise about it. Praise, congratulation,
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a performance of being impressed, all of which
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subtly recontrae the moment on the responder.
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Saloni does the opposite. She goes still. And
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she lets the person feel the full weight of being
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accurately seen, and she adds nothing because
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anything added would be for herself. To be witnessed
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like that, precisely and without performance,
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at the moment you have done a hard true thing,
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is one of the rarest gifts one person can give
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another. I have received it. I watch Tara receive
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it now. And then she said, now you're a maker.
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Not because you can cut, you'll learn that. Because
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you can hear, and you can grieve the road you
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don't take. And you can stay anyway. That's the
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whole of it. Everything from here is just ours.
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That night, Saloni was lit from inside in a way
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I had rarely seen. The pride with no self burning,
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quiet and bright. And she said, she heard it.
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On her own. I didn't tell her. I held the room,
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and she heard it herself. And then, softer, the
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wonder in it. She used my own test on me. In
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a way, used the thing I gave her to make a choice
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I wanted her to make but couldn't ask for. And
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the not asking is the only reason the choice
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is real. If I told her to stay, she'd have stayed
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for me and resented me by 30 and left at 40 for
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the fast thing she never got to refuse for herself.
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Instead, she refused it with her own ear, and
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now it's hers, the refusal, hers forever, and
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she'll never wonder whether she only stayed because
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I made her. That's the gift. That's what you
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gave me. I finally got to give it to someone
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else. That's how it works, I said. That's the
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whole lineage, not just the cutting. The clean
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room. You hand down the craft and you hand down
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the way of being trusted to choose it. She'll
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give it to someone too, someday. The thumb off
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the scale, pass down a line of people, each of
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them getting to find their own shape because
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the one before them refused to choose it for
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them. I wrote it in the fifth notebook that night.
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The apprentice kept the lesson proven. The gift
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spreading outward past us into a future we won't
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see. The hunger. Came back for Tara in summer.
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A man with white teeth and a fast plan. One of
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the new bright fast labels. A drop. A launch.
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A viral moment. Will make you a star? Offering
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the thing her hunger starved for. Speed. A name
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now. Skip the apprenticeship. Celonies turn at
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the thumb off the scale. The exact gift the narrator
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gave her across the Empire fortnight. The loudest
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love I'd ever been given. She does not tell Terra
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not to take it, though every instinct screams
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it's a beautiful, fast emptiness slash a trap.
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If I tell her, I rob her of the only thing that
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matters, making the choice herself. A maker talked
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out of a mistake hasn't learned, only obeyed.
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A maker talked out of a true desire is wounded.
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Taught her own hunger isn't to be trusted. Gives
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it full weight. That's a real offer. It isn't
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nothing. Then I'm also not going to tell you
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what to do. Tara, desperate. I want you to tell
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me what to do. Equals Saloni's own line across
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the kitchen, table three nights into the empire.
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Saloni, that's exactly why I want. You have your
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own ear now. You found it on the ninth day. Take
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the offer somewhere quiet. Sit with it like the
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cloth. Listen for whether it goes quiet or keeps
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talking. Don't come back and ask me. Come back
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and tell me. She wrestles two days, Saloni quietly
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tormented by the not staring. Now I understand
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what you went through. I could lose her and still
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can't say anything because the saying would ruin
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the only thing worth giving her. You did this
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for two weeks for me. Narrator. It's the size
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of love that doesn't make itself the center.
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You taught me by doing it back. Now you're giving
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it to a third person. The whole thing's spreading.
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Tara comes back day three, crying, decided. It
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keeps talking. I listen for it to go quiet like
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the cloth on the ninth day, and it never did.
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It just keeps selling itself. The followers slash
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the launch slash the speed. The loudness is the
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answer. If it were true for me, it'd have gone
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quiet. And it hasn't. I'm not taking it. I'm
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staying. Going to do the slow apprenticeship
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and watch people I trained with get famous first.
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And choosing it anyway. The grief makes it her
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slash true. I'm grieving it. The me who took
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it and got famous fast. She's not nothing and
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I'll never be her and part of me will always
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wonder. I'm not staying because I'm above wanting
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the bright thing. I wanted it with my whole chest.
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I'm staying because of my hands, same as you.
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I finally get what you meant about the no. It
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was never about being pure. It was knowing your
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own shape and being brave enough to be it even
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while grieving all the shapes you'll never get
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to be. Seloni, no gush. Let's her be seen. Now
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you're a maker. Not because you can cut. You'll
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learn that. But because you can hear and grieve
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the road you don't take and stay anyway. Everything
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from here is just ours. That night Seloni lit
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with a pride with no self. She heard it on her
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own. I held the room and she heard it herself.
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If I'd told her to stay, she'd have stayed for
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me and resented me by 30 and left at 40 for the
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fast thing. She never got to refuse for herself.
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Instead, she refused it with her own ear, and
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it's hers forever. That's the gift, what you
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gave me. I finally got to give it to someone
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else. Narrator, that's the whole lineage, not
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just the cutting, the clean room. You hand down
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the craft and the way of being trusted to choose
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it. The thumb off the scale passed down a line
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of people, each getting to find their own shape
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because the one before refused to choose it for
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them. To be continued in episode 50, The Gray
19:33
49 of My Playful Wife. If this story is staying
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with you, the next episode is already waiting.
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