My beloved and I are having lunch at Benjamin’s with Arnold Trampe and Monique Lapidaire. “And you,” Arnold turns toward me at some point, “what are you doing?” There is not a word from me for so long that we end up laughing. We quickly turn to another subject, but I am still delighted by my fitting answer. It says it all. The answer is silence. With some practice, I will make it perfect. The pause, stupid!

Addendum (December 25, 2012)

“I knew it,” sighed my beloved as soon as I showed her this piece. She knew that I would write it, that is. And she said it at the time, if my memory is serving me right. “Anyway,” she continued, “I expected something somewhat different.” I was puzzled. “Well,” she said, “I expected ‘suddenly’ somewhere in the piece.” My beloved in a nutshell. “Ah,” I implored mockingly, “I cannot write a single thing without ‘suddenly’ appearing somewhere along?!” This time around, she laughed. Chances are that she is right, too. The unexpected word surely appears in my writings a dash too often.