Parallel Conversations

Jo and I spend hours on the phone at night. Tapping into each other. Extending our wee antlers across the distance that seperates us. Sometimes, we simply listen to each other's silence. Me on the sofa here, she on hers miles away, listening to one another's breathing and pretending we're lying right next to each other. It always reminds me of that defining moment between us. Where I first knew: "This is it."

It was late. We'd been online for hours and it had gotten dark without me turning on the lights. We had the MSN chat window open alongside a Skype call. Sometimes we'd talk, sometimes we'd type, sometimes we'd do both at the same time. It was a communication on two levels: the direct communication of speech and the implicitly written lines of thought. It made our conversations so much richer than either of the levels alone could have been. We'd been gently exploring our feelings for each other. I'd often struggle to find the words. I'd type down the things I couldn't get said aloud. And then the intensity of it all got to me. I'd run out of words entirely.

For about 5 minutes, I said nothing. She was on the other end, her own head in turmoil, and then I wrote: "Sorry for my silence."

I could hear her breathing falter.

Then the sound of her fingers on the keyboard.

From across the distance, her words flew back to me.

"I can hear anything but silence."

She knew.

The silence was pregnant with feelings crossing over between us.
We didn't speak for another ten minutes.
We just sat there.
Telling each other without words, the intensity of us.

That's when I knew.