We are sitting at the table I keep in the kitchen. You are there, in front of me, unsure of whether to offer your help or to merely accept the snacks I've put between us. You offer out of politeness. I keep green beans on hand to give to nervous friends. You begin snapping.
After an hour, we emerge out of the steady forward march of sharing our news. We both know it is the quiet part that follows that determines a friendship. Is it full of life, or do we honor a dead thing.
You hazard offering some idle thought you'd had as you were walking to my house as a topic of conversation. You present it like you are talking to yourself.
To your surprise I accept, and continue it. After a few exchanges we are creating something new together that keeps its own carrying energy. It feels like we are now held aloft by it. We float.
For a moment you hand the conversation to the part of your brain that runs on "uh huh" autopilot to consider that this is Very Nice.
In that moment, you begin squeezing yourself around a dying thing.
In that moment, it is gone.
Now we are walking. We need to get back by the time our friends arrive. At the supermarket, the butcher greets me in recognition. At the green grocer, the proprietor waves us off because it's only the one head of garlic anyway.
When we return, we pass by two teenagers on a porch stoop who are playing a staring game, as well as the other game that they will never speak of, and never tire of. The heat is bearable only in submission. There are no thoughts.
We return in time. We could not possible have not returned in time, and besides, our friends will certainly have the good decency to arrive late.
And so they do.
They filter in, and we become a group again. Though we haven't all been in the same place for years and very likely won't again for several more, we don't invite the regrets here tonight.
This is the part of the evening that feels like a beginning.
This is the part that will never end.