Four on the Floor

I worried that I’d forgotten how to have a conversation.

By conversation, I mean unscripted dialogue full of stories, tangents, wisecracks, and swift, wacky left turns. Shared history, old jokes, affection, and playfulness. Purposeless talk.

Most of the discourse I’ve shared with other people in the past year – and I call it discourse on purpose – has been via Zoom. The discourse is purposeful (theoretically) and agenda-driven. When the agenda is finished, the discourse ends. The Zoom hangers-on try to have small talk. This is what used to constitute conversation but no one has patience for small talk on Zoom and so we each race to the Leave Meeting button, snap our laptops shut and feel relieved that the discourse is over.

In an actual face to face conversation, you don’t have to know ahead of time what you’re going to say. You don’t have to rehearse it in your head, go through the agenda item by item while standing in the shower so you feel prepared or make sure your notes are propped up where you can see them so you don’t lose track of what you’re supposed to say. And you don’t have to watch yourself talking in the little Zoom box and wonder why you once again chose the black t-shirt to wear as if you’d just parked your Harley at the curb.

But, as it turns out, I needn’t have worried. I remembered how to talk, laugh, and be purposeless. It came back to me like driving a stick shift would if ever the opportunity presented itself. Muscle memory, folks. We haven’t forgotten how to shoot the shit.

So this is a pretty joyful thing – spending a few hours in person with old friends talking about our kids and their kids, work and retirement, trips we didn’t take, why their car still smells new, why the Cubs aren’t doing well, how we spent the past year, how many recipes from the Sunday New York Times we tried, actually, how many sheet pan dinners a couple can eat, books we’ve read or written or want to write, movies to watch, series to binge on, and plans we dare make now that it seems that the worst is over.

It was deluxe, as we used to say about things that were just excessively cool. And as smooth and effortless as four on the floor.

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Photo by Kevin Fitzgerald on Unsplash