Deb and Barb Have A Three-Way

This week we’re going to start a new regular (maybe monthly) feature where we let one of our loyal reader-commenters and friends begin our blog conversation. As Rigel from Winter Light Blog inspired us with her pithy comment about digressions, we’ve asked her to pitch the first ball.

As always, the conversation will continue in the comment-section.

Deb And Barb Have A Three-Way With Rigel

Rigel: Deb, in your post the other day, you mentioned your booties purchase, and you said, "But I digress."

Please do! Yay for digressions and conversational tangents! Of course, I also realize that I will someday be banished to the Siberian gulag for writers who abuse parenthetical asides.

Conversational tangents just make the conversation rich and complex enough that it has its own trigonometry (my favorite subject in math)!

Digressions and tangents are conversational accessorizing. They are the earrings, necklaces, hair barrettes, and purses of conversation. Do you want your conversation to keep its hair out of its face with plain, black bobby pins or with a fabulous peacock feather fascinator?

I'd much rather interact with someone whose conversation is luxuriously draped, intricately embroidered sari silk than someone whose conversation is plain, cream muslin that hangs like a potato sack.

Photo by Rigel

Of course, there are times when conversation must wear its pantyhose, severe black suit, and plain pumps while slicking its hair back into a tight bun (without the cute hair chopsticks!). There are those situations when we must apply that most dreaded word: appropriate. Digressions and tangents would be floppy socks making us trip and fall (rather than cute booties) in cases such as the urgent, efficient patter of a trauma team, a stuffy corporate memo, or testifying on the witness stand!

But, in most circumstances, for me, the conversations that contain the most laughter, the most insight, and the most pleasure are the digressing and tangential ones that are accessorized like belly dancers with veils, bells, and bangles.

Barbara: Rigel, first off, I just love your analogies for “appropriate” conversation vs natural, “embroidered” conversation. As everyone saw in our video post on Wednesday, Deb and I are completely and thoroughly “belly dancer” conversationalists (even without the endless interruptions).

Don’t get me (us) wrong—there are many many days when we get LOADS written, but I don’t think a day goes by that isn’t peppered with a thousand different random tangents that trigger a thousand more, and so on and so on. In fact, “What were we saying?” is our constant go-to lament.

Of course, the comedy of errors really kicks in after “What were we saying?” That’s when we scramble desperately to tangent our way back to point A––because we’re absolutely CERTAIN that point A was of some really urgent, life-changing importance.

But, like you say, Rigel, it turns out that the glory and beauty of these rich discussions is that oodles of gold comes out of our tangents. Feelings not yet realized, experiences not yet shared, fears not yet examined. Sometimes––usually––it doesn’t matter at all that Point A got lost in the shuffle.

Deb: I agree with everything that both you girls say about this. I think tangents are necessary, but they can also hinder a forward motion when ... did I tell you we’re getting a new puppy tomorrow? Cannot wait. We went out to get the little pink leash and the little pink ... there was a gorgeous bulldog there that I wanted to steal he was so cute. My friends bulldog, Julie, used to dive in the pool at his house everytime one of them went off the diving board, but she couldn’t swim so she would just sink like a stone, stand there with her eyes open until someone rescued her ... I took swimming lessons a few years back to up my skills in the hopes that it would get me back in the pool and it did for one summer. Last summer, I went in twice and this summer, just my feet. I don’t know if it’s the pool or the prospect of seeing the sun reflected off of the cellu ... I have this weird tom-tom poundy thing in my left ear and it is really weird and I went online and so many people were talking about it and wondering what it was. My doctor said not to worry but is sending me to an ear, nose and ... throat thing is going around right now and I have to say that I have already fought off two colds since August with the Coldfx. But why? Why do I get so many colds? I am so healthy and I eat well and work out and take vitamins and still my nose starts to get stuffed and I can’t ... smells of Autumn are bliss with people’s fireplaces kicking in and the crisp air begging me to scarf down a caramel covered apple ... Honey Crisp apples?!? What the hell? Soooooooo good and so huge. It’s like an apple and a glass of apple juice in one ... I’ve never really been a juice person though ‘cause ... have I ever mentioned that I NEVER EVER EVER feel thirst? The only time was when I was in labour and it was as if all my thirsts saved up for that one 24-hour period. It was awful ... just like the thought of the boy going back to school. Awful. We have gotten used to him being up in his room since he got back from his summer job, having dinner with us and enjoying his company again and I am already stressing about him heading back in October ... the heavenly month in Ontario where everywhere you look is God’s canvas. I think God called it his colour phase.

Barbara: What were we saying?