There I was at a party in Boulder, Colorado––either just before leaving in 1997, or just after returning in 1999–– when I ran into a young woman who quizzed me about my goals, past, and desires. (She would later claim that she was not checking me out for a possible relationship, but I didn't believe her; I'd been checked out before.) She asked how I felt about having children, and I responded with some kind of bullshit like:

I don't want to have children because it will interfere with my writing

or

My father was a crazy fuckup and I don't want to have kids because I'm afraid I'll end up like him.

She didn't buy it. "You'll be a great dad," she told me, and that's all she needed to say for me to become extremely attracted to her. I mean extremely––like thinking about having babies with her all the time. If she thought I'd be a great dad, well... what if she was right?

At that time in my life I spent a great deal of time with the Paul Simon album The Rhythm of the Saints, which I can probably still sing for you by heart to this day. One of my favorite songs, "The Coast," had a couplet that rang through my head with special resonance:

And if I have money

if I have children

So yeah, I had babies on my mind. For a while it had been subconscious–– you know, the secret wish that had motivated the wanderings of my penis––but now it was starting (gasp!) to rise to the forefront of my psyche and actually affect the women I talked to and tried to date. 

Was this one conversation a magic bullet that suddenly changed everything about my outlook? Did this woman have such a hold on me that she altered my mind with a single ballsy question? Probably not. We quasi-dated, but had no real chemistry, and though she wanted to be friends I couldn't see that we had much in common. After a while my attraction to her frayed down to that single strand of hope she'd given me: that maybe somebody out there could see the father in me that I wasn't seeing in myself.

This woman (her initials are T.D. and she shares a birthday with my wife, but for her protection I'll keep the rest of her details hidden from you) is one of those people, like Bayard Johnson, who touched my life briefly but opened my mind to something within me that I had kept under wraps. In some language, there must be a word for such people––and if there isn't, I must invent a language that has one.

Then I must invent special words to thank them for what they've helped me see.