Sunday, February 22, 2009

Conversation Art

One of my favorite things is a great, meandering, deep, and energizing conversation. I have countless experiences of being totally exhausted and then starting a conversation with somebody that takes my mind fun and interesting places and lasts 2 hours but in a weird time does not exist vacuum and emerging on the other side totally awake and alert with thriving passion for life. And I know I'm not the only person with such appreciation for great conversations. Movies have been made about them. Most notably is "My Dinner with Andre" because they literally never leave their table, but it completely captures how riveting a conversation can be and how it can take the participants on an unexpected journey.

More recently was "Before Sunrise" and it's sequel "Before Sunset." I remember my first time seeing "Before Sunrise" in the mid 90's. I was captivated. I thought it was brilliant in that it not only captured the natural flow of conversation, but did so while taking the viewer on such a fascinating visual journey...which was always in the background of the riveting conversation. There's no real drama, yet it ends in suspense. Will they meet again 6 months later? Will they get married? Why didn't they exchange phone numbers or addresses? Yet, for me, ALL of that was secondary to the beauty of the conversation itself. The questions, the clarifications, the interruptions that aren't perceived as rude, the randomness, and the revelations.

"Before Sunset" is the sequel that takes place 9 years later. I loved it just as much as "Before Sunrise" because the love of a great conversation was NOT abandoned in an attempt to answer all those questions that were pending. As a matter of fact it does a good job of leaving us wondering because Jesse and Celine are in the midst of getting reacquainted and wondering themselves. They don't talk specifically about their wonderings until the limo ride towards the end, but it's in the ebb and flow of their conversation. It's unspoken yet always there in what they are not saying or how they are interacting and a bit laced with fear of what the other really thinks about that night 9 years earlier. I think anyone who has run into or reconnected with a former romance can relate to that aspect of their conversation. In fact they don't even discuss his wife and child for what I thought was too long, yet I get it. I'm sure I've behaved that way myself...more interested in the reconnection with a friend than with the truth of our current reality.

I recently posted my status on FaceBook as "Emily is thinking sometimes FaceBook seems like an excerpt from The Time Traveller's Wife" because of that phenomenon. Like reconnecting with someone from 10, 20, or in one case 30 years ago (4th grade crush)- transports me to that time and place in a unique way. Sure, I want to know if they are married, have kids, what they are doing for a living...but not as much as I want to linger in the experience of the reconnection and all it conjures in my memory and wondering if their memories are similar. And I love the written conversations that happen in the process- even if they are brief and wall to wall. I think what I love is that it reminds me of the beautiful, meaningful, and meandering conversations I've had with that person in the past. The thing I love about great conversations is the way a friendship blossoms within the conversation. Plus, great conversations are always a masterful blend of Truth and Grace relayed through an ever present moment in a relationship. And then I long for more of those now with current friends or with a player to be named later...maybe a stranger I meet on a train on my way to Vienna.

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