Monday, October 25, 2004

You know what I realized over the weekend, gentle reader? I used to think that conversation was an art or a science, maybe even both, but I hadn’t committed to either school of thought yet. Perhaps that’s a good thing because simplifying matters into two coarse categories would be a disservice.

Talk, I would offer, is also its own entity, its own beast. There are times when you can try with all your will and wit to push conversation into a certain mold, yet it continues to flow as it pleases. And so you honor it. You honor its different capacities: as advice, as comfort, as argument, as banter, and all its other iterations. Sometimes it’s a little scruffy, a little rough around the edges, but then again we aren’t living a screenplay, are we?

Every once in a while, talk is so good that it changes you slightly. Some call it “good” conversation while others call it “deep” conversation. Whatever you label it, it’s absolutely essential. It’s what happens when words sear with timely profundity, and you think about them long after they’re said.