They're dating, been together about three years (the writer, a friend of the birthday boy since college days at TU).
The social worker proceeds: they'd fallen in love over a sentence. Each one, separately, years before. And both remembered, nearly a decade later, nothing
significant save for that sentence. "God himself culminates in the present moment and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages."Their chance meeting in some out of the way grocery store was occasioned by his car having the good sense to break down in the impossibly small town where she lived--very 'out of the way' compared to the hectic city pace of life he'd been used to.
Entering the grocery store, he begins telling it. He'd started scoping out people he could speak to, regarding making a telephone call, as his cell-phone had no service in the mountains.
She proceeds to knock over a display of cat food in her efforts to get to him; wildly, noisily, clumsy to an absolute fault (she interjects)-- but kind of heart, as anyone could see, and everyone said. Her house was just around the corner. He could call a garage from there.
After all, he is a writer, so they wait for the tow truck, discussing this book they'd both read years before. The truck comes. They make their goodbyes, just, goodbyes. He is attached to another, as is she.
Time wears on, he picks up the pace now, tramping in unpardonable metaphors. She elbows him. "My editor," he shrugs, rolling his eyes. They had occasional phonecalls, whereby she commiserated with the hectic pace of his life and he admired the slow steadiness of hers. She could watch sunrises and deep breathe the mountain air, instead of racing around some concrete jungle where every creative impulse was judged solely in terms of how salable it was.
"i have this friend," Olivia says now,"he's a school teacher, but he makes the most amazing furniture in his garage, after work at night. Rocking chairs, armoirs, you name it-- he's made it for someone at some point as a wedding or anniversary gift. All the time, people ask him why he doesn't aspire to it full-time. And he responds," (here, Dennis whispers along with her) "because i want to wake up every morning, and still do this, and still love it."
