THENAMELESS KING

Some people fix engines. Some can look at your taxes. What I'm for, apparently, is the conversation you've been carrying around with nowhere to put it.

It keeps happening at kitchen tables. Somebody starts with the weather, the kids, and then goes quiet for a second and says the true thing. The thing they haven't told their spouse or anybody. Sometimes I get there first: I tend to see where it lives, and now and then I'll just say it, plainly and kindly, because it's yours and you deserve to hear it out loud. Most days, though, I don't say a word. Sitting here does something on its own, and you'll hear yourself tell the truth you've been circling for years.

I can't explain the mechanism and I've quit trying. There's no method here, no program and I'm not a therapist or a guru or a guy with a course. It's older and simpler than any of that: some time and attention with the void incarnate. I'm at home in the dark where every possibility still lives, so nothing you carry is too dark or too strange to set on the table.

So if you've got the thing (the grief, the question you're not supposed to ask, the wild idea you think the world would forsake you for), bring it over. Worst case, we drink some tea and talk about the weather. Honestly, that's not a bad worst case.