Me: Thanks for meeting with me. Thanks for all the meetings over the Thanksgiving break.
Mibes: You sound like you’re saying goodbye.
Me: No, just grateful.
Mibes: How are you?
Me: Happy and healthy at the moment, thanks! You?
Mibes: Alive and well. Glad to see you. Always glad to see you. I thought of you last night when I read this Chinese proverb: A single kind word keeps one warm for three winters.
Me: You thought I needed to be more kind?
Mibes: (laughter) No. I thought how your kind words to me have kept me warm lately.
Me: Oh Mibes. Well thanks. Thank you. I’ve kind of thought it was the other way around. That your kindness-- that that’s what’s keeping me warm.
Mibes: Probably all of the above. The whole synergy thing.
Me: (silence, just looking him in the eye)
Mibes: (enjoying the silence) I like listening to you when you’re not talking.
Me: Tell me more.
Mibes: You seem much more intelligent when you’re not always talking.
Me: Much more intelligent? Not always talking? What are you saying now, Mibes?
Mibes: I’m just saying I appreciated the pause. Seems to me like the communication didn’t stop, just the words.
Me: Did you hear music?
Mibes: No. But it was music to my ears.
Me: (hugging Mibes) Love you, Mibes.
Mibes: Love you. Love your love. Love your pauses and your words. Not get out of here. I don’t want you saying I made you late for work.
