Latest / My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story / My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 64: The Meeting

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My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 64: The Meeting · My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story

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My playful wife. He doesn't need to be adored
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yet, I said. He's been adored at by people auditioning
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him. He needs to be useful and competent, and
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left alone until he chooses. We met him on a
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Saturday morning, in a room at the children's
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home that had been set aside for exactly this
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kind of thing, a room whose entire furnishing
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announced its purpose, a low table, some toys
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chosen by a committee, two chairs for the adults
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and a smaller one that nobody sat in, and a woman
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from the home who would stay throughout, kindly,
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in the corner, so that nothing about it could
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pretend to be natural. I had not understood.
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until we were standing outside the door. How
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much would be riding on an hour that was structurally
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incapable of going well, and I made myself, in
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the corridor, take the want down out of my face,
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because the one thing I knew for certain about
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the boy on the other side of the door was that
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he had been looked at by hopeful adults before,
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and that our hope, worn openly, would read to
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him not as welcome, but as pressure, one more
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pair of grown -ups needing him to perform being.
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Wanted. So I went in carrying a thing I had spent
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the whole drive constructing. A deliberately
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unhungry face. It was the hardest piece of looking
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discipline I had ever attempted, and I was about
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to discover it was also, for this particular
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child, the only one that would work. The photograph
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had lied the way photographs do, not by being
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false, but by being still. The Kabir in the file
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had been a frozen face I had read my own childhood
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into. The Kabir in the room was a live thing,
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smaller than I had pictured and quicker, with
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a body that did not stop moving even while holding
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perfectly still, and he overflowed the photograph
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in the first three seconds so completely that
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I felt foolish for having thought a single image
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could tell me anything about him at all. This
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is the thing presence does that no file and no
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photograph can... It gives you the motion. A
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still image is a single frozen choice out of
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the thousands of facemakes in a minute, and we
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treat it, wrongly, as the truth of a person,
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when it is only one frame of a film we have not
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been shown. Sitting in that room, I watched Kabir's
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face do in 90 minutes more than the photograph
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had shown me in all the days I had studied it.
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Flickers of calculation, of boredom. of a fierce
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private focus, of something that might have been
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fear and might only have been concentration.
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I could not yet read any of it, but I was for
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the first time in the presence of the actual
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text instead of a single torn page of it, and
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the actual text was alive and moving and immeasurably
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more than the thing I had projected onto the
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still. He did not look at us when we came in.
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That was the first real fact about him, as opposed
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to the facts in the file. He was sitting on the
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floor by the low table, not playing with the
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committee's toys, doing something with great
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concentration that I could not at first see,
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and he registered our entrance with the smallest
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possible stiffening of his shoulders and did
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not raise his head. He had a system I would learn
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for new adults, do not look, do not engage, give
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them nothing, wait for them to fail the way they
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all eventually fail. He was seven and he had
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already developed a foreign policy. I recognized
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it. It was a more sophisticated version of the
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one I had run for 40 years. And seeing it on
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him from the outside for the first time taught
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me something I had never been able to see from
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within my own version of it. how it must look
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to the people on the other side. For 40 years,
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I had run my own guard, believing it made me
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unreadable, neutral, safe. But watching Kabir
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run his, I saw what such a guard actually broadcasts,
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which is not neutrality at all, but a kind of
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roaring, a child's whole body announcing, do
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not come near, I have been hurt by people who
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came near before. The guard a wounded person
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believes is invisible is in fact the loudest
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thing about them. I had been broadcasting my
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own for decades, certain I was hiding, and the
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people who loved me had been hearing it the whole
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time, and grieving it, the way I now grieve the
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small, loud silence of the boy on the floor.
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Saloni went toward him the way Saloni goes toward
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everything that needs love. directly and warmly,
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and lowered herself to the floor near him and
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said something gentle, and for the first time
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in all the years I have watched her do this,
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it did not work. It was a small thing, and she
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covered it instantly, but I saw it, because I
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have studied her face longer than I have studied
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anything. The half second of surprise when her
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warmth reached the boy and simply slid off him,
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absorbed by nothing, met with a flat non -answer
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and a fractional turning away of one shoulder.
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Tara had melted for that warmth. Half of Deli
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has melted for that warmth. But Kabir was not
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a young woman who had chosen to come close. He
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was a wary seven -year -old for whom an adult
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radiating affection was not a gift but a threat,
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a thing that had preceded disappointment every
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time before, and her instinctive open -hearted
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approach, which had never in my memory failed
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her, bounced off his guard like rain off the
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dropped stone I had once compared myself to.
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She glanced at me, and in the glance was a thing
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I had almost never seen in her about a matter
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of the heart. She did not know what to do. And
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I found, to my own surprise, that I did. Because
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I knew this boy's defense from the inside, having
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built its twin, and I knew the one thing you
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must never do to a child running it, which is
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exactly the thing every loving adult instinctively
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does. Approach head -on, make eye contact, radiate
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warmth, ask him questions about himself. require
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him to respond. All of that, to a child who has
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learned that being looked at means being judged
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and passed over, is an assault dressed as kindness.
