4.10.24 – I’d blather not

“It’s so great to see you!” says a long-ago acquaintance with exaggerated emphasis.

“You too,” I auto-smile in reply.

Truth is, it isn’t great. The years have had their way with this guy – as they have with me. I didn’t much like him fifty years ago – can it be! – though we were stuck in the same barrack. His bald, sagging visage affects me more as memento mori than gratification. Not knowing what to say to spangle the silence, I say stupid stuff, which I cringe to hear. Why not try the truth, I mull mischievously. But I won’t. Why make trouble? No one wants the truth at a reunion. They want – what? – reassurance. “Great to see you” at our age means “great to still be seen.”

Most sociable words are lies – innocent, perhaps, amiable, but misleading. We do not say what we mean but robotically what our auditor hopes to hear. In my career years, accustomed to such piffle, I didn’t notice it. I kept quips handy to induce smiles to notch the sale. My every word was tactical, valued for neither its veracity nor felicity but its effect. Words were darts: had I pinged my prey?

Now a full-time word-worker with no practical ambition except delight I choose my words more charily. It disquiets me to lie, even sociably. Not that it’s a crime, even a peccadillo, but to casually misuse language denotes disrespect. Speaking is like praying: if you don’t mean your words, why utter them? Do you expect to fool God? As Hamlet’s uncle and stepdad Claudius realizes, “Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”

I’m all for a good reunion, don’t get me wrong, when two reunite to investigate what was. Who was I, I’m eager to know, and who were you, and how did we interact, and how do those memories affect me now? What has changed since then and what abides? Such meaty inquiries often lead to revelation.  Truth tends to surprise.

Lies, though, are tedious and a waste of time. Faux bonhomie saddens. Tell me, please, what you really thought, then and now.

Old pals, encountering these words, might urge me to lighten up. Jeez, Carll, why make such a big deal of everything? Relax, kick back!

I can’t relax, not with the hourglass emptying at this rate. Soon it will be dark. Soon you or I will not be here to rescue yesterday from the maws of night. The less time remaining, the antsier I get. The other day another friend toppled like a domino. The memories we might have shared, now vanished!

I prize life as a precious essence and hate wasting a drop of it. While there’s nothing wrong with an hour or weekend of nostalgic deceit, there’s nothing right with it, we’re wasting time, running out the clock, when we could be tussling with the true. I don’t want to hear practiced prattle or a stale joke: they screech in my head like blackboard chalk, reminding me how little life remains.

Everything we do reflects who we are. If vapid prattle pleases me, that is the rate at which I value life, that it can be exchanged for so little. “Having a good time,” says a friend, “is not my idea of having a good time.” I want to live, while I can. What does “live” mean? Taste, discover, engage, risk, explore, learn, love. You know it when you feel it. Sweatily, this instant, I’m wrestling a conundrum: why so cranky after this pleasant reunion? No, it wasn’t great to see you, friend, but it is great to see.