"For once I found a really good restaurant to go to," Jack says.
The two of us on a date, he recounts the end of school. Final test, then Craig had taken Jane and him to a Mexican place.
"Uh-hum," I say. I navigate traffic. Yellow swaths of sunlight, the sapphire sky, Jack's face fresh as a green-tufted field, the day unfolds in metered time.
"'Cause I haven't really found restaurants to be that good," he says.
That good. I smile.
"I mean like compared to some of your soups," he says.
"I know what you mean."
All those passes of sunlight there on us, we slip through the afternoon. Jack and those clear blue eyes, I memorize that perfect iris. Something quite the opposite of fear traces each line of his face.
Confidence unbidden grows up in the soils of discipline. I watch and marvel.
"...something quite the opposite of fear traces each line of his face." Discipline, long suffering, patience, waiting, humility--all the things we avoid--are the tools of strength and confidence.
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