Greg stepped over to my office during his lunch break yesterday. We spent some time sharing events from our past, particular things that we had done in the way of creative expression. There wasn’t a gushing torrent, just a quiet back and forth primarily focused on two specific episodes. Even though the one I’d chosen was more serious, there were some common elements, I think.

For both of us, the events had a transcendent quality to them, times when we’d both stepped beyond our usual personas. He’d spent a few weeks getting ready for his and I’d spent over a year. Both were done in their time, single performances so to speak, without encore. The only repetition is in their recollection, his, mine or someone else’s.

We seldom know, and that is often a blessing, how something we have said or done affects someone else. Most often, the impact is admittedly momentary: a chuckle, a brief reflection, a pause of examination or an insight. It’s pretty seldom that lives are changed, personalities altered, triumphs empowered.

But in all of them, there is a sharing. Someone becomes a bit better known, a new dimension is shown, a heart more fully revealed. And in those things, relationships become stronger. More often than not, at least for me, it is those conversations during lunch break or a lull in the afternoon. Away from others, absent the need to perform or the caution that increases with number of listeners, we share the things that matter to us.

And in that sharing, become more us and less a couple of me’s.

H. Arnett

1/21/11