An old friend called recently for a commensurably old-fashioned reason: just to say hi. Turns out, Xers still do that. Incorrigible habit we picked up in the analog age, I’m afraid.
We’d grown up together in the Bronx, though she’s lived in New England nearly as long as I’ve been in L.A., and we’ve seldom had occasion to cross paths in the old hometown over the past two decades. Still, we’ve remained close; I regard her in every way as an older sister, indistinguishable from my actual older sisters. She wanted to know how my wife and I were settling into our new home (more on that matter in a forthcoming post), and asked how my various writing projects were going, citing each by title. Few of my friends ever inquire as to my writing (they’ve probably long since reasoned I’d be only too delighted to tell them, in exhaustive detail), and I’d buy the lot a round, with chasers, if even one could reference a single project by name.
This particular friend is a registered nurse who took a professional leave of absence to care for her terminally ailing mother after a prognosis set the woman’s lifespan expectations at perhaps a few months. That was well over two years ago. My friend’s life and career, accordingly, remain on indefinite hold. So, when I asked how she was doing, she sighed and blurted, “Not great.” To be clear: She wasn’t looking to complain, only to confide. I think it helped her, however fleetingly, to have the ear of someone who knows and loves her family as if it was his own, but isn’t directly involved with or affected by its short- and long-term dramas.
The entire conversation stood in stark contrast with an experience I’d had only a week earlier. I was at a backyard barbecue in Jersey—there have been quite a number of those this past August, as it happens—with friends and relatives I hadn’t seen since well before the shutdown, folks I’ve known for at least a quarter century if not the entirety of my life. We’d all just endured the collective trauma of pandemia, and I guess I had a notion in my head that being in each other’s company once again would provide a tangible sensation of catharsis—a renewed appreciation for our shared history; a deeper sense of trust in one another; a tighter grip on the ties that bind; a desire, for lack of a more erudite phrase, to be real. To confide.
Heh. My wife warned me years ago I’m a hopeless Romantic. Well, she was right yet again, because while it was certainly nice to see them, we mostly just talked about the same old shit: the Yankees’ midseason slump; the enduring mystery of why Millennials venerate The Office as the Greatest Sitcom Ever; etcetera, etcetera. I wasn’t asked about my work—I can write about all this publicly with full confidence none of them will ever read it—and I’ve learned to stop asking about theirs; I never get an answer, anyway. And Christ knows no one expressed a candid or unflattering word about how they were feeling. No, everyone just put on a happy face—though many of them didn’t seem particularly happy to me—and a lot of perfectly polite if entirely superficial discourse ensued… just like the good old days.
The difference this time, I suppose, was how attuned I was to the skillful manner by which some of those folks—not all of them, to be perfectly fair—fluidly change the subject the instant a question trips the “too personal” wire. Suddenly, I found myself flashing back on a zillion cocktail conversations over multiple decades and wondering if a piece of information has ever been exchanged that offered even so much as a cursory glimpse at their secret hearts? I don’t think it has, and not for lack of trying on my part. I make it easy for people to open up, if they choose.
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