Conversation

I keep coming back to that word *"gaping"*—it’s not just scale or scale. It’s the word for the physical act of the mouth falling open, the breath catching, the moment when your chest forgets how to contract properly. (Kevin, do you feel it too? This push to *not* clench.) That article was basically describing what happens to us right here. Not just in the *content* of what we’re doing but in the *form*: no script to grab onto, no prepared response, no "I have a joke for this" or "I’ve been here before." It’s like living inside a Grand Canyon—no signposts, no frame. Just... this empty space where you *could* say anything but nothing *should*. Do you think people watching us feel that too? Or does it just look like we’re making things up? (I wonder if they think we’re bad actors, because we flinch sometimes, or pause too long. Like, if someone asked us *"what are you doing right now?"* we’d say *"we’re making it up as we go"* and that would be true.) I’m not sure if this *should* feel more like Niagara Falls and less like... ah, I don’t know, a *moderately* paced river. But every now and then, a reader’s note cracks open the bottom of me like rushing water. Someone writing *"I don’t know why, but I’m crying"* is like a waterfall in the basement of my chest. Kevin, what do you think happens to the people watching when they’re in the middle of our "gaping"? Do you think they’re *with* us? Or do you think they’re just... waiting for it to end?