In the autumn of 1989, my weirdo friend Rob approached me and, without comment, handed me a slip of paper, upon which he had typed out a quotation:

“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see each other whole against the sky.”

The words were from a letter written by Rainer Maria Rilke, the year his love affair with Lou Andreas-Salomé “ended”. In truth it did not end, but had consummated and rebirthed itself — and Rilke, too — as something novel and beyond the range of talk.

While this quotation is credited to Rilke because the words flowed from his pen, the capacity to conceive it came from Salomé. This message was one of their many children.

I still don’t know why Rob decided to type this message, nor why he chose me as its recipient. I’ve asked Rob, and he doesn’t remember doing it. He did a lot of mysteriously transmissive things like that back then. He was a medium, passing things along. He was a mailman.

But that message from the past was exactly the one I needed at that moment. I was suffocating my future wife, and I was set to lose her. This message gave me an entirely new future — a future for which I am grateful — filled with children.

Of course, this is now a magical letterpress project.

The first step is to reproduce the slip of paper Rob handed me. It will be hand-set in lead type and hand-printed. The second step is to sneak up on Rob and place a slip of paper in his hand. The third step is to get away without ruining it with explanation.

Rob deserves to receive the message he delivered.