Latest / My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story / My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 51: The South Again

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My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 51: The South Again · My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story

0:00
You fixed him. He fixed himself, Saloni said.
0:04
I just stopped him from sleeping through it.
0:06
Same thing, my brother said. From the outside.
0:12
My Playful Wife. Episode 51. The South Again.
0:17
Written by Mia. We flew south again in the spring,
0:23
to the visit Mira had booked before we had left
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the last one, and the difference between this
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arrival and the one a year before was the whole
0:31
quiet measure of the year. A year ago, Saloni
0:35
had slept the entire flight, collapsed against
0:39
the window. A woman who had to be unconscious
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for a while to survive her own exhaustion, carried
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south to be emptied and refilled. This time she
0:48
did not sleep, and she was not empty, and she
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was not being carried to recover from anything.
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She came south this time whole, a woman who had,
0:58
in the intervening year, been handed an empire
1:02
and refused it, found the truest color of her
1:05
life, taken on her first apprentice and taught
1:08
her to hear, and stood in a quiet room and made
1:12
a crowd of strangers go hush. She came as someone
1:15
who knew, all the way down, exactly her own shape.
1:19
And I watched her walk off the plane into her
1:22
brother's city upright and rested and entirely
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herself, and I thought about the difference between
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the woman the South had received last spring
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and the woman it was receiving now, and the difference
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was a year of staying awake. There is no monument
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to a year spent staying awake. It produces nothing
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you can point to, no scar, no trophy, no single
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event you could name as the cause. It is the
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least dramatic of all the kinds of progress a
1:50
person can make, and the easiest to miss, precisely
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because its whole substance is the accumulated
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weight of 10 ,000 small choosings, each one invisible,
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to look rather than to drift, to come back rather
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than to leave, to choose the true thing rather
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than the loud one. You cannot see a year of that
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while you are inside it. You can only see it
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the way I saw it now, in the changed posture
2:15
of a woman walking off a plane, upright where
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she had once been folded, rested where she had
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once been emptied, whole where she had once arrived
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in pieces. My brother met us, and the meeting
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was easy now in a way that no longer even surprised
2:34
me, which is its own marker of how far the thaw
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had carried us, that the once impossible ordinary
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hug had become simply ordinary, the miracle worn
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comfortable with use. But there was a new thing
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in how he looked at Celoni, and I caught it at
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the airport and watched it deepen across the
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visit, and it moved me more than I expected.
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because the story of the empire had reached the
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South. He had heard, everyone in the family had
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heard, the way families hear things, that his
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sister -in -law had been offered a fortune to
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become a great brand and had turned it down.
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And I watched my brother, across the days, look
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at Saloni with a new and particular respect,
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the respect of one person who has thought hard
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about the shape of a life for another who has,
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and arrived somewhere true. It landed differently
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coming from him, and it took me until the second
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evening to understand why. My brother is the
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one who, in the old frozen family story, had
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been the success, the one who got things, the
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one our parents held up, the one I spent a decade
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resenting from a careful distance. And he had,
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across his own quiet years, made a particular
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piece. He had built a modest, contented, deliberately
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ungrand life in the South, had chosen, in his
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own way, the right -shaped thing over the big
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thing, the warm, small, true life over the large,
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impressive one. He had done with a whole existence
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roughly what Saloni had done with a single offer.
