“All actual life is encounter.”
—Martin Buber
This is how I find Daniel in my memory: naked, in my closet, on the phone with his wife.
Daniel’s photograph, the one he emailed yesterday, showed him wearing a bad tie and seated in an office chair, the ghostly slap of a computer spreadsheet paling his face. He claimed to be a photographer, for God’s sake. Yet the total inhibition of his picture, the complete lack of self-awareness, was somehow the attraction. Or challenge. Or maybe this was charity. I still don’t know. Here was a man who couldn’t see himself. At least he laughed easily. When he did, he barked upwards, revealing a top row of teeth that came to a point, like the prow of a boat.
Initially, Daniel proposed I visit him at his office building during his lunch hour. This was to
