Yesterday I had a visit with a good friend of 5 years now. We met innocently enough at a local coffee house (Café Roche) and talked over hot coffee and warm pastries.
We spent about 2 hours together and I left with a bitter –sweet awareness.
The Sweet – We listened and talked to each other. We asked questions to better understand perspectives. We recalled life experiences and things we had read or seen to add depth and breadth to the conversation. We wondered together. We laughed, debated and shared silence together. I left feeling grateful for the time and stimulated in my thinking and creative passion.
The Bitter - I don’t have good, quality conversations of substance nearly often enough. I know I am busy at work and at home. I know the trend is for 140 character interactions, online chatting, blogging/commenting and trite verbal exchanges (and I’m very good at those – I’m just saying), but I wonder if there isn’t more to it.
Have we somehow developed into a culture where conversation has been replaced with brief proclamations and affirmations? Has the art of informed group inquiry (was there ever such an art) become too complicated, too time consuming? I think one of the reasons that I love sharing coffee with others – just about anyone – is that it slows things down and creates a moment for conversation. It is hard to be in a hurry when you are holding and trying to drink very HOT liquids!
My life needs more time for coffee and conversation, more space for debating, wondering with others. What about you? Care to join me for a cup of Joe?
I couldn't agree more...
ReplyDeleteMaybe in San Diego in 2011, if not before?
Good post and observation Kim and now I am disappointed in myself that I have not rescheduled coffee with you. Look for my invite.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it nice catching up with friends?
ReplyDeleteI bet Netchick would like to join you for a coffee :)
It's more than time that keeps us, Kim. It's a shield, as well sometimes. I was in a store yesterday and ran into an older woman I've known for fifteen years. Her husband is struggling with Alzheimer's, I used to date her son who is gay, I have just split up with my husband, life is long and complicated - there was so much to say, and yet I backed away, relying on short sentences to carry us through the next few years. Why? I don't know. Easier. Why do we do this to each other, ourselves? Easier.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, in the end, it makes it so much harder.
Time. Shields down. Cup of coffee. And dig deep.
xo
erin
Kim, you sound like just the type of person I would love to share a coffee with... and yes, we've all become so dependent on the mad rush of life to fill up our excuses... as if people didn't work and have families and responsibilities 20 or 30 years ago. How easily and readily we sabotage our happiness... and the sad part is that we do it to ourselves, realize we're doing it, and just go right on doing it!
ReplyDeleteNevine
Michael - yes. 2011 if not sooner.
ReplyDeleteTeddy - always a joy to share coffee with you! bring it.
Teena - thanks for dropping in.
Woman In Window - as usual, you say it so well. we shield ourselves from what we need.
Nevine - and you sound like the kind of person I'd love to commune with over coffee, too! Perhaps some day the planets will align and we can. Until then, we can blog over coffee!!
I'm going to pull my daytimer now and e-mail you...
ReplyDeleteDena - I've missed YOU! checking email now.
ReplyDeleteKim, I agree.
ReplyDeleteI spent 2 hours on the phone with a good friend the other night (a totally virtual friend, actually) but our conversations about life, the universe and everything have us planning to get together for a wine trip this spring. Had I not taken the time to get to know her - by having these long conversations - I would not have my friend.
I think many times we do not take the time to nurture our coffee conversations because they take TIME. And what we forget is that at the end of our life, its those relationships that matter - not how many episodes of Lost we saw, or how many hours we sacrificed for our employers.
So, lets get coffee.
well kim here we are again, distance has never kept kindred spirits apart, I find myself doing a lot of reflection in the past 30 days. Stuck at home due to a trucking injury I see my life from solitude and ineffective relationships. I say ineffective cause I look through my phone book with its 300+ contact and cant find someone I really trust enough to call. Lonely due to failure to find true companionship..and heck I mess most of those up myself anyway.. now dont see this as depression. It is not. Just some honest self perspective analysis. I read your coffee wall and I agree why have we shoved everyone into that cubby hole that requires us to shield ourselves from open honest communications. I am not sure if this has broken the 140 words limit.. i hope it has..hehe!! Its funny when we get to this base level we find what we are made of.. why cant we just live what we are and not what we feel we have to be to impress on others for some level of acceptance. Heck the funny part is most people are attracted to us before we even utter a single phrase... put that one in your pipe and smoke on it.. well do keep in touch. I love a good philosophical discussion. ( wish i could spell ). always good to talk to you,
ReplyDeleterob
Tammy - I agree, yet, we continue to separate ourselves form the kinds of interactions we find meaningful
ReplyDeleteRob - wow. a blast from the past. so great to hear form you. thanks for the comment. i hope you are healing completely. stay in touch. Peace.
This is a very interesting post, Kim.
ReplyDeleteSome people are uncomfortable with silence and almost feel a compulsion to fill any pauses in conversation with something – almost anything – as if the stillness somehow indicates a failure on their part to “be there” for the other person.
(There is such a thing as a companionable silence which makes minimal demands on those with whom we share it. Communication does not require us to supply constant “entertainment” or distractions to others.)
Other people (or even we ourselves at other times) fear intimacy and its attendant vulnerability. What if our conversational “offering” – what if we! – are judged and found wanting?
Worse still, some of us are just shy and find it easier to communicate important things in writing because we feel more control over the way we come across. I even know people who, when asked a question, have a mental “deer-in-the-headlights” reaction: the mind immediately goes blank, and farewell to whatever response they would otherwise have given.
Some of us have to value others enough to listen; some of us have to value ourselves enough to speak. I rather suspect that some of us have to work on balancing the two. And, sometimes, I think that some of us wonder in the pit of our souls, in the night’s darkest hour, whether what we have to say is actually worth the saying.