Latest / My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story / My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 32: The Bias Cut

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My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 32: The Bias Cut · My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story

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So I did not fix it. I just witnessed it. That
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sounds awful. I said. 11 days. The centerpiece.
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Barely enough cloth. I did not offer a single
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solution. My Playful Wife. Episode 32. The buy
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is cut. Written by Mia. That evening I did a
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thing I had almost never done in the years of
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our marriage. I went into the workroom and asked
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her to teach me what she was doing. It sounds
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like nothing. It was, in its way, the hardest
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practical thing I had attempted since the year
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of the notebooks. Harder than the apology. Harder
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than the writing. because the apology and the
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writing were mine, done on my own ground, and
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this required me to walk into hers and admit,
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out loud, with my body, that there was a whole
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country of her I had been married to for years
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and never once properly visited. The workroom
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is Saloni's. I have been into it ten thousand
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times, to bring her chai, to call her to dinner,
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to say goodnight to the back of her head bent
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over a table at midnight. But I had been into
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it the way you walk through a room towards something
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on the other side. I had never gone into it to
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stay. I had never gone in and sat down and said,
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Show me. Teach me the thing your hands know.
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Let me see the country. I want to be honest about
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how strange it felt, the strangeness of it being
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strange at all. Nothing should be more natural
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than a man sitting down to watch his own wife
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work. And yet I had to overcome a genuine resistance
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to do it. A low hum of why bother and you won't
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understand it anyway and she's fine doesn't need
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an audience. The whole quiet chorus the mind
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sings to keep you in the comfortable corridor
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of a life. Moving through rooms toward other
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rooms. Never once stopping long enough in any
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of them to see who is actually living there.
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She looked up when I came in, and she did the
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small calculation she does. Read the chylus hands,
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the deliberate way I pulled the spare stool over,
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the fact that I had come in and not left, and
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something flickered across her face that I had
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not earned in a long time. Surprise. Not the
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wary surprise of the bad year. The other kind.
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The kind that says, oh, you're actually here.
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I want to understand the bias cut, I said. You
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said it last night, and I nodded and I didn't
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know what it meant, and I pretended I did. I'm
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tired of nodding. Teach me. So she taught me.
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She took a length of the rose -dark cloth, the
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remnant, not the collection cloth. She would
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not let me near that. and she laid it flat on
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the cutting table under the good lamp, and she
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showed me the grain. Cloth has a direction, she
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said. Two, really? The warp runs this way, down
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the length, strong, barely any give. That's the
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backbone. The weft runs across, a little softer.
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Most of the time you cut along them, with the
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grain square to the threads. It's stable. It
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behaves. It hangs the way you expect it to hang,
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and it does what you tell it. She ran her thumb
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down the straight of the goods, and the cloth
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lay there, obedient, flat. Straight -cut cloth
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is honest and a little boring. It holds its shape
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because it isn't really moving. Then she turned
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the cloth 45 degrees, so the grain ran on the
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diagonal to the table's edge, and she cut into
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it that way. on the slant, across both directions
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of thread at once. And the cloth changed. I watched
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it happen, and I did not have words for it, though
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I have been hunting them since in the notebook.
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The piece she cut on the bias did not lie flat
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and obedient like the straight -cut piece. It
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fell. It poured off the edge of the table in
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a way the straight -cut never would, fluid. almost
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liquid, finding the shape of the air under it,
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swaying when she lifted it the way the straight
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piece had hung dead. On the bias, she said, you're
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cutting against both grains at once, diagonal
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to the backbone. It's harder. It stretches. It
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shifts. It fights you under the scissors. It
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will not stay where you pin it. It punishes a
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careless hand. Half the makers won't do it. It
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wastes cloth and it breaks your heart at the
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cutting table. She let the bias cut piece sway
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from her fingers alive. But it moves. It moves
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with the body instead of hanging off it. It does
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the thing the straight cut can never do, which
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is follow a living shape while it lives. You
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cut on the bias when you want the cloth to be
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alive. She demonstrated it twice more, and the
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second time I watched her hands instead of the
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cloth, the way they read the grain before the
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scissors ever touched it, a literacy in the fingertips
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I had lived beside for years and never once seen
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at work. She did not measure the 45 degrees.
