“How’s your heart right now?“
Location: An Italian Restaurant in Niagara Falls, Ontario. July, 2023.
“You talked about a desire for partnership. Where is that coming from?“
Location: Somewhere in Manhattan’s Financial District. July, 2023.
The first question met me in a neutral demeanour as my friend and I waited for our appetisers to arrive. After an unconscious deep breath, I dug within to piece together the joy, warmth, satisfaction, but also dejection that had settled quietly in my spirit throughout the day.
“How’s your heart right now?“
This direct question was the invitation I’d needed to finally recognise and verbalise it all. My happiness at how sweet the time spent with my dear friend on our long-awaited reunion trip had been, as well as my sadness that we’d soon be saying goodbye.
My responses floated out through an air of gratitude. They were just one of many expressions of this mutual feeling we shared with each other before and after this moment as well. In this moment, there were tears and great smiles. We bonded some more, and at one point started speaking a next set of holiday ideas into existence.
The second question was by another friend. He was keen to explore further during our meeting in the city, as we caught up around our desires in romance, work, and life in general. It was comforting to feel so seen as he asked, which helped my ego subside more than ever when I shared the important whys behind the desire. Sharing notes and encouragement was greatly affirming, and I came away from our chat filled with peace and optimism that have lingered since.
During this same trip, I was re-reading James Baldwin’s essay ‘Notes Of A Native Son’ and there was a memory he described that got me thinking.
In much of the essay Baldwin is narrating the day of his father’s funeral, illuminating their complex relationship, and reflecting on the (mostly negative) impact his father, a preacher of fierce and temperamental character, had had on everyone around them. Amidst the messy mix of recollections and emotions that come to him as the funeral progresses, this is the stand-out instance that he shares:
I remembered the one time in all our life together when we had really spoken to each other.
…
Lately, I had been taking fewer engagements and preached as rarely as possible. It was said in the church, quite truthfully, that I was “cooling off.”
My father asked me abruptly, “You’d rather write than preach, wouldn’t you?”
I was astonished at his question–because it was a real question. I answered, “Yes.”
That was all we said.
James Baldwin, Notes Of A Native Son, p. 109.
It’s not clear how or even if this one micro-moment influenced his perception of his father or Baldwin’s relationship with his career choice. Not only that, but the abruptness of the question makes me think it was spoken with very little warmth. Overall, it’s a memory Baldwin shares with great melancholy.
Yet still for some reason, it has inspired me to reflect on something I’ve been realising in my own life, through opposite kinds of circumstances:
Real questions – questions that indicate a person you care about openly acknowledges you or wishes to know you on a deeper level – are transformational.
Real questions are a gateway to deepening our relationships with those we hold dear, and have the power to pull us closer to self-acknowledgement and acceptance.
I’ve realised with time how huge of a blessing it is to have close friends who, in addition to their qualities that make them beautiful individuals, ask me these questions so naturally and with such loving intention.
They are open to hearing me name my emotions and tell the stories of how they came, whether those emotions are deemed ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ by society at large.
They are keen to explore the whys behind my whats and are caring in how they share their own reactions, perspectives, and affirmations in response.
They welcome and live for the laughter, the tears, the screams, the smiles, and the silences that colour these moments of connection.
I thank God for them.
Sources
Baldwin, J. (2017) Notes Of A Native Son. Penguin Classics. Great Britain.