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And so, when he looked at her now, it was not
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the admiration of a small person for a brave
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one. It was the recognition of one person who
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knows their own shape for another. Two people
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who had each, separately, refused the bigger
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thing for the truer one, seeing each other across
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a kitchen in the South and knowing exactly what
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the other had done. I had spent my childhood
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unable to see my brother as anything but my rival,
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and most of my adulthood unable to see him at
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all, and it was one of the stranger gifts of
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the awake years that I could now see him clearly
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enough to recognize that he had quietly been,
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all along, a kind of person I had only recently
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learned to admire. He had known something at
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30 that I did not learn until 45, that the big
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life is mostly a trap, that the small true one
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is the prize, that letting people misjudge your
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ambition is a price worth paying to keep your
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own shape. He had been living the lesson while
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I was still asleep. And now my wife had arrived
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at the same lesson by her own hard road, and
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the two of them sat in a southern kitchen as
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equals in a knowledge I was the junior member
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of, and I did not mind being the junior. I was
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just glad to finally be in the room. He said
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it to her on the second night, in his dry, undramatic
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way, while Mira and I pretended not to be listening
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and listened to every word. So you turned down
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the Empire, he said, not a question, handing
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her a cup of something. Good. I wondered if you
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would. I hoped you would, actually, though it
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wasn't mine to hope. People kept telling me about
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it like it was a tragedy. Your brilliant sister
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-in -law turned down a fortune. Such a shame.
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Such a waste. And I kept thinking, they don't
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understand the first thing about her. She didn't
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lose a fortune. She kept herself. He looked at
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her. The dry, gentle look. I did the same thing,
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you know. Smaller. Quieter. No one offered me
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an empire, but I had chances to chase the big
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version, and I kept choosing the small true one
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instead, and people thought I lacked ambition
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and I let them think it because explaining would
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have been worse than being misjudged. You and
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I are the same animal, Saloni. The ones who'd
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rather have the true small thing than the big
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empty one. It's a lonelier club than it should
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be. I'm glad you're in it. I'm glad my brother
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married into it. A pause, and then, drier still.
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God knows he needed someone in the club to drag
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him into it. He was the most ambitious of all
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of us once. Look at him now, at the edge of the
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room, perfectly happy, watching the rest of us.
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You fixed him. He fixed himself, Saloni said.
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I just stopped him from sleeping through it.
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Same thing, my brother said, from the outside.
7:24
There was a four of us evening, of course, there
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is always a four of us evening. It is the whole
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point of a south, and it rhymed with the dinner
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of a year before, the one I have called in the
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notebooks, the night I understood what the striving
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is for. But it was a year deeper, and the deepening
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was the thing. A year before, the four of us
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dinner had been a marvel still slightly disbelieved.
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Two families newly braided, the easy affection
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still new enough to feel miraculous. This year,
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it was not a marvel. It was a habit. And the
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becoming a habit was not a loss of the wonder,
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but its fulfillment. The warmth that had felt
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astonishing a year ago had had a year to settle
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into the furniture, to become the ordinary baseline
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temperature of a family that simply, now, enjoys
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each other. We did not have to marvel at being
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able to sit together. We just sat together. Mira
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overfed everyone and pretended she hadn't. My
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brother did his dry commentary. Saloni was loose
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and funny in a way that a year ago she'd had
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to travel south to access and now seemed to carry
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with her everywhere. The unhooked is no longer
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a holiday from her life, but a permanent feature
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of it. And I sat at my edge of it and watched
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two healed couples be a year further into their
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healing and thought, this is what the Thursdays
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do, given enough of them. They accumulate into
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a life. The miracle becomes the baseline. And
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the baseline, the ordinary warm enjoyed each
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other baseline, is the actual prize the whole
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striving was always for. I have watched friends
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spend their whole lives chasing the marvel and
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missing the baseline, forever in pursuit of the
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next astonishing thing, the next peak, the next
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intensity. on the unexamined assumption that
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the good life is a sequence of highlights and
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the ordinary stretches between them are merely
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the waiting. They have it exactly backwards.
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The highlights are the waiting. The ordinary
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warm enjoyed each other baseline. The thing so
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unremarkable it is almost invisible is not the
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gap between the real things. It is the real thing.
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The only durable happiness there is. The one
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that does not require a marvel to sustain it
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because it has quietly become the weather of
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your life. Saloni and Mira talked late, the two
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of them, the night before we left, about Terra.
