Jul 22, 2018
He pulled the covers down, exposing his back to the open air. I tugged them up to my chin, with an extra blankie on top for psychological comfort.
He was meticulously organized, socks so perfectly stacked it looked like he just snipped the packaging band off and that almost-invisible sliver of plastic still anchored them together. I accumulated clutter, creative splatters of thought tacked my desk with sticky notes, journals piled on every surface.
He spoke deliberately, selectively—with pauses and repetitions for emphasis. A patient teacher who took his time explaining. I talked incessantly, often about nothing of significance, with every detail I could muster.
He wrote with a universal simplicity. Words boiled down to the raw, expressive form that opened them up to so much more. Anyone could read his writing and see themselves in it. I typed in long blocks of description, lining up extra adjectives with similar, slightly differentiating meanings. Just to use the words, because I liked their essence. It was all about me and my experience.
We were almost opposites.
Except when we laughed. In those spurts of snorting, breathless, belly-aching comedy . . . we operated on the same frequency.