Conversations

I am currently fleeing (as best one can flee on board a ship in the middle of the ocean) from a poisonous conversation I couldn't not overhear in the library. Three people explaining at length to one another how all the problems of the world are the fault of people Not Like Us : the unions, the blacks, the poor, the Obama administration, the greedy foreigners. All in that tone of contemptuous self-righteousness that brooks no contradiction.

So as antidote, let me tell you about some wonderful conversations I've had on board. Yesterday, for example, I overheard a man quote to his wife a marvelous sentence from the book he was reading. Wanting to know the reference, I asked what he was reading, and it turned into a half hour discussion about what one can and cannot know about oneself. He is a retired neurologist/psychiatrist, he and his wife are Dutch, and they speak thoughtfully and listen carefully. If a class session in creative writing had not taken over the space, we might still be talking.

This morning, I sat down for breakfast at a table with a woman from Vermont who felt as I do about the need for personal space on board*. We sympathized, traded experiences and solutions -- she had found a place on my deck that is often deserted and has comfortable banquettes where one can relax, read, or get online.

*Because my cabin is cleaned twice a day, and because food requires that I go somewhere, I really can't hole up in there as I'm used to doing at home. Usually it's not too bad, but those people in the library made me realize how much I miss My Space.

Very early in the cruise, I sat at a table with a man who called both President Bushes by their first name and served on a a national commission on financial reform. He talked about the inside details of how it almost failed due to the computer illiteracy of one high administration official -- fascinating stuff!

A week ago, I met a woman from England who is traveling with her sister. They are straight out of central casting for cheerful British spinsters -- white-haired, friendly, gracious, ready to be delighted by everything and everyone they encounter, but with an underlying steadiness of mind that would let either one of them be Miss Marple should we have a complicated murder on board. And no, I am not going back to the library to commit one.