Quiet Conversations

are rare around here with my three teenage sons. They tend to isolate themselves in their rooms and focus on their music, computers, video games, cell phones, and THEIR lives. However, things are changing a bit.

Tonight Joseph came home from work and stopped in my bedroom to see me. I asked about his day at school and work. He asked about my day too. We chatted a bit about his math class and his astronomy professsor and teaching styles.

I told him that my kidney donation surgery might be scheduled soon, a match had been found for me to donate too as well as a match to donate to my sister. He asked if I'd be "OK" afterwards, if there was a risk with the surgery. I explained all the possible risks to him as the surgeon had explained them to me. He then said, "But you'll be ok, you're healthy and you are trying to stay fit." I reassured him that I'd be fine. He looked me in the eyes then and said, "I'll be there when you have your surgery. So I know you're ok."

After that the conversation wandered to my new Kindle (on its way from Amazon) and which books are free because of public domain. Then that got us to around to TV shows and I mentioned how on Facebook I belong to a group called "Permanence Matters" (it promotes keeping "real books" instead of going completely digital in reading). Well, the group had posted a link to the NYC Public Library blog about books that can give background knowledge to the hit TV show, Mad Men, which is one of Joe's favorite shows. The show is set in the 60s, I think. I've never watched all of it, even though we have a couple season DVDs. Anyways, the book list link provided books about the culture, economy, furniture of the time period of the show, as well as referred to books either written during that time or books that were shown on episodes (a bit unclear on this one). I mentioned that it was just crazy that a single TV show (like so many others now) could generate internet groups and blog posts and Facebook updates, etc. Joe made a great comment..."There are so many layers and levels to everything now." I loved that description...layers and levels. It's true on so many levels. Any topic you are interested in can be found in books and TV but also internet groups, phone apps, just about any forum. I mentioned when I was a kid, there weren't all these choices. If we were interested in something, we'd have to get a book from the library. Yes, there were popular TV shows like Brady Bunch and Partridge Family. The teen idols from these shows would be on the current teen magazine covers like Tiger Beat, etc. But that's about it. There weren't books about them when they were popular and certainly, no cable shows or entertainment shows highlighting them.

Joe shared that he felt nostalgic for the simpler life I knew, when there weren't so many choices on how to fill up your day like we have now. People did their work (whether job-related or home-making chores or house chores) and then they relaxed. Only a few options on how to relax. We discussed how life was for my parents as adults and how everyone still shared the same space together at night, in that we all congregated in the living room together to watch TV. We didn't have our own TVs, there were no computers or cell phones, and bedrooms pretty much were only used for sleeping. He said people lived like that and they were still able to be happy. I don't know if he thinks we need technology now to be happy or what, we didn't get into that.

It was one of those conversations you wish would go on and on. Times when you can really glimpse the adult your baby boy has become, how he looks at the world so differently from you. But I also see an appreciation for the simpler things in life in him and the fact that he feels "nostalgic" makes me smile. I just had to document it here because I don't want to forget it. The whole conversation and the time focused on each other was a gift from God.