What's There to Say?

“Ausencia Santander sent him tumbling with her old dog’s wisdom, stood him on his head, tossed him up and threw him down, made him as good as new, shattered all his virtuous theories, and taught him the only thing he had to learn about love: that nobody teaches life anything.”

― Gabriel García Márquez, "Love in the Time of Cholera"

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“In spite of everything, we go on saying ‘God.’”

― Rowan Williams, referring to apophatic theology, in “Trinity and Revelation,” in On Christian Theology, Challenges in contemporary theology (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers,2000), 131.

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Dear Kate,

I know a man, and know him intimately.

You can say it is out of necessity, which is not to say it doesn't necessitate my growing into it.

His most memorable saying, often at the end (as he willed it with the saying) of a more serious discussion about life, is, in Chinese,「有咩好講?」, which means "What's there to say?"

It's a concluding remark to say there is no conclusion worth remarking, a concession, a compromise.  Not to outright deny the value of what was spoken, not to discourage anyone else from taking the conversation further.  It's just bedtime for him, tomorrow another day, wine the perfect segue to take us back to where we left off.

I never knew he has a political opinion, not one he would take the trouble to articulate, let alone stuttering out like a last word as he did more recently to me, this audience of one.

I couldn't make out his "position" from the cacophony of a few half-baked prejudices, things he no doubt picked up online, remarks he would have the better sense to walk away from when bedtime was the solution to it all.  But now bedtime is where trouble starts.  He could no longer "sleep on it."

I sat and listened.  After a long while I suggested with a smile and a slight shift in my seat, "Why don't we have dinner now?"  ("What's there to say?")

I've been writing quite a bit lately.  It came easy to me, as any writer could tell.  They are one-hour pieces worth not a minute of a reader's effort.  I wasn't stuttering for words and that should be warning enough.  I wasn't attempting a prison break with my words.

If I was I would have written a story.

If you are falsely accused, get yourself a lawyer and appeal to Man, and you might be free one day, for a day or two.  But if you have yourself a storyteller like Kafka he'll take you all the way to the Judgement of the Great White Throne and ask "What's there to say?"

One time I was serious about becoming a lawyer, my undergrad grades good enough for Harvard, LSAT the kind of stuff I could ace, even secured financial backing, but at the last moment recalled I hated lawyers.  Not generally, not particularly whom, but the kind of language spoken.  Thank God for lawyers and too for not asking me to be one.

My daughter got herself an orchid from work yesterday and named her Patricia.  She's serious about taking good care of her.  I took a picture and sent to her, "If Patricia ever needs a good pic for her funeral."

All good stories start out like Genesis.

Yours, Alex