"Silence is a text easy to misread."
A.A. Attanasio
A.A. Attanasio
I've often heard people negatively remark about couples sitting across from each other in restaurants who barely converse during their meal. "How sad that they have so little to say to each other... they must be so bored."
I read a little saying the other day which might make one think twice before making such assumptions: "Some couples have grown comfortable enough with each other that they can take immense pleasure in being close without the need to fill the peaceful silence between them with unnecessary words."
Skip and I drove the "back way" home from Denver to Colorado Springs today. We chose to travel a rural two-lane highway rather than drive the 90 miles on the interstate where we spend 90% of the time dodging stupid, insane drivers and arrive home stressed and exhausted. For almost 45 minutes of our leisurely drive on this back road, the only sound in the car came from an oldies radio station I had found and Buddy, our Beagle, snoring in the back seat. Skip was reading one of his Clive Cussler novels and I was driving while gazing at everything - something I love doing when there's no traffic and the road takes us away from the busyness of city traffic. I loved the fact that we could share this space together and enjoy the silence between us without the need to converse.
I delighted in so much on this drive home. Colors. Things. Smells. Life.
Then we turned off the country road. Skip closed his book, I paid more attention to the city-traffic and we started talking about how we should spend the rest of this wonderful day together.
Silences make the real conversations between friends.
Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts.
Margaret Lee Runbeck