Conversation Cafe

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Okay, I am finally going to get back around to posting here, I have been, I don’t know, distracted recently, unwilling to write it up, but here we go again .

Last Wednesday on the ‘what’s going on tonight’ section on my local CBC evening show, I learned about a conversation cafe going on that night at a cafe about 4 blocks from my house. It was kind of a synchronistic moment, giving me the opportunity to easily talk about some of the things I have been talking about online for so long, in person. So I went to the conversation cafe, and it was a really cool experience.

To start off with, I was by far the youngest person there, the next oldest being in her late twenties mabey, but most of the people were older than fifty. However, there was a wealth of experience and strength there that was amazing. One of the men there was the head of an association of deaf and blind people in Alberta, and had experience lobbying the government. One of the women had lived as a Jew in eastern Europe during the holocaust, all in all, it was a really interesting group.

We talked about relationships from a number of different facets, and one person kept coming back to the difference between family and friendships, we talked about adoptions, both formal and other wise, and the flexibility of the definition of family. We also talked about a lot more than that, and it was a very interesting conversation, the main thing I took from what experience to support my ideas, knowledge that I was not alone, and that my beliefs were not just theoretical but held in the real world. It was a good sense of community, of openness, nearly no topic was taboo, there was a great depth of personal experience. The format was also interesting, first, we had two rounds where we passed around the talking stick, and we each said our piece, then we had a round of more or less normal conversation, finishing with a round of the stick for closing comments; it was a good format, all in all.

After the conversation, I felt energized and open, willing and able to do anything (courage vs. shyness wise) it was uplifting. Unfortunately, that, like all such feelings, vanished with sleep, but it was still a good experience. It was good for starting to break my bubble, a safe way to start stepping out and actually talking about things that matter with the people around me. I would recomend going to the next conversation cafe in your area, though obviously your experience will depend on who is there.

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