So Long Ignored...

Just before Karen Blixen moved back to Denmark

after losing her farm to debts and the tragic death of her lover,

she wrote a poem.

It sits, framed, on the dresser in my bedroom:

“If I know a song of Africa,

of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back,

of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers,

does Africa know a song of me?

Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on,

or the children invent a game in which my name is,

or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me,

or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?”

When she left Africa for the final time after 17 years,

what she wanted to know was

will it matter that I was here?

Will the place and people and animals that had such a profound effect on me

remember me at all?

David Brooks has written a book called “How to Know a Person.”

In it he speaks of the phenomenon of talking with someone who isn’t really listening.

We’ve all experienced it, and on Zoom calls it is especially rampant.

Why is it so hard to give someone our full attention

particularly when it is via a screen?

Brooks’s advice is to stop doing anything else and pay attention only to the conversation that is happening right here and now.

He advises to use the SLANT method: sit up, lean forward, ask questions, nod your head, track the speaker.

The second thing he advises is to ask really specific questions like

“Where was your boss sitting when she said that?

And then what did you say in response?”

Good conversationalists don’t want to know only what happened.

They want to know what you experienced in response to what happened.

How did it effect you?

They want to get to know and understand the person in the story.

For us to see one another

To feel a sense of connection and community

We can get better at how we engage in conversations

And focus on making sure that the person we are speaking with knows 

that it mattered to us that they showed up.

That we had the conversation.

That who they are and the fact that they lived

Made a difference in our lives.

We do this one fully present and engaged conversation at a time.