I’d like to talk with you about anything other than the weather.

Unless, of course, that conversation was more about the most serendipitous shape you’ve ever looked up and seen in a cloud, or the last time you wondered how high up the raindrop that hit your nose had fallen from before it reached you.

I’d like to talk about the tops of trees, and what you think it might be like to have been the first itty bitty branch of that tree that exposed itself to the world and endured all that nature has to offer, only to become the itty bitty branch at the very top, irrelevant to sustaining the life of all that it had birthed.

I’d like you to please never ask me what it is I like to do—that question makes me nervous, and to be honest I’m not too interested in asking it to you in return.

Instead, I’d like you to ask me what character from a book I most relate to, so that I could say Stephen Dedalus, and then I could ask you back and you could say Nick Carraway or Hugo Lamb or Frankenstein.

I’d like to talk with you about the plans you have for your dreams tonight, and who you might expect to see there.

If you’re feeling honest, I’d also like to know who you never expect to see there, until you see them, and realize you’d actually been hoping for them to make an appearance all along.

I’d like to talk with you about the music you listened to when you were a teenager—it would be a bonus if it was the same music I listened to, because people really seem to bond over that; but it might be more of a bonus if it wasn’t, because then there would be more to learn.

I would like you to tell me what your bedroom looks like, because someone asked me that once and I thought it was the most intimately innocent question to ask a person you don’t know all that well.

I’d like to talk with you about our eyes—do you really think they betray our deepest secrets, or did someone just say that once and we were all so scared by the prospect that it became a universally accepted piece of the human puzzle?

I would like to talk with you about how old you were the first time you wondered whether or not god is real, and what made you wonder that, and how you feel about it now.

I would like to talk with you about a field of flowers or a lawn of grass, and whether you think of them as one big unit or as thousands of individual little things.

I would like to talk with you about your friends, and who they are and why you love them and the parts of you they change, for better and for worse.

I would like to talk with you about how you trust people: do they start with it all and lose it bit by bit, or do you keep your expectations low and allow yourself to continually be surprised by everyone who proves you wrong?

I would like to talk with you about stars, and whether they make you think of the Lion King or E.T.; science or theology; unimaginable bigness or infinitesimal specks.

I would like to talk with you about how you like your coffee, and whether you’re particular about the beans and what your favorite mug looks like.

I would like to talk with you about tequila, and then talk with you about imbibing with me so that we can talk about the other things we want to know but are too afraid to bring up just yet.

I would like to talk with you about the one photograph you could take with you if you had to leave everything else in your world behind.

I’d like to talk with you about anything really, as long as it’s something that matters.

As long as it’s something that lets me peek behind the curtains of your mind.

Because that is the stage on which you perform your life.

Because watching you, there, is where I’ll fall in love.

~

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Author: Emily Bartran

Photo: Rick&Brenda Beerhorst/Flickr