All exact knowledge

She wants to know the details of my life, every inconsequential thing. I can't be bothered to tell her all of them, but she inquires about many of them. I don't care about what I see as inconsequential details, because I think they're inconsequential. To her, of course, they are of moment, they matter. They must, or else she wouldn't always ask me about them. And it's not only with me that she cares about fine details, but with everyone to whom I am connected. So when she asks about my friends, my wife, my children, she asks the sort of questions about them that she asks about me, the sorts of questions I think are unimportant. Because I think they're unimportant, I never know the answers to these questions for other people; I hardly know them for myself. I can't say whether my child has had his oil changed recently, or if my wife has renewed her magazine subscriptions for the year. I don't know if Tim and Bonnie are finished remodeling their house, or whether Peter has switched to satellite television.

She has a prodigious memory for these things, however, these things I never ask about, and do not find important or interesting. And because it's what she remembers, and what she finds interesting, it's what she asks me about. It must seem to her, I know, that I'm very ignorant about my own wife, my own children, all my friends, because I never know the things she asks me. I even find myself at a loss when, frustrated, she asks, "Well, what do you know?"

I know that I like the smell of my wife's hair, no matter what shampoo she uses. I know the sight of my son's strong back makes me tear up, and that my daughters are as delicate in their movements as deer. I know that the sound of their laughter harmonizes strangely with my heart-beat. I know my friends are those people I can be silent with, and who will drink wine with me while the sun sets, shining brightly into our faces. None of these things seem like things I can tell her, though, when she asks about my children's grades, or my neighbor's credit score. When I'm talking to her, I can't remember what it is that my relationships are about, I so obviously lack all exact knowledge of those I love.