The Dangling Conversation
“Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm
Couplets out of rhyme
In syncopated time (in syncopated time)”
Sparing a thought for all those who remember all the perfect things to say only after conversation is over and you're on your way home. The people who are always so close to where they need to be, yet keep missing by miles.
If only you had said this instead of that … then you'd be a lot closer to where you want and need to be.
Then you start to remember and rehearse all the winning lines that you now have in your head, waiting in anticipation of a repeat encounter next time round. When the time comes, you think yourself word perfect, only to find that the situations and subjects have changed, and that extraneous forces disturbing your flow have increased, leaving you forever waiting to deliver your perfect lines, leading you to miss the latest cues to respond to.
There's no mystery to resolve here. Some people, such as myself, reveal themselves in their full and true colours only by way of reiterated encounter, familiarity and continuity allowing us to go further and deeper each time. It's about nurturing a person's potential to blossom, beyond the brokenness of what they presently may be. And, like Hugh MacDiarmid, "I am concerned with the blossom."
I don't do well with surfaces and shallows which are blown hither and thither according to multiple sensory inputs. I don't deal well with uncertainty and spontaneity and require deep one-to-one, face-to-face immersion over a long period of time. Dangling conversations are not my thing at all. I say only a tiny percentage of the things I want to say in such conversations, and most usually not the things I want and need to say. Always the next time.
I have a million things in my head at once. My thoughts run at a million miles per hour. One word from someone else inspires a thousand words in me, and it's a case of running with the ones that take flight first. These are not always the best, and there are often much better things I could be saying. It's impossible to consciously select the right thoughts in conversation, you have to respond
immediately to the other person as best you can.
Then you go over the conversation and realize that there were much better ways it could have been developed. You start to regret all the things you could have said which would have gotten you to where you wanted to be. And then you start to plan and plot for next time around, hoping that the right opportunities and situations arise, doing your best to engineer them, never knowing quite how. So I resume conversation at a later date, with a script in my head, and miss the cues and keywords that open the doors I am seeking to open. The problem with playing the game of catch-up is that you never catch-up.
“And we note our place with book markers
That measure what we've lost.”
Dreams. I dream a lot. Most people dream, it seems. Only some people remember their dreams. I remember my dreams, but have to sketch the details down quickly before they disappear. And then I reflect on them as I dream by day.
