Yesterday afternoon I drank tea with my great -aunt G. and came the conversation on the things you started late in your life. In my case, among other things, it was internet banking and walking away when someone has only been talking about themselves for ten minutes.
“And you?” I asked her, suddenly realizing that I might have spoken about myself for ten minutes in a row.
“Hm,” she muttered. A few moments later a smile broke on her face.
“Exactly this,” she said.
“Hey?”
“This. Being able to think in the company of others. It cost me decades before I could. When I used to be among people, I was only concerned with making them happy. I had no room for my own thoughts or opinion.”
Ah, yes, once I was like that too. Only when the rest was gone and the center of the consensus was lifted, could I think a bit about what I thought of things myself. In company, my entire bandwidth was confiscated by interpretation, to gauge all those corners of the mouth and eyebrows that just went up and down, guessing for votes, deciphering body language and especially the constant fear that I had said or done something strange again.
“I think that we both started reading early,” G. continued, “That is, after all, a way to have contact with a fellow man without the distraction of someone’s appearance, the mutual power relationship or the fear of being embarrassed. In contrast to a direct conversation, you have all the time to decide on the appearance.
I told her what I once heard poet Micha Hamel say about reading that it is a meeting with someone who is not in the room. G. clapped her hands.
“I totally agree with that! And the very best thing is that you no longer get distracted by yourself, how you come across, or you don’t betray that you would rather be somewhere else, the fear that you leak out mimics, attitude or voice all kinds of secrets. It is so nice to no longer have to exist for both someone else and for yourself.”
She took off her clip porters.
“There are nothing to be for a moment,” she sighed, “and to be. That is the biggest gift that you get as a reader.”
Ellen Deckwitz Writes a column every week at this place.