He talked for a long time.
Not the way most people talk. Not with the particular looseness of someone who has been holding things in and is finally letting them out. He talked the way he did everything else. Carefully. Precisely. Like every word was being chosen from a list of possible words and only the most accurate one was making it through.
But he talked.
And I listened.
I did not interrupt. I did not ask questions yet. I just sat with both hands around my coffee mug and let him speak and paid attention the way I paid attention to things that mattered, with my whole self, nothing held back, nothing running in the background.
He started with the organization.
Not its name. He did not give me its name that morning. But he gave me its shape which was in some ways more useful than a
