I received a lovely coffee maker from good friends I’d never met.
An odd turn of events, but nonetheless, there it is. Over time we became friends over this blog, but had not actually met until this week, as I now happen to be on a trip to Germany, where they live.
Throughout most of human existence friendship was inextricably bound to physical presence. We see each others’ eyes move, and the subtle motions of the head. We watch facial expressions, and we can smell each others’ sweat. Our brains have great capacity to work with this information, to figure out what is going on between the lines of what has been said.
And yet in cyberspace we willingly forego this vast channel of useful data. We build trust and friendships upon just the words, bereft of all that rich interstitial information conveyed by the physical person.
And so here I find myself, face to face with good friends I’ve never met, and in possession of a delightful coffee pot – a very symbol, in the ritual it embodies, of our existence on this planet as physical beings, not merely as disembodied minds. A gift that was chosen, I am sure, for this very reason.
Later this week I look forward to spending time with my newly corporal old friends. And meanwhile, I think I’m going to make myself some coffee. 🙂