WHAT'S TO TALK ABOUT?

I was leaving Maine Mall the other day and a woman with an infant in her arms was walking toward me and talking on the phone which was held between her shoulder and ear. Hands free - so to speak. She seemed to be doing all of the talking. The child was asleep.

One crowded day on Bradbury Mountain, two young women were were hiking together and both were talking nearly simultaneously, oblivious to the mystic beauty of the surrounding forest. Just to be fair, I did see, on another occasion in very nearly the same place a man talking on a cell phone as he hiked the Boundary Trail. At least he was breathing clean mountain air.

The times I have noticed someone talking on a phone while driving are too many to count. Sometimes I blow my horn at them. But I drift afield. This is not about the telephone. It’s about the constant need to talk. The phone is simply an instrument that extends the possibilities.

I have seen groups of men jogging and talking all at once. I don’t get it. Jogging for me, when I could do it, was a cherished solitary time of meditation - and sweating. Out on Monhegan Island, where trail walking is as near nirvana as you can get in this life, I have seen groups chattering up a storm about some off-island subject that would have been more at home in Maine Mall. Maybe that’s where they would have preferred to be. I found myself wishing they were there.

It could be said that you can constantly talk and appreciate the beauty and mystery all around. You could say that, but for me that’s a bit of a stretch. For me it’s in quietness that you hear wind song in the forest. It’s in quietness that you hear your heart and perhaps find yourself. It’s in quietness that the wonder of life in any situation reveals itself.

I have often said it: I love conversation. It is the gift of humanity - that social engine  whereby we know each other. Yet, a time comes when to talk is like a barrier behind which we hide ourselves from discovery and revelation. Besides, what’s to talk about when all around the creation is seeking your attention with her arms filled with treasures?