X Factor

"The last time I glanced at the library books on the kitchen shelf they were more than five months overdue, and I wondered whether I would have chosen differently if I had known that these were the last books, the ones which would stand forever on our kitchen shelf."

“We Have Always Lived in the Castle” by Shirley Jackson, 1962

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Dear Alex,

Of all the subjects in school, I have always struggled most with Math. Not because of the rigor or stamina required to solve in symbols. Nor speaking an alien language.

It’s the logic. I cannot seem to grasp the proofs, the lifeline behind the line of reasoning which converts form to formula, linear to picture.

Among my scant recall of any mathematical proofs is the concept of limits. This one sticks oddly with me from the start of our loveship. In graph it looks even lovelier. So here is its intrigue:

When you can’t work out something directly, you can see how it looks like as you come closer.

To simplify as a model, if you think of x as 1 in this equation, x2-1/x-1, then the answer 0/0 appears meaningless. (Can you please make the “2” an exponent? I am using iPhone.)

But let x in its innate beauty grant us another chance and try a number close to but not exactly 1. For the same equation, if x=0.9, then we get 1.9. If x=0.99 or 0.999, we see 1.99 or 1.999. And now you see love in flight! As x gets close to the limit of 1 for this equation, we come closer and closer to 2, a value we can imagine and experience. Now x becomes more real, relational.

Or not.

X is a grid, a compass, your chromosome, our cross. Unknown, unapproachable. You can come close to it without ever arriving. It marks our limit, our past and choice.

Today is my riding on fresh x’s: experiment, examine, accept the greatest change I have not dared fantasize in my decades of labor starting from McDonald’s at age 15 to a Home Depot-equivalent stint in my 20’s and now extending in uncertain, expedient steps from x to why. I will be working from home for my first time.

The last time I glanced at the library shelves, at the books and lives with their covers and impressions in extraordinary routine, I missed the luxury. Since then, the doors have shut, pages bound, pulses unfound, your limits in test abound.

Yours, Kate