Latest / My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story / My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 44: What Goes Quiet

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My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 44: What Goes Quiet · My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story

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Can I tell you something now? I said. Now that
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you've decided? Because I've been sitting on
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it for two weeks, and I'm allowed now. She almost
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laughed. Wet -eyed. You kept it down this whole
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time. I felt you keeping it down. Go on. My Playful
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Wife. Episode 44. What Goes Quiet. Written by
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Mia. The answer came to her on the thirteenth
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day, the second to last of the fortnight, and
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it came the way the color had come. Not as a
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thunderclap, not as a decision arrived at by
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argument, but as a quiet, the simple going silent
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of one of the two roads that had been clamoring
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in her for two weeks. She did not announce it
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dramatically. There was no scene. She came to
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the kitchen in the morning, into the same light,
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and made her own chai for once, and sat down
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across from me, and held the cup in both hands
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for warmth, and said, in the plain flat voice
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she uses for the truest things, it went quiet.
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I did not ask which. I knew better than to rush
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it. I waited. The small one, she said. The workroom.
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My own hands. When I finally got quiet enough
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to listen, that's the one that went quiet. The
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way the gray -green went quiet. The way the true
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thing always does. And the empire kept talking.
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It's still talking, even now, this morning. It's
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a wonderful thing, and it will not stop selling
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itself to me. And that is how I know it isn't
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mine. The true one doesn't have to sell itself.
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It just goes quiet and waits for you to notice
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it was right all along. She looked at me over
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the steam. I'm a maker of the hands. I've been
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listening for three days and that's the answer.
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And it isn't going to change. The cutting is
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where I live. It was never a stage I was waiting
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to graduate from. I would rather make 12 true
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things a year with my own hands than 10 ,000
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good ones with my name and other people's. That's
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who I actually am. I'm going to say no. I had
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waited two weeks to hear which way it would land,
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and now that it had landed I noticed, with some
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interest, that the part of me which had secretly
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hoped for the small road felt no triumph at all,
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only a kind of awe. It was not my hope being
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confirmed, it was something cleaner than that.
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It was watching a person arrive, by her own road,
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at the truth of herself and recognizing that
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the arrival would have been exactly as beautiful
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had it gone the other way, because the beauty
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was never in the destination. The beauty was
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in the listening. She had listened all the way
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down to the floor of herself and brought up what
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was actually there, and that is a rarer and braver
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thing than any particular answer. I want to be
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careful here, because the easy version of this
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story is the one where the noble artisan refuses
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the crass empire, and we all applaud her purity,
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and that is not what happened, and to tell it
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that way would be to betray how hard and how
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real it actually was. She tested it. That was
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the part that made it a true no and not a frightened
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one, and she did the testing herself, ruthlessly,
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out loud, across the table, because she did not
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trust an answer she had not tried to break. I
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keep checking it against the fear, she said.
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Davika warned me. She said the fear lies in both
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directions, that I might be a reach maker hiding
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from my own size, refusing the empire because
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I'm scared of being big and dressing the cowardice
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up as integrity. So I keep going back and pressing
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on it, trying to find the fear underneath. And
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here's how I know it's not that. She set the
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cup down. If I were refusing out of fear, the
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refusal would keep talking too. It would keep
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needing to justify itself, keep arguing, keep
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reassuring me. A frightened no is loud. It has
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to be, because it's covering something. But this
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no is quiet. I say it, and it just sits there,
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settled, asking nothing, defending nothing. I
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try to scare myself out of it, and I couldn't,
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because there's no fear holding it up. There's
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just the plain fact of who I am, and facts don't
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need defending. The empire is the loud one. The
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no is the quiet one. And I have spent my whole
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life learning that the quiet one is the true
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one. And I understood that she had done. In the
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space of three days, the hardest discernment
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a person ever does had separated the true refusal
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from the cowardly one, the two of which are invisible
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from the outside and produce the identical word,
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and had done it the only way it can be done.
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not by thinking harder, but by listening, in
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the hands for which one went quiet. I have thought
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since about how badly the world equips us for
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this kind of knowing. We are trained to decide
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by argument, by pro and con, by the marshalling
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of reasons, as though a life for a court case
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and the side with the better evidence ought to
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win. And some decisions do work that way. But
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the largest ones, the who -am -I ones, do not
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yield to argument at all. You can build an unanswerable
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case for either side and still not know, because
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the knowing does not live in the reasons. It
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lives lower down in the body, in the hands, in
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the part of you that goes quiet or does not,
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and the only skill that finds it is the unfashionable,
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unteachable one of getting still enough to hear
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yourself below the noise of your own cleverness.
