So I am smart enough to figure out that for David to go down to Florida and see his Mom once a month, even for two days, is a better idea than for him to wait around for four months to a half a year trying to cobble together a week- long vacation. Four months, becomes five, six or seven, life gets crazy—but two days every month—well, we can manage to squeeze that in.
So why I don’t apply that same principle to everyday conversations with my friends, I have no idea. You know what I mean—I think about Jo-Ann who I know I should call because I haven’t spoken to her in a week, but I know that I’ll need a good hour, because there’s so many things to discuss, but I don’t have an hour, so I wind up not calling her, and then it’s ten days and I have to keep a Jo-Ann list for all the things I need to discuss: why whenever you find something in Costco that you really like, they stop carrying it; how many bras, cheap and expensive, we’ve bought that wound up in the dead bra drawer; concern about the missteps in academia; disgust over the litany of lies spilling from the Republican contenders’ mouths…And it’s not only her, but basically everyone—too little time for almost anything, so when I stop and think, Gee, I haven’t spoken to my Uncle in a month, I then say—but I don’t have an hour!!!
I’ve got to try and stop thinking that there will be the perfect time, or the perfect amount of time, and a perfect set of circumstances. That one of these days, I’ll just be able to relax on my couch with a glass of Coca-Cola and sit and talk, without a concern about the time—the reality is that I’ve got to grab five or ten minutes whenever, and maybe not cover every nuance of the restaurant David and I had dinner at the other night or the gossip about Aretha Franklin’s weight, but be grateful for the friendship, the great laughter that’s always in large supply in those brief, but very special and much needed few minutes.
