What I Want People to Know Beyond “How Are You?”

CASEY EDWARDS · VOICE WITH A PURPOSE

I’m glad when someone asks how I am. There is care in taking a moment to check, and I don’t take that lightly.

Sometimes I know how to answer. Other times, there are several honest answers, and I’m trying to decide which one belongs in the moment.

I might tell you what hurts, what I’m waiting to hear, or how the day has been going. Those things matter. I’m grateful to have someone willing to hear them.

And sometimes, once we’ve talked about that, I want there to be room for the rest of the conversation.

I might have an idea I haven’t quite worked out. Something I’ve been curious about. A sentence I keep moving around because it sounds almost right. I may want to hear what happened in your day, including the part you think is too ordinary to mention.

Ordinary sounds rather good to me.

Ask me what I’ve been making, and you may get a longer answer than you expected. There will probably be opinions about the words, the colors, and exactly where the picture ought to go.

We recently gave a little painted bird a place on a teacup. I am rather fond of his serious little face.

Consider yourself warned: a question about my writing can become a discussion about a bird’s expression.

I like having something like that to share. It gives us somewhere to wander together. You might tell me about a cup you love, or something you’re making, and suddenly we are having a conversation neither of us had planned.

The difficult things can still be there. I can also be interested in what you’re telling me.

Some days, though, I do need to talk about what is hard. I may need time to find the words, or to say something I have already said because it is still occupying so much of my mind. Being able to do that with someone matters to me.

I think what I want is a little freedom to choose where we begin, and to change direction as we go.

“How are you?” can be the beginning. We can keep going.

“What have you been making?”

“What made you laugh?”

“What have you been curious about lately?”

I imagine you have things you would enjoy being asked about, too. Perhaps there is a story you rarely get to tell, or an interest that doesn’t come up in the usual catching up. Maybe something has happened that you would like to sit with for a while before anyone offers an opinion.

I would like to remember to leave room for that.

There is a kind of ease in being with someone who lets a conversation take its time. We can follow a thought, lose our place, laugh, and come back to something important a little later.

I don’t expect every conversation to reach all the parts of a life. I simply like knowing there is room for another question.

One Quiet Question

What would you enjoy being asked about today?

I’d like to hear that part, too.

The porch light is on.