I saw a woman at a street fair I had once been friends with. She had been warm and brilliant. Also the kind of person who falls in love with the way you are attracted to them and then feels cheated by who you actually are. At the street fair, she was blind to her surroundings, and I could watch her unnobserved. She was chatting with a younger woman. My former friend was old and fat, and I wanted to be glad, but I saw her beauty instead and that I still loved her in the way you cannot shake the people who have given you your life.