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But she was not happy, exactly, and I want that
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on the record, too, because the refusal cost
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her, and she did not pretend it didn't, and the
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not pretending was the most honest thing in the
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whole fortnight. I'm grieving it, she said, plainly,
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and her eyes were wet, and she let them be. I
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want you to know that. I'm not refusing the Empire,
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because I don't want it. I refused it because
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I'm a maker of the hands, but I'm a maker of
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the hands who also, separately, wanted the empire,
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wanted the reach, and the money, and the thousands
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of weepers, and the name in the duty -free, and
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saying no to it is a real loss, and I am going
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to feel it for a long time. There's a woman in
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some city I'll never visit who would have wept
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at something I made. And now she won't because
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I made the other choice and I have to live with
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the fact that my staying true to my hands means
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she never gets her dress. That's the cost. Refusing
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the good thing isn't free just because you did
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it for the true thing. You still lose the good
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thing. You still have to grieve it. Anyone who
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tells you the true choice doesn't hurt has never
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actually made one. I think this is one of the
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quiet lies we tell each other about integrity,
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that doing the right thing feels good, that virtue
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is its own warm reward, that if you only choose
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truly, you will be spared the ache. It is not
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so. The truest choices are often the ones that
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hurt the most precisely because they are true,
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because they require you to give up something
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you genuinely wanted in order to remain something
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you genuinely are. The reward of a true choice
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is not pleasure. It is integrity in the oldest
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sense. Integrity is wholeness, the deep structural
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rightness of a life whose outside matches its
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inside. That rightness is worth any amount of
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ache, but it does not abolish the ache. It only
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makes it bearable and clean and yours. She wiped
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her eyes, not ashamed of them, and picked the
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cup back up. So that's where I am, she said.
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Clear and right and sad. All three at once. I'd
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be suspicious of myself if I were only the first
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two. That sentence stopped me the way her best
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ones do. Most of us reach for happiness as the
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test of a good decision. If it makes us happy,
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we reason. It must have been right. But happiness
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is a poor instrument for this. too easily faked,
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too quick to attach itself to the merely comfortable.
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Saloni was proposing a better test, not whether
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a choice makes you happy, but whether it makes
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you whole. And wholeness, it turns out, is not
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the same thing as happiness, and often arrives
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wearing sadness's coat. A decision that leaves
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you clear and right and sad is more trustworthy
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than one that leaves you merely pleased because
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the sadness is the receipt. The proof that something
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real was weighed and something real was paid.
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And here, at last, was my moment. The one I had
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been holding myself out of for the whole fortnight.
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The one I had earned the right to by keeping
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my thumb off the scale through 14 days of wanting.
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badly to put it on. Because now she had decided,
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freely, in her own hands, for her own reasons,
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against a clean, unweighted space I had worked
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to keep clean. The decision was made and made
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entirely by her, and could never now be undone
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or muddied by anything I felt, which meant that,
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for the first time in two weeks, I was finally
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allowed to feel it out loud. Can I tell you something
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now? I said, now that you've decided? Because
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I've been sitting on it for two weeks, and I'm
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allowed now. She almost laughed, wet -eyed. You
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kept it down this whole time. I felt you keeping
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it down. Go on. You've earned it. There is a
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discipline I have been practicing, all these
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notebooks long, of holding my own reactions back
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until they can do no harm, and I will not pretend
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it has been easy. or that I have always managed
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it. For most of my marriage, I led with my feelings,
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offered them up at every turn as though my having
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a reaction were itself a contribution, as though
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Saloni needed my running commentary on her own
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life. The fortnight had asked the opposite of
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me, to feel everything and say none of it, to
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be a still clean room and not a voice. And the
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strange reward I was discovering is that a feeling
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withheld until the right moment lands with ten
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times the weight of one spilled at the wrong
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one. I had saved mine for two weeks. It was about
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to be worth the saving. I'm glad, I said. I'm
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so glad I can hardly sit still. Not because you
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chose small. I genuinely didn't care which you
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chose. I'd have followed you into the empire
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and been glad of it if that had been your true
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thing. I'm glad because you found out who you
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actually are and you chose it against an offer
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designed to make you forget who you are and you
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did it awake. All the way, no fear driving it.
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That's the thing I'm glad about. Not the no,
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the clarity. My wife got handed a fortune to
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become someone else and she listened to her own
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hands instead and stayed herself. That's the
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most beautiful thing I've watched you do, and
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I've watched you do a lot of beautiful things.
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I meant it as completely as I have ever meant
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anything. There is a particular kind of beauty
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that has nothing to do with how a person looks
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or even quite with what they do. The beauty of
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someone being unmistakably, unanswerably themselves
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in a moment that offered them every incentive
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to be someone else. The world had come to my
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wife with a fortune in its hands and a polite
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invitation to become a larger, glossier, more
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marketable version of herself, and she had listened
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past all of it to the small true voice in her
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own hands and stayed the exact size and shape
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she actually was. I have watched her make extraordinary
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things out of cloth. This was the most extraordinary
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thing I had ever seen her make, and she made
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it out of nothing but the refusal to lie to herself.