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She felt for it, the way you feel for true north,
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some sense in the hands that the rest of us do
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not have and cannot fake. I had married a woman
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who could find the living diagonal of a thing
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by touch, in the dark, and I had spent years
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bringing her chai and walking back out of the
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room before she could show me how. Why is it
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harder? I asked, truly asking, not nodding. Because
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you're going against the grain, she said. With
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the grain is easy and dead. Against it is difficult
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and alive. Everything worth cutting on the bias
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is like that. You pay in difficulty for everything
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you get in life. I sat with that, on the spare
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stool, under the good lamp, in the country I
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had never visited, and I felt the whole evening
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turn quietly into the thing the fifth notebook
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was going to be about. Because, of course, she
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was not only talking about cloth. She did not
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know she was not only talking about cloth, she
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was being a maker explaining her craft to a slow
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husband, but I sat there and heard the other
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thing underneath, the way you sometimes hear
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your own life described by accident in someone
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else's shop talk. The bias cut was the answer
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to the danger I had named the night before. The
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familiar, cut straight, with the grain, the easy
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way, that was the marriage going dead. That was
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me nodding at the kitchen table, hearing the
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shape of her sentences and not the substance,
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letting her hang flat and obedient and known
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in the corner of my attention like a straight
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-cut length of cloth that holds its shape because
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it has stopped moving. And the other way, the
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hard way, the against -the -grain way, cutting
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diagonally across everything I assumed I already
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knew about her. That was the only way to keep
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her alive in my seeing. It wastes cloth. It breaks
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your heart at the table. It punishes a careless
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hand. And it is the only cut that moves with
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the living shape while it lives. I had been cutting
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my wife straight for years before the balcony.
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With the grain. The easy, dead, stable way. And
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the catastrophe had, brutally, turned the cloth,
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had forced me to see her on the bias. diagonal
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to everything I assumed, alive and pouring and
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impossible to pin. And the danger of the good
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years, the danger I had only just named, was
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that I would slowly turn the cloth back, square
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it up again, return to the straight cut because
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the straight cut is easy and does not break your
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heart at the table. Celoni had just handed me,
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without knowing it, the exact technique against
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that exact death, and the technique was... Choose
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the harder cut. Go against the grain on purpose.
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Keep cutting her diagonal to your own assumptions
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forever because that is the only cut that lets
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a person keep moving while she lives. It is a
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strange thing to be handed the cure for your
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own particular death by a person who does not
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know they are handing it to you. She thought
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she was explaining a deadline to a husband who,
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for once, seemed interested. She had no idea
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she was describing exactly and without metaphor
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the discipline that would have to carry our marriage
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across the next 40 years of having no catastrophe
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to keep us honest. The best instructions for
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living arrive like that I have found sideways
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disguised as something practical from people
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talking about their work. I wrote one line in
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a small notebook right there on the stool while
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she went back to the seventh piece. Attention
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is a bias cut. With the grain is easy and dead.
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Against it is difficult and alive. Pay in difficulty
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for everything you get. The seventh piece was
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breaking her heart at the table as it happened.
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That was the real texture of the evening, underneath
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my private revelation. I had not known because
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I had not been listening. the night before, that
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the seventh piece of the December collection
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was in trouble. She had cut it on the bias, the
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rose dark, the centerpiece, the one the whole
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show would be built around. And the drape had
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failed. Not the cloth's fault. The cuts. I read
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the grain wrong, she said, flat, not looking
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at me, the particular toneless voice she uses
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when she is furious at no one but herself. I
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was tired and I rushed the lay and I cut it a
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few degrees off true and a few degrees on the
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bias is everything. It's the difference between
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cloth that pours and cloth that twists. It twists.
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Look at it. It hangs like it's ashamed of itself.
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She held it up and I saw what she meant. Even
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with my new and clumsy eye, the piece did not
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pour. It pulled to one side, torqued. A beautiful
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cloth fighting its own bad cut. I have to recut
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it, from the remaining length, which is barely
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enough, with no margin for a second mistake,
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eleven days before the show. She put it down.
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So, that's the seventh piece. And here was the
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test of the whole thing, the practice put to
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the practice. Because the old me, even the post
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-balcony me, would have tried to fix it. would
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have said something useful and male and ruinous.
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Have you thought about what if you, can't you
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just? The reflex to fix is the reflex to stop
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the discomfort, mine and hers, as fast as possible,
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and it always, always lands as a way of saying
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your problem is making me uncomfortable. Please
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make it go away. I had learned that much in the
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bad year, so I did not fix it. I just witnessed
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it. That sounds awful, I said. Eleven days. The
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centerpiece. Barely enough cloth. I did not offer
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a single solution. I let the problem be exactly
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as large as it was, out loud, in the room, witnessed
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and not diminished. Tell me what the recut is
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going to take. And she told me. For forty minutes
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she told me. The lay, the true of the grain,
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the way she would have to nest the pattern pieces
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to steal enough cloth from the remnant, the single
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pass she would get with the scissors, the thing
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that would happen to the show's whole through
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line if the centerpiece poured wrong. I did not
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understand a quarter of it. I asked when I didn't
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and she explained and the explaining, I watched
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this happen, the explaining did for her what
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fixing never could. Somewhere in the 40 minutes
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of saying it to a person who was actually there,
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the toneless fury at herself loosened. Not because
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I had solved anything. Because the problem had
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been fully witnessed all the way to the bottom
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by someone who refused to make it smaller than
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it was, and a problem witnessed at full size,
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it turns out, is more bearable than a problem
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someone is anxiously trying to shrink. I had
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spent the first half of my life believing that
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love was useful, that you proved it by solving
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things, by being the one who knew what to do,
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by reducing the people you loved by the exact
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size of the problems you removed for them. It
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is a flattering theory, and it is mostly a lie.
