I started

to write a post this weekend but...life happened and then it got hot...I just don't do the "sitting around and being hot" thing well.


The "doing something and getting hot" totally different story.


And it made me feel better to run into someone I know who commiserated with me and said "it's August, it's hard to write in August or be overly creative - its the month of editing."


And yes, the things I have been able to do have all been about editing and small technical repetitive things. Its just the starting something new that makes me tired and want iced tea.


In my head there are a million words and ideas buzzing around, but they are not inclined to come out into the heat either. I think that inadvertently I wound up taking August off again.


A few cool days last week were almost inspiring, but it rained all the time.


I read something a while ago that I am beginning to grasp now. And that is how, in the art of conversation, talking about the weather or other such things, is so important in the process of communication. It gets a bum rap these days because everyone "doesn't do small talk" or "wants to have real conversations with real people.' But literally, you cannot get more real then the weather.


When you talk about the weather you are engaging in a delicate dance of acceptance. It is...coversation without class, or race or any of all that stuff. The more you have a solid base of shared the reality with another person, the easier it is to be able to have difficult or "real" conversations because you have a place to return to where you have already established that you are equal and share the same world.


The same rain.

The same sun.

The same feeling of being hot or cold.


Talking about the weather can also lead to sharing memories of trips or sights or experiences that are divorced from settings that may throw up barriers (such as talking about the beauty of the beaches of St. Tropez where you wintered to someone in who has never been 3 city blocks beyond where they were born for lack of funds). Everyone has witnessed a beautiful sunset. When you talk about the sunset in terms of its colors, what it reflected or revealed - you share the experience.


Share the experience.


I am beginning to think that is a great majority of what life is about.