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And she did cry then, properly, for a moment,
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across the kitchen table, not from sadness, or
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not only, but from the particular relief of being
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seen exactly right at the exact moment it mattered,
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by the one person who had refused to make the
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seeing easier by telling her what to do. It is,
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I think, the rarest gift one person can give
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another, and the one most often mistaken for
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its opposite. To withhold your opinion from someone
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you love, at the very moment they're deciding
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the largest thing, looks from the outside like
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indifference, like a failure to care, like not
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being there for them. It is the reverse. It is
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the most active, most effortful caring there
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is. The caring that refuses to make itself the
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center, that loves the other person's freedom
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more than it loves the relief of having influenced
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them. I had wanted, every day for a fortnight,
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to help. The help I finally gave her was the
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kind that looked, to anyone who did not know
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its cost, like doing nothing at all. We sat with
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it a while. The decision made... the grief and
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the gladness both on the table in the morning
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light. And after a time, she said the thing that
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turned the no from an ending into a beginning,
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which is the thing she always eventually does,
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because she is a maker, and makers cannot help
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but build forward out of any rubble. It doesn't
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mean I stay exactly as I am, she said, thinking
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aloud now, the maker's mind starting to move
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again. refusing the empire isn't the same as
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refusing to grow i think there's a smaller growing
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that's still true a few more hands mind teaching
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there's a slightly bigger small thing where i
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still cut still touch every piece just reach
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a few more people than 12 not an empire a workshop
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maybe not a factory davika built a house Maybe
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I build a slightly larger room, but still a room
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I can fill with my own hands, still small enough
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to stay warm. She turned the idea over, and I
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watched the grief recede a half -step as the
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making rose to meet it. There might be a way
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to grow that doesn't cost me my hands. Not the
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Empire's way. My way. Smaller, slower, truer.
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I'll have to find it, but it's there. The choice
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was never really between the empire and staying
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frozen. That was the false framing the whole
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time. The real choice was between growing in
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a way that keeps my hands and growing in a way
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that takes them. And I just chose the first one.
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And I thought, there it is. Not a no to growth.
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A no to the wrong growth. The true thing is almost
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never the small thing or the big thing. It is
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the right shaped thing. The growth that matches
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the maker, and she had just, in the space of
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a fortnight and a quiet morning, found the shape
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of hers. I wrote it in the fifth notebook that
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night. The empire refused, the envelope about
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to be answered, the grief and the gladness settling
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into their long shapes. What goes quiet? The
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answer came on day thirteen, like the color.
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Not a thunderclap, a quiet. She got still enough
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to listen and the small room went quiet. The
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true thing always does and the empire kept talking.
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The true one doesn't have to sell itself. It
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goes quiet and waits for you to notice it was
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right. She's a maker of the hands. The cutting
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is where she lives. Never a stage to graduate
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from. She tested it against the fear. Davika's
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warning. A frightened no is loud. It keeps justifying
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itself. This no is quiet, settled, defending
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nothing. I tried to scare myself out of it and
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couldn't. There's no fear holding it up, just
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the plain fact of who I am. The hardest discernment,
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true no versus frightened no, invisible from
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outside, done the only way it can be, by listening
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for which goes quiet. And she grieves it. The
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not pretending equals the honest thing. I refuse
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the empire because I'm a handsmaker, but a handsmaker
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who also wanted it. The reach, the money, the
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thousands of weepers. Refusing the good thing
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isn't free just because you did it for the true
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thing. There's a woman in a city I'll never visit
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who won't get her dress now. Anyone who says
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the true choice doesn't hurt never made one.
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Clear and right and sad. All three. I'd be suspicious
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of myself if I were only the first two. My moment,
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finally earned. Thumb off the scale for 14 days,
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now that you've decided I'm allowed. I'm glad,
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not because you chose small, I'd have followed
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you into the Empire. But because you found out
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who you actually are and chose it awake, against
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an offer designed to make you forget who you
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are. The clarity. Not the no. My wife got handed
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a fortune to become someone else and listened
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to her own hands and stayed herself. She cried.
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The relief of being seen exactly right at the
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moment it mattered by the one who refused to
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make it easier. The turn no beginning. Refusing
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the empire isn't refusing to grow. The false
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framing was empire versus frozen. The real choice
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was growth that keeps my hands versus growth
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that takes them. A slightly bigger room, not
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a factory. A workshop. Mine teaching there, still
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cutting, still touching every piece. Smaller
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slash slower slash truer. My way. Not a no to
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growth. A no to the wrong growth. The true thing
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is the right shape thing. The growth that matches
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the maker. And below it, the working line. The
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true choice is not the small one or the big one.
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It is the right -shaped one, the one that matches
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who you actually are, and you find it not by
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thinking but by listening in the hands for which
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road goes quiet. The true road goes quiet. The
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false road, even when it is a genuinely good
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road, keeps talking, keeps selling itself, keeps
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needing you to be impressed. And choosing the
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true one is not free. You pay for it fully in
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the good thing you give up and you must grieve
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that good thing honestly because a true choice
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that costs you nothing was never really a choice.
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Clear and right and sad. If it is only the first
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two, distrust it. The sadness is how you know
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the road was real. To be continued in episode
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Thank you for listening.