Taking Off and Landing

This week, I spent three days down in Bryan/College Station with a few guys that I love and respect a great deal. I’ve known Kevin and Sean for 11 and 9 years respectively; when I think of a nice vacation, it generally involves sitting around with beer, dominoes, and these two guys. And maybe some Totinos and Cars records. Seriously–I hadn’t seen Sean in a year and a half, so my mini-vacay started by sitting on Kevin’s back patio with him, Kevin, and Mark Douglass, drinking good beer, and talking for five hours.

I realized it the week before when Kevin and his wife Latonya came to stay the night, but the thought came to full fruition this week that one of the reasons I jones for time with these people in particular is that they are masters in the art of conversation. True masters, doubly-educated, tenured professor with Nobel Prizes under their belts masters in the subtle art of talking and keeping a conversation alive and nurtured. Too often, communications between myself and the people I care about turns into sheer pragmatics: who’s buying the groceries, who’s taking out the trash, where are we meeting? And to be sure, there is a good deal of that which keeps relationships alive. But when I’m with these guys, nothing turns into something for five hours.

Case in point: over a game of dominoes, Sean, Kevin, and I wrote a chain poem which is completely inappropriate for public consumption.

Case in point: conversations about Kurt Vonnegut morphed into conversations about women which morphed into conversations about God seamlessly. No awkward reset buttons or pauses.

Part of this, I think, is knowing people over a long time, and in a variety of circumstances. The three of us first met in Missouri while entertaining mentally handicapped children, and I have no doubt this has colored our conversations since; when your first encounter with a person is seeing them at their deepest level, beyond the niceties and breakfast talk, the shape of the friendship is profoundly altered. It’s as if you’ve done this backwards: first you find out their character and their ability to care for another human being, and then you find out they like Steinbeck too.

I miss celebrating this art, born by the copulation of time and space, hours to spend and confined areas. I miss sitting my butt on the couch and Sean pacing outside for a smoke and Kevin picking out a record. I’ll think about it from now until the next time, I suppose.