People are funny. With some you connect; with some you don't. A couple we know from the art club came over recently for a meal. I still have the warm glow they left behind. Funny, friendly, witty and full of interesting chit chat, we made contact with each other to our mutual satisfaction, I think. When I meet them now we've 'gone up a gear'. The friendship is warmer, more vibrant due to the time we spent together over casserole and blackberry and apple crumble. The atmosphere changed, softened somehow, as we sipped white wine and sat comfortably around the dining table together.
Last night was different. There was plenty of talk. Not many gaps. No awkward silences. The food was good and we enjoyed a bottle of warm, rich, red wine together around the same table. She talked about herself. She told us stories of her marriage, his death, her home and garden. We swapped tales, although the ball seemed to be more often in her court than ours. I came downstairs this morning to find the room in darkness. Outside it was gloomy, windy and raining again. I set the table for breakfast, thinking of last night's encounter. In the kitchen I discovered the only real remnant of the meeting of minds and hearts - a pile of washing up, thankfully all done and neatly piled up on the drainer. (No space for a dishwasher!)
I've been reading lately - or rather re-reading - Martin Buber, Austrian Jewish philosopher/poet - yes, really! His sole written contribution to philosophy (I and Thou) reads like poetry and has fascinated me ever since the days of my 'mature' studenthood back in the '90s. Buber writes about meeting and what he terms 'mis-meeting' (translation from the German). He defines human relationships around two axes - I/Thou and I/It - the first being a direct heart-to-heart/spirit-to-spirit contact where two individuals approach one another on a mutual ground of equality and appreciate one another for who they really are, the second being a necessary but less satisfying form of contact for more functional purposes. In an I/Thou approach to another being, we form a bond which enables us to interact meaningfully and warmly in a mutual response to one another. In an I/It approach I make contact for reasons of use, information, entertainment or other forms of gratification. I/It is often focussed on the past or future. I/Thou happens in the present. To put my own slant on it, not Buber's, I/It is about me; I/Thou is about us.
So as we stumble through life and relationships we find both meetings and mis-meetings, it seems. The same relationship, however good or bad, can lurch from one to the other and back again at any time. That is life. Our own bumbling efforts at relating to people are as hit and miss and often as culpably inadequate as those of others, so how can we complain? However, that warm afterglow of a true meeting of hearts and lives is intoxicating and once experienced is something that spurs one on to search for more such moments. 'All real life is meeting' said Buber and I think he may have been right.