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So, I did the opposite. I did not go to him.
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I did not crouch down and beam. I sat in the
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adult chair at a distance, and I looked not at
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Kabir, but at what Kabir was looking at. which
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was the thing in his hands, the thing he had
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been concentrating on, which I could now see
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was a creased and much -folded paper map of the
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Delhi Metro. The map told me everything, if you
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knew how to read a wounded child, which I unfortunately
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did. A child does not memorize a transit map
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and carry it folded soft from handling because
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he loves trains. He does it because the map is
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a world that holds still. The lines do not move.
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The interchanges are always where they were yesterday.
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Rajiv Chowk is reliably, eternally where yellow
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meets blue, and will not be taken from him, will
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not look at him and decide it does not want him,
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will not send him to a new home in a new district
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with new rules. A child whose entire external
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world has been provisional and revocable will
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reach, often. For some closed and orderly system,
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he can hold complete in his own head and love
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it with a fierce, whole love he cannot yet risk
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on people. The Metro was Kabir's. I had had my
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own equivalents at his age. I knew exactly what
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the map was for. I said, to the air, not to him.
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as if thinking aloud, that I could never remember
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whether you'd changed at Rajiv Chowk or Central
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Secretariat to get from one line to the other,
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and that I always got it wrong. I did not look
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at him when I said it. I looked at the wall,
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idly, a man musing to himself. And there was
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a silence, and then a small flat voice from the
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floor said, without warmth, with a slight contempt
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of the expert for the fool, Rajiv Chowk. For
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yellow to blue, it's Rajiv Chowk. Central Secretariat
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is yellow to violet. And I said, still to the
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wall, still not turning, that I was fairly sure
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he was wrong, that I thought it was the other
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way around, which was a lie, and he knew the
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Metro far better than I ever would, and he knew
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that I was wrong, and the being wrong of an adult
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on his one subject was apparently more than his
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policy could withstand, because he came over.
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He brought the map to me, not warmly, not as
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a friend, but as a prosecutor bringing evidence,
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to show me on the actual map exactly how wrong
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I was, and for about 90 seconds, kneeling by
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my chair and tracing the colored lines with a
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furious, competent finger and explaining the
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interchanges to an idiot, he forgot entirely
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to guard himself because he was too busy being
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the only thing in that room he was sure of. The
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boy who knew the map. It did not last. I want
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to be honest and unsentimental about that because
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the temptation here is to make it more than it
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was. When he had finished correcting me and the
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silence came back, he seemed to remember himself.
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To remember that I was one of the looking adults
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and that he had broken his own first rule by
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coming close and he withdrew. took the map back,
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returned to his spot on the floor, re -armored,
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gave us nothing more for the rest of the hour.
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We did not leave having won him. We left having
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had 90 seconds, somewhere in a structurally impossible
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hour, in which a guarded child had forgotten
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to be guarded because someone had found the one
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door he had left unlocked and had the sense to
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knock on it sideways instead of trying the front.
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That was all. But it was not nothing. 90 seconds
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is not nothing when it is 90 seconds more than
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the front door approach would ever have bought
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and when it teaches you the shape of the only
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road in. And I made myself, driving away, hold
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the 90 seconds at their true value, neither inflating
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them into a triumph nor dismissing them into
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nothing, both of which are only forms of looking
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away from what actually happened. The hopeful
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part of me wanted to call it a breakthrough.
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The frightened part wanted to call it a fluke,
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a single accident of a metro map that would never
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recur. Both were lies, and both were comfortable,
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and the truth was harder and smaller than either.
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That a real but tiny thing had happened, that
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it proved a method rather than a victory, and
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that it would have to be repeated, patiently,
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without drama. Across many more such hours before
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it meant anything at all. Real progress with
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a wounded child is almost always too small to
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feel like progress. That, I suspect, is precisely
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why most people give up on them. Saloni was quiet
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in the car and then she said, You got in and
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I didn't. I've never not been able to, and you
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just walked straight in. She was not hurt. She
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was studying it the way she studies a new technique.
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And I told her what I had understood. That her
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way works on everyone who has not been wounded
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in the specific way that makes warmth feel like
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danger, which is almost everyone, which is why
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she has never needed another way, but that this
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particular boy was wounded in exactly my way,
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the unwatched way, and that you do not reach
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the unwatched child by looking at him. You reach
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him by looking at what he looks at. By coming
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alongside instead of head on. By giving him something
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to be the expert of. Instead of something to
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be the object of. He doesn't need to be adored
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yet, I said. He's been adored at by people auditioning
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him. He needs to be useful and competent and
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left alone until he chooses. I know because that's
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what I needed and nobody knew it. And so I waited
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40 years. And Saloni looked at me for a long
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moment and said, Then he needs you more than
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he needs me, at the start. That's not how I thought
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this would go. And there was no jealousy in it,
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only the swift recalibration of a true partner.
