"Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer."Cost: ~$30 in food and drink
- Howards End, E.M. Forster
Time: 2.5 hours
Difficulty: 4
I'm naturally a private person, to my own detriment. I keep most of my emotions to myself and few of my friends see more than one or two facets of my life. I don't know why I'm this way.
When Leaura suggested that we share life stories, this obviously needed to be one of my different things. Even if I remain a private person, I'd be better off if I could at least occasionally share.
We took turns narrating our biographies as we felt appropriate. I divided my life into chunks of time: my awkward, geeky youth, my angst and drama infested college years, my complacent early twenties and my notably less complacent late twenties. Leaura's narrative followed threads of theme: her family, her relationships, her career.
Predictably, an evening is not enough time to share your entire life. Even very broad strokes with a few salient details filled must leave huge and important sections empty. I hadn't even reached my thirties and Leaura had just met her now-fiancée Rich when our waiter was peaking over for the third time to see if the check had been picked-up yet.
This type of interaction was unusual and cathartic for me. And entertaining enough for our neighbors at the next table to, when I was up from the table, comment that we were having one bizarre first date.
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