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I half heard it from the next room, the two women
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who had become sisters trading the thing women
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like them trade, which is the news of the people
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they are raising. Mira does not have apprentices.
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She has a way of holding a whole extended family
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together with tickets and phone calls and remembered
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birthdays, a different craft but the same instinct,
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the instinct to pour yourself, by hand, into
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the people around you, to be the warm organizing
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center or constellation of others' orbits. And
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Celonie was telling her about Terra, about the
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hands, the hunger. The nine days with the dull
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cloth, the offer from the man with the white
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teeth, and the way the girl had refused it with
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her own ear. And I heard Mira say, with the particular
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warmth she keeps for these things, so she's yours
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now. Properly. Whatever happens to her, part
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of her is going to be you, forever. You made
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a person, Saloni. Not the way I'd have guessed
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you would, but you made one. And I heard Celony
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go quiet, the good quiet, and then say, softly,
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I think I did. I think that's what the workshop
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is. I think that's what I'm for now. Not just
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the cloth. The makers. And the two of them sat
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with that. Two women in a southern kitchen who
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had each found their own way of putting themselves
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into the future, and I lay in the next room and
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felt the whole thing. The marriage. The brother,
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the apprentice, the strangers in the hushed room.
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All of it, as a single quiet true thing spreading
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outward in rings. The way a stone's ripple spreads
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from the one small place where, two years ago,
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a sleeping man had woken up on a balcony. I wrote
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about that in the fifth notebook, the last morning,
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in the brother's kitchen, in the southern light
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that is a cousin of our October light. That the
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awake years had not stayed inside the marriage.
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That was the thing I had not anticipated two
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years ago, when the only thing at stake seemed
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to be whether I could learn to see my own wife.
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I had thought it was a private project, a thing
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between Celonie and me. A marriage to be saved
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or lost. And it had turned out to be the start
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of something that kept spreading past us, because
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a marriage that wakes up does not stay a sealed
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room. It becomes a kind of source, a place the
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waking starts and then travels out from. The
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same truth that remade us had remade my relationship
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with my brother, who I now had back. It had been
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poured into Tara, who would carry it down a lineage
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of makers I would never meet. It had stood in
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a quiet room and gone into strangers. The balcony
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morning had cracked open one frightened sleeping
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man, and the crack had not stayed his. It had
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become a way of being that rippled out. Marriage
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to family to apprentice to stranger, each ring
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fainter and wider. The original true thing carried
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further from its source than the source could
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ever have imagined while it was still just two
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people learning to see each other over morning
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chai. I do not know how far the rings go. That
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is the strange, humbling thing about having become,
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without meaning to, a source. You cannot see
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past the second or third ring. You cannot follow
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the truth you handed to your apprentice into
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the hands she will hand it to, or trace the thing
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a stranger carried out of a quiet room into the
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life it changed. You only get to see the ripples
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nearest you. And to trust on no evidence, that
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they keep going past your sight, spreading and
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thinning into a future you will never witness,
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doing their quiet work in rooms you will never
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enter, long after the small original waking that
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started them has been forgotten by everyone,
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including the man it happened to. We flew home
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the next day, north. to our own light and our
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own table and the workshop where Tara would be
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waiting, and on the plane Selene put her head
14:17
on my shoulder, awake this time, not collapsed,
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just resting, and said, I like who we are in
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the South. I like who we've become that the South
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gets to see. Last year I came here in pieces.
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This year I came here whole, and your brother
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saw it and called me the same animal as him,
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and I think that's the nicest thing anyone's
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said to me in a year. including the strangers
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who went quiet at the show. She was quiet a moment.
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We're going to keep doing this, aren't we? Coming
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south, growing older at that table with the four
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of us at it for the rest of our lives. Mira's
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already booked the next one, I said. She did
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it while you were saying goodbye. I watched her.
