The language of love

I've lost two really good interview opportunities this year --both because the writers were so mistrustful of my ability to report their words correctly that they insisted on responding in an email.

No dice, babes.

It wasn't personal. They'd never heard of me (no, I'm not that famous). I'm just weird, right?

Fact is, I try to stay away from email interviews as much as I can (if the interviewees are in Italy or in prison,  I make an exception).

If it is arrogance on my part, it's a kind of twisted, principled arrogance.

Written responses are about as useful as press releases.

I don't know why we have such trouble communicating in our culture, but problems abound.

So does temptation.

Temptation to cut corners. Temptation to come up with the cutting comment.  Temptation to

It seems to me that technology is responsible for a lot of the problems we have.

Or maybe it's the way that texting and emails (yes, that old fashioned form of conversation) and yea, even Facebook, have played into our human tendency to default to shorthand instead of the painful task of sorting things out face to face, or heart to heart.

Why talk when you can text?

Why tell someone you are hurt when you can just ignore their emails?

Why confess that you kind of like having them around there are all these electronic toys to play with?

Techno-toys make it easier to cover up our vulnerabilities, but we are still as frail as we were before we had access to them.

It's not that talking about sensitive topics is easy.  When two people have skin in the game, it can be a virtual minefield.

That's where grace and acceptance and a certain degree of self-understanding come in -- as well as the healthy release of shared laughter.

That kind of openness is rare, but it's real. You can probably count on one hand the people with whom you have it.

It is, at bottom (au fond, as the French put  it), the language of love.

The language of creating and creator.

Of solo and duet.

Of nettle and flower.

Of waiting and ripeness.

Of parent and child.

Of a friendship just begun and a marriage of forty years.

It is holy ground on which  someone will see us for ourselves (as much as we see anything or anyone clearly), and still say, when the tears have been dried and the laughter stilled: "I love you."

It is presence itself.