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There is a kind of fixing that is really only
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a refusal to sit inside another person's difficulty
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for as long as the difficulty lasts. The witness
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stays in the hard thing with you. The fixer is
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always, quietly, trying to find a way out of
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the room. You're not telling me how to fix it,
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she said, somewhere near the end, noticing. I
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don't know how to fix it. You do. I'm just keeping
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you company while you do. She looked at me across
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the cutting table, the seventh piece between
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us, the good lamp, the late hour, and she did
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the thing with her face, the full gaze. The one
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I had to learn to receive. That's better than
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fixing it, she said. I have never once needed
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anyone to fix it. I have needed, my whole life,
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exactly one person to sit on that stool and let
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it be as hard as it is and not leave. Do you
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know how rare that is? Everyone wants to fix
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it. Fixing it is how people leave the room without
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leaving the room. We did not work much longer
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that night. There is a point past which the cloth
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stops cooperating with tired hands, and she has
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the discipline to stop at it, which I have always
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admired and never had. She covered the seventh
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piece. She washed the chalk off her hands at
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the little sink in the corner. And there was
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a moment, I will keep most of it, The way I keep
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the things that are ours. When she came back
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from the sink and I was still on the stool and
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she stopped in front of me instead of going past
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and put her hand on the back of my neck. The
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old gesture, the small proprietary sentence.
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Except this time her hand was cold from the water
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and I felt the whole days making in it the chalk
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dust and the scissor ache and the 11 days. And
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I put my hand over her cold hand on my neck and
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we stayed like that in the workroom. Under the
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good lamp, for a length of time I did not measure,
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two people in the country of her work, neither
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of us saying the thing because the hands were
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already saying it, the color of it, the look.
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Whatever it is that we have, that does not need
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the words because it long ago built the other
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language. It was there in the cold hand and the
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warm neck and the covered cloth and the late
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lamp, and I was for once entirely present for
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it, cut on the bias, against the grain of every
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habit that would have had me already half upstairs
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thinking about tomorrow. I was just there, in
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it, having it, the whole of the small enormous
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moment, witnessed while it lived. Come up, she
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said, finally, into the quiet. The cloth will
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still be ruined in the morning. It's better at
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ruining itself when we're not watching. I wrote
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it down, after. The way I write everything now
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in the fifth notebook, by the bed, while she
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slept the hard, clean sleep of a maker who has
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stopped at the right point. Day. I've lost count
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already, and that's good. The awake years aren't
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a calendar. Went into her workroom and stayed.
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Asked to be taught. The bias cut. Against the
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grain is harder and alive. With the grain is
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easy and dead. She was teaching cloth. She was
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teaching marriage and didn't know it. The seventh
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piece is ruined, and she has to recut the centerpiece
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in 11 days from not enough cloth, and I did not
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fix it, and not fixing it turned out to be the
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whole of the help. Fixing it is how people leave
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the room without leaving the room. Write that
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on the wall. The thing she has needed her whole
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life is not a problem solver. It's a witness
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who won't leave and won't shrink the problem.
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I can be that. It costs nothing but presents,
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which is the one thing that is somehow the hardest
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to pay. And then, below it, the line I am keeping
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at the front of the fifth notebook, the working
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principle of the volume, the answer to the danger
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I had named. Cut her on the bias. Every day.
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Against the grain of everything I think I already
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know. It wastes cloth. It breaks the heart at
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the table. It is the only cut that moves with
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a living shape while it lives. With the grain
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is easy, and the marriage hangs flat and dead
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in the corner of the eye. Against it is hard,
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and she pours. Choose the hard cut. Choose it
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tomorrow. Choose it the next ten thousand tomorrows.
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That is the practice. That is the whole of staying
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awake. I close the notebook. The October into
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November cold was in the flat. the real winter
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coming on, the December show 11 days off and
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the centerpiece in ruins, and the whole beautiful
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difficult enterprise of her work pressing toward
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its deadline in the dark of the next room. And
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I lay in the dark beside the maker, wide awake
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on purpose, having had for one whole evening,
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by main force of attention, a day with my wife
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that I had actually been inside of, every minute,
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cut diagonal to my own assumptions, alive. It
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is harder than nodding. It will always be harder
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than nodding. I intend, for as long as I am given
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evenings, to keep choosing the harder cut. To
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be continued in episode 33, The December Room.
19:14
Playful Wife. If this story is staying with you,
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Thank you for listening.