THE ART OF COMMUNICATION

I left my home office midday today to get out and enjoy the fall weather for a couple of hours, then landed here at one of my favorite coffee shops; a favorite because it is attached to a bookstore where I can surround myself with bookshelves and allow myself a little “lost in thought” time in an environment that truly agrees with me. So much for being outside enjoying the weather. Then I realized I left the house without a pair of reading glasses. Rule number 1, never take the travel pair out of the computer bag. This is why I paid for multiple pairs of glasses, so I could leave them all at home and find myself half blind in a bookstore. After about twenty minutes of wandering among the books, squinting like a man looking into the sun as I tried to make out titles, I decided reading could wait till later and I would instead sit down and write today’s musings, though don’t hold me responsible for any typos.

Got an email from a friend the other evening about possibly helping start a small fellowship group. The thought is to gather together three or four couples every week to eat a meal, have fun, encourage one another in our marriages and our lives, and consider ways to improve communication skills with one another. I don’t know if we have time to be in the group, but I like the idea. We have been talking with some other friends about another small group that would meet just twice a month. Easier to think about working that into the schedule. One fellow wrote out a thoughtful description of the goals of the group and emailed it to me. I read through it and, in the spirit of being communicative, forwarded it on to my wife’s email address. I was in my home office/studio, where I generally work. She was upstairs in the den where she has her computer.

The next day I shared this with my friend, Dave, and he expressed amusement that I emailed Lucy rather than walk to the other part of the house where she was sitting and talk to her about the idea. I email her at least once almost every day. Sometimes, since I work on a portable Mac, I will go into her den while she is working on her computer and I’ll sit in the old leather chair in the corner next to the window seat (the chair that was my father’s 30 years ago and that I probably should think about having reupholstered one of these days but can’t bear to think of it looking any different than it looked when dad sat in it) with my Mac on my lap and I will catch up on my email as she catches up on her email. We do this often. She will send mail to me and I will send mail to her. We’re sitting only 7 feet from one another. Clicking “send” is so convenient. If I actually speak I might break her concentration. So instead, I send her email that travels from my computer, over the wireless system in the house, out into cyberspace across the Internet and perhaps around the world before, just seconds later, it finds its way back through the ether to her computer in our home at the end of the long driveway at the bottom of the cul de sac where, 7 feet from one another, we peck the keys on our keyboards, in close physical proximity but quiet as a couple of church mice. There are advantages to this. If anyone ever asks if we are working to keep the lines of communication open, we not only can say yes, but we have a written record of it.

And lately, there is this blog as well. My wife reads it a couple times per week and finds out all sorts of things about what I’ve been doing.

Isn’t that right, Lucy?


(To email Brad click on his picture above right and click Email)

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