February 27

When someone asks you why a particular person means so much to you, reasons come to mind: the way they laugh, that they listen, that they remember small things. All of it is true. And yet the list, as soon as you say it out loud, sounds like someone you could replace. Others laugh like that too, others listen too.

What really matters seems to dwell precisely where the reasons stop. There is something precious in that, but also a temptation. “It can't be explained” can just as well mean that you haven't looked closely enough yet. Some silences protect a mystery, some only a convenience, and from the inside both look the same.

So you can keep asking, for a fifth reason and a sixth. Each one makes the thing a little clearer. None makes it smaller, as long as you don't take it for the last.

At some point you may say only: because it's this person. The sentence justifies nothing. Still, it sounds different from the way it did at the beginning, when you would have said it in place of all the reasons.