We ate in silence in the glass-walled café right on the ocean and I felt estranged from Ed, bored by him, moved by him. I thought understanding did not exist between Ed and me, but now I wonder what understanding means. By now I mean this minute. Did it mean safety, like an insurance policy that covered the unreality in me? I was looking for intensity, wonder—but as places to arrive, not points of departure. I was a dead end to myself, banished from the present, and I wanted to find in Ed something to latch on to that was outside my egotism and fear, my threadbare relation to the world—a leap through Ed into lyric time. There were many things to wish for so the world felt huge. The beach was as boring as a hallway in an office complex. I walked behind Ed at my slower pace, testing and questioning my tenderness for his body and life.