Years ago, Simon and Garfunkel did a song entitled “The Dangling Conversation.” I love just about everything they did and this song is no exception. It’s a poem, set to music, about 2 people who don’t communicate anymore.
“Couched in our indifference…like a poem poorly written, we are verses out of rhyme.”
Their superficial conversations are based on events that happen “at the borders of their lives.” The theater, what’s for dinner, how was your day, and it looks like rain, is all they talk about.
One of them, her I imagine, reads Emily Dickinson. The other, Robert Frost. They hide in their poetry and use it as an excuse to not talk and share the intimate conversations that make relationships work. Their life together is so accurately depicted by the line that reads,
“And we note our place with bookmarkers, that measure what we’ve lost.”
This isn’t about me giving you free advice and telling you to “do as I say, not as I do”. For the record…I am a horrible conversationalist. My wife knows. I’m guarded, secretive, silent, superficial. Being vulnerable is not in my DNA. But I am in a relationship with someone who knows everything about me. He knows my secrets, sees my innermost thoughts and fears, and compensates for my weaknesses. And he accepts and loves me despite who I am, or think I am, or wish I were.
The conversation many people never have, with the only one who knows them and cares deeply about their eternity, is a “dangling conversation”. If we talk to him and then listen, we will hear his words to each of us.
“You matter. I care about you just as you are. I want you to be with me when you move into eternity”.
Talk to him. Have the dangling conversation. If you don’t know how I can help.
The Chronicles of Egydyus Flombosi 