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She had found the thing I was for in this, the
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specific use of my specific damage, and she handed
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that part of it to me without a flicker, the
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way she hands the cutting of a particular cloth
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to the one whose hand suited. I have come to
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think this is among the rarest things in a long
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marriage, rarer even than the love, the ability
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to hand a piece of the most important work to
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your partner, without resentment, when it turns
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out to be theirs and not yours to do. Most couples
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compete, quietly, even the loving ones, over
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who is better at the things that matter, and
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the things that matter most, being needed by
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a child, being the one who reaches the unreachable
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person. are exactly the ones pride clings to
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hardest. Celonie felt none of that, or felt it
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and set it down in the same instant. She had
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wanted, I think, to be the one who reached him.
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It would have been only human to want it. And
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she looked at the evidence that it was going
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to be me, at the start, and simply reorganized
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herself around the truth without a flicker of
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the ego that wrecks lesser partnerships. I wrote
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it that night in the sixth notebook, the Delhi
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Metro map of my own memory rearranging itself
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around a small, furious finger tracing colored
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lines. That the live child had overflowed the
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photograph as a river overflows a snapshot of
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itself, and that everything I thought I had known
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from the file was both true and useless, because
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a real person is not the sum of their facts,
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but the motion between them, which only presence
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shows you. and that I had learned, in an impossible
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room, a new kind of looking, or rather an old
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one, the kind I had most needed and least received
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as a child, the sidelong kind, the kind that
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does not demand to be met. All my awake years
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had been about a looking that sought response,
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that attended a face and waited for it to open,
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that was, however patient, fundamentally a transaction
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expecting return. But there is a deeper looking
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that asks for nothing back, that attends a person
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from the side, that loves what they love instead
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of requiring them to love you, and that is the
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only looking a wounded child can bear because
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it does not ask him to perform being worth it.
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I had gone in meaning to look at Kabir. I had
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helped him, by accident and by old wisdom, only
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when I stopped looking at him and started looking
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with him at the map. And I understood, writing
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it, that this was the thing I had been most afraid
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of, back in the empty room, turned exactly inside
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out. I had feared I could not widen my attention
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to a child without going thin, without robbing
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Saloni to pay him. But the meeting had shown
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me something the fear had not predicted. that
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the kind of attention this child needed was a
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kind I happened to have that almost no one else
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in his life had offered, and that I was uniquely
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equipped to give it precisely because of the
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wound I had assumed disqualified me. The looking
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had not been divided. It had been, if anything,
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called deeper, asked to become a subtler and
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more selfless version of itself than the marriage
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alone had ever required of it. The fear had been
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that there would not be enough of me. The truth,
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beginning to show, was that there were rooms
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in me I had not known were there at all until
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a guarded boy with a folded map walked up and
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required them. Then the working line, the sixth
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notebook open, a stranger's child somewhere across
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the city asleep with a folded map under his pillow,
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probably the way I would have slept with mine.
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There is a looking that demands to be met, and
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a looking that asks for nothing, and the wounded
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can only bear the second kind. When you love
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someone who has been hurt into guardedness, a
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child or anyone, do not approach head -on with
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your warmth held out, however genuine. To one
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who has learned that being looked at means being
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judged, your radiant open face is not a gift
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but a pressure. Go sideways instead. Do not look
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at them. Look at what they look at. Love the
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thing they love before you ask to love them.
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Give them something to be the expert of, not
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something to be the object of. The deepest attention
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is not the kind that waits for a face to turn
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toward you. It is the kind that turns, quietly,
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to face the same direction they are facing and
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stays there, asking nothing, until the day they
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discover on their own that they are no longer
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looking alone. I capped the pen and sat a while
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in the dark, not triumphant, because there was
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nothing yet to be triumphant about. One impossible
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hour, 90 borrowed seconds, a long road still
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entirely ahead and no guarantee anywhere on it.
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But I had met him now. He was no longer a photograph
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or an idea or a child -shaped space. He was Kabir.
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7. Quick and guarded and furious about the correct
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interchange for the yellow line, a particular
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and difficult and entirely real boy who did not
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yet want us, and had every reason not to. And
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I found that I did not mind that he did not want
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us yet. I had not gone in to be wanted. I had
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gone in to begin the looking, and the looking
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had begun, sideways, on a folded map, 90 seconds
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at a time, which is, I am learning, exactly how
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the longest and most worthwhile looking always
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begins, not with arms flung open, but with two
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people, quietly at last, facing the same way.
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To be continued in episode 65, Small Steps. All
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rights reserved. That was episode 64 of My Playful
19:04
Wife. If this story is staying with you, the
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next episode is already waiting. Subscribe so
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you don't miss it. The complete book is on Amazon
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my Patreon. Links are in the description. I'm
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Mia. Thank you for listening.