“You taught math at university?”

“Yes, and had my own work to keep me busy. There was pressure to publish. I felt that pressure less and less as I got older but kept working. I’ve filled lots of blue graph paper over the years.”

“It’s like you came back to what got you started in the first place.”

“It was my mom who got me started. She taught me basic arithmetic at our kitchen table.”

I can picture him as a young man, actually see him that way, sitting hunched over a desk, holding his pencil.

“That’s so nice. And that’s what hooked you?”

“I suppose so,” he says. “I never stopped after that. There was always more to learn.”

“Yes, I feel the same, but for different reasons. Painting always felt like a playground, for emotion. Not just my own. It was about borders, physical borders. It always felt like the art I liked found me, not the other way around.”

“Yes, yes, I see. I know what you mean,” he says.

He’s holding his position remarkably well, sitting back in the chair, shoulders straight.

“The one thing I regret about never showing my own work is missing the chance for that process where another person reacts in their own distinct way. It’s not about understanding it, it’s about having a reaction. Any reaction.”

“So you’ve never shown your work? You never had an opening?”

“No,” I say. “I never have.”

He uncrosses his legs and looks at me directly. I can tell he’s wondering if that’s okay, to break the pose. I nod.

“You don’t have to stay in one position,” I say. “Whatever’s comfortable.”

He exhales, lets his shoulders slump slightly, and shifts how he’s sitting.

“Are you aware of the Riemann hypothesis?”

“No,” I say. “What’s that?”

“We’d have to start with prime numbers and go back to Euclid, who was first to prove that there are infinitely many primes. Infinitely many! The Riemann itself has never been proved but…” He stops himself, trailing off. “That’s funny, I’m just trying to get it straight.”

He takes a moment to think.

“I used to know all of this by heart and how to describe it. I’m afraid it’s just not coming right now. I’m sorry.”

He looks down, blushing.

“It’s okay. I thought that I completely understood the point of painting, but as I got older I started thinking that art is about different ways of seeing. I was never inspired by something whole. It was always a fragment, a crumb, a piece of a moment, a half-forgotten impression, one side of a person. Never fully formed because it could only be my view of a thing, not someone else’s.”

“Like me, right now?”

“Yes. Like you. Right now.”

He smiles, runs his fingers through his white hair. “Everything changes,” he says.

“Even just in the last few days, I feel like I’ve changed. I know I have. Drastically. I’m eating more, sleeping better. Meeting you has changed me, too,” I say.