the magnetism of communication

Standing in the metro car tonight, I saw two men communicating through sign language. It reminded me of when I was in fifth grade and was in my elementary school’s ASL club. I continued to watch–it was probably a little weird that some girl was just standing and looking back and forth as the men stared intently at the other’s hand gestures. One of the men did most of the “talking,” his face alluding to the message he was conveying and his eyes lighting up at specific parts. When I shifted my eyes to the other man, he sat there with his chin in his hand and he looked at the first man with a fixed gaze.

I have no idea what the men were talking about. Even if I had remembered anything more than the alphabet from fourth grade, it wouldn’t matter since, unfortunately, sign language is not universal. Regardless of whether I understood anything going on in the conversation between the two, something inside me swelled at the thought of how purposeful that conversation was. I was drawn in, simply witnessing the eye contact and directness the two shared. For all I know, they could have been talking about the temperature’s rise on this week’s forecast, or how one’s partner had chastised him for not wearing matching socks. But the conversation was completely voluntary. In terms of signing to each other, both parties have to be involved or it would just be another movement of the hands. In a spoken conversation where both parties are able to hear, it can be easy to throw away the aspect of willingness that, I think, is valued.

One can talk to talk. In fact, I know many people who I believe speak just to hear their own voice. My roommate and I were cornered after church a few weeks ago by an older woman who had sat in the pew behind us. She spoke to us in French at first, then after figuring out we speak English, quickly started speaking to us in our native language, but with her native accent, which was rather heavy. Kelcie and I had no idea what was going on. We were already exhausted. We had decided right after communion that we were both too tired to go journal and read in a park so we would go to our dorm and sleep. But that option was nixed as the lady led us to the courtyard for coffee and kept us there for an hour and a half. I think the few words I got in were just affirmation to her to keep going. It was rough.

The thing is, I don’t regret that conversation. Yes, it was draining. I simply stood there for the second half of our conversation with eyes glazed-over and a mouth that kept saying “mhm.” It wasn’t like the conversation between the two men on the train, but it was just as purposeful. Maybe the lady needed someone to talk to about English literature and she found a girl studying it and a girl with an English-teacher for a mom.

The difference between us and the woman and the two men was the application of both sides. I tried to apply myself but found that I bounced away like two magnets trying to connect both approaching with their north poles. The woman and I had similarities. She taught English. Studied in an English-speaking university (Oxford; not quite the same as me). Liked Romantic poetry, but she preferred reading Faulkner over a Coleridge poem. There, we differ. Beyond the different taste in which area of English literature we enjoyed, the rally between our words became heavily one-sided.

Cambridge Dictionary describes a conversation as, “talk between two or more people in which thoughts, feelings, and ideas are expressed, questions are asked and answered, or news and information is exchanged.” It says nothing about an equality of speaking time or some appropriate ratio of content discussed. Nor does it say anything about whether a conversation should be verbal or nonverbal, planned or unplanned. The idea of a conversation, of communication, is nuanced.

The men speaking without a spoken word between them reminded me of how important, or unimportant conversations can be. I have avoided conversations, sometimes to a fault. The important ones have built until some type of eruption, or passed by like swallowing a piece of food without properly chewing it. The unimportant ones have gone by unmissed. And at the same time, I wonder what would have happened if any of those conversations had taken place.

I am constantly reminded of how important communication is. My program director read us a story last night, one entry to a memoir written by a comedian I can’t remember the name of. It was a story of his experience when he had moved to France, and saying the word d’accord (in English, it means “okay”) in response to almost every question he was asked, he went through a series of trials that sometimes ended up with worse conclusions than others. His communication was not perfect, and often it turned out with him having an extra responsibility or mess-up. I have had many moments like that here, whether it be witnessing a friend accidentally buy an extra cone of gelato or me telling someone the wrong direction when they asked where something was. In my French class (which is now over, thank goodness gracious) I understood maybe 60% of what my professor was saying by our last day of class. It was four weeks long. For four hours, almost every day, for four weeks, I understood an average of 45% of what was being said to me. Google Translate couldn’t even tear down the language barrier that kept us from true communication.

Even when two people are completely on the same page about things, if the first person’s north isn’t aligning with the other person’s south. The blue and red must match up, otherwise two blues will join and bounce right apart. In some cases, it ends up with one switching their approach and moving to a harmony between the magnets. With others, it sometimes ends up creating a large reaction, hurting those around them until another conversation can be had, blue and red coming together.

Often, I partake in red-red or blue-blue conversations. It’s uncomfortable, even when neither party realizes. The best conversations I have had, or witnessed as a spectator, have been when both sides come into the conversation willing and intentionally. The word “intentional” used to be a buzzword for me, rooted in the language of peers at a Christian university, and became tinged with the bitterness accompanying overuse. Now, it’s making its way back into my vocabulary and taking back its meaning. For me, the word belongs in communication. Conversations are duds, if you will, without some type of intentionality. It’s not like, “why bother with talking if you don’t have something meaningful to say?” but rather, “why speak without the intention of hearing the other person speak as well?”

My fears with communication are confronted day in, and day out. I speak more in French now than in the beginning of my semester here, but it still poses that red-red relationship. With friends I am faced with both red-blue and red-red conversations, which, honestly, don't always turn out well. Even conversations with my family can go either way. But I'm finding that the message of intentionality I mentioned earlier has seeped into every conversation I have. I think it's for the better. Right?

Thank you for reading this small break in my Paris Diaries. I've had a busy few weeks and haven't really felt much like writing. Or if I get the urge, I'm faced with the same issue I wrote about a couple months ago of sitting down to write then losing the words as soon as I begin to type.

Salut, friends. (Ignore that the cover picture has no tie to the content. Or make a meaning up, I mean words and pictures are all relative, right?)