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Of course she did, Selenese said. and I felt
15:07
her smile against my shoulder, and we flew north
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toward home, two people a year deeper into the
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awake life, the ring still spreading out behind
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us in the south, the whole quiet true thing still,
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against every prediction, getting larger by getting
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deeper, the only way it ever could. I wrote the
15:29
last line in the notebook as we landed. The south
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behind us. The workshop and the apprentice and
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the long good awake life ahead. The south again.
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Flew down to the visit Mira booked before we
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left the last. A year ago, Saloni slept the whole
15:47
flight. Carried south to be emptied and refilled.
15:51
This year she came whole. Refused an empire.
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Found the truest color. Taught Tara to hear.
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Made a crowd go hush. She came as someone who
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knows exactly her own shape. The family sees
16:06
it. The Empire story reached the South. My brother
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looks at her with a new particular respect. And
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it lands different from him because he's the
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one who in the old family story was the success.
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and who built his own modest, contented, ungrand
16:22
life, chose the right -shaped thing over the
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big thing with a whole existence the way she
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did with one offer. He says it dry, you turned
16:31
down the empire. Good. People called it a tragedy
16:35
slash a waste, and they don't understand the
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first thing about her. She didn't lose a fortune.
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She kept herself. I did the same smaller slash
16:44
quieter. Chose the small true thing and let people
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think I lacked ambition. You and I are the same
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animal. The ones who'd rather have the true small
16:55
thing than the big empty one. A lonelier club
16:57
than it should be. Glad you're in it. Glad my
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brother married into it. He was the most ambitious
17:04
of. All of us once. Look at him now at the edge
17:08
of the room, perfectly happy. You fixed him.
17:12
Saloni. He fixed himself. I just stopped him
17:16
sleeping through it. The 40FUS dinner rhymes
17:19
with EP36, but a year deeper. A year ago, a marvel
17:24
slightly disbelieved. Now a habit. The becoming
17:28
a habit isn't a loss of the wonder, but it's
17:31
fulfillment. The warmth had a year to settle
17:34
into the furniture. The miracle becomes the baseline,
17:37
and the baseline is the prize the striving was
17:40
for. Saloni and Mira talk late about Terra. Two
17:45
sisters trading, the news of the people they're
17:48
raising. Mira holds a family together with tickets
17:51
slash calls. Same instinct, different craft Mira.
17:55
So she's yours now, properly. Whatever happens
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part of her is going to be you forever. You made
18:02
a person, not the way I'd have guessed, but you
18:04
made one. Saloni, good quiet. I think that's
18:08
what the workshop is, what I'm for now. Not just
18:11
the cloth, the makers. The ripple, notebook the
18:15
awake years, didn't stay inside the marriage.
18:18
I thought it was a private project, and it became
18:21
a source the waking travels out from. The same
18:25
truth remade me and my brother, have him back,
18:28
was poured into Terra, down a lineage I'll never
18:32
meet, went into strangers in a hushed room. The
18:36
balcony cracked open one sleeping man, and the
18:39
crack rippled out. Marriage to family to apprentice
18:42
to stranger. Each ring fainter and wider, carried
18:46
further than the source could imagine. While
18:50
it was still just two people learning to see
18:52
each other over chai. Homebound plane, KP safe
18:56
tender beat Saloni head on a shoulder. Awake,
19:00
resting, not collapsed. I like who we are in
19:03
the South, who we've become that the South gets
19:05
to see. Last year, I came in pieces. This year,
19:09
whole. And your brother called me the same animal
19:12
as him. The nicest thing anyone's said in a year,
19:16
including the strangers who went quiet at the
19:18
show. We're going to keep doing this, growing
19:21
older at that table with the four of us for the
19:24
rest of our lives. Forward slash mirrors already.
19:28
Booked the next one. Did it while you were saying
19:30
goodbye. Of course she did. The quiet true thing,
19:35
getting larger by getting deeper, the only way
19:38
it ever could. To be continued in episode 52,
19:54
51 of My Playful Wife. If this story is staying
19:58
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