Selective Memory
When I think about him lately, I think most about the way he’d react when I said something of note. He’d raise his eyebrows and say “No shit!” in a tone that was as if he was saying something else, as if he was saying: “I think that is the most brilliant thing I’ve ever heard, and that you are just the most clever person I have ever met!”
It made me feel good and like him a lot.
Granted, he said “No shit!” a lot, and to most everyone who said anything of note, so I don’t think it was, at the end of the day, a reflection on his feelings about me. But still. It’s what I remember.
That, and the way he once rubbed at a small stub of a root vegetable with his thumb, freeing the flesh from a muddy skin. That made me feel good and I’ll admit I did enjoy watching the pad of his finger work the vegetable, methodically and slowly but surely.
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But as for his food? I couldn’t tell you a thing about a thing he’s cooked.
And that makes me feel very good.