Cancer
One of the disadvantages of almost universal education was the fact that all kinds of persons acquired a familiarity with one's favourite writers. It gave one a curious feeling; it was like seeing a drunken stranger wrapped in one's dressing gown.
Aldous Huxley
The things you received before you could choose them live in your gestures now, in the way you hold your mouth when you listen or the particular silence you keep when someone else is upset. You carry habits that belonged to people who never meant to teach them, who probably never noticed they had them at all. These small transmissions happen in kitchens and car rides, in the space between question and answer. What surprises you this week is recognizing one of these patterns in your own hands, watching yourself give forward something you never knew you had learned.