There’s big power in those little connections

The reason I don’t make connections easily, my wife informed me one day, is because I walk around most of the time disconnected.

She noticed this particularly at the recent Los Angeles Times Festival of Books after I’d appeared on stage “in conversation” with America’s best editorial cartoonist, Paul Conrad.

Conrad and I had a good time batting it around a bit after accepting the fact that “in conversation” meant we could talk about whatever we damn well pleased, even if it had no significance. We could talk about our bladder problems or the hair growing in our ears, and even though we didn’t, we could have.

When it was over, members of the audience came up and told us about incidents in their own lives that related to what we’d said. Cinelli was watching and noticed that I hadn’t seemed to be listening to them. I appeared to be off in space where I sometimes dwell. I wasn’t connecting with anyone.

I thought about that over the next few days, especially after seeing the movie “The Visitor” at a Laemmle theater in the Valley. I don’t usually hustle movies, but if you want to see a gem, this one is it. And it’s all about connections.

Richard Jenkins plays the part of a lonely, solemn widower who bonds with a young Syrian musician and his Senegalese girlfriend, in this country illegally. The musician teaches him to play West African drums, and the shared rhythms of the beat and the charm of the young couple slowly melt the widower’s stoicism. When he meets the young man’s mother, the linkage between two cultures is complete.

I won’t go into the whole plot, but I came out of the movie thinking how much richer and more peaceful the world would be if we could all make the same kinds of connections that appeared on the screen. There are a lot of ways to do that.

For instance, Cinelli is the kind of person who is able to leave herself open to connections.

People just naturally meander over to talk with her, and before long they’re old friends. I usually stand to one side and pretend I’m just there to help carry things.

As an indication of her powers of connection, on a flight back from Sacramento, she sat next to a 13-year-old girl.

By the time the plane landed at Burbank less than an hour later, Cinelli had learned: the girl’s parents were divorced, her father lived in Sacramento and her mother in L.A., her father had several girlfriends, her former stepfather was a teacher and a lovely man and a 14-year-old friend was probably pregnant.

“She told you all that for no reason?” I asked.

“She just felt like talking, I guess.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Oh, you know,” she said, “that you have a prostate problem and skinny legs.” Then she smiled puckishly. It’s an endearing smile, a sharing of the joke.

“Good,” I said. “It’s something I want everyone to know.”

I had the opportunity, as I mentioned in an earlier column, to connect with a man I called Tex, who moseyed over to us at a rest stop south of Redding, gave us a couple of oranges and tried to strike up a conversation.

While Cinelli chatted, I said very little. I’m not able to engage in small talk because I don’t know specifically what that is.

I could begin with “How about them Dodgers?” except that I know very little about the team, or even if it’s baseball season. Does Fernando Valenzuela still pitch for them? Is Tommy Lasorda still the manager? Whatever became of Pee Wee Reese? The only friends I have are those willing to sit with me in silence while our wives chit-chat about everything from Paris Hilton to quantum physics. I don’t have that capacity. I guess that’s why I drink martinis, to keep my mouth busy while others do the talking.

A friend named John Lay, who communicates with me via e-mail, sparing me the necessity of actually chatting, sent me a quote he’d read. He couldn’t remember its source, and I couldn’t find it anywhere, but its power is compelling. It’s about a man who committed suicide from the Golden Gate Bridge.

He left a note, obviously written earlier, that said, “If someone talks to me today, I won’t jump.” Lay added in his e-mail, “No one talked to him.”

Not everyone I fail to connect with is going to jump off a bridge, but I’m going to work on linking with others through the medium of small talk. I started by trying to converse with Cinelli at breakfast. She says I’m always staring off like she isn’t even there while she does the talking. So the other day I chattered like a crazy man for 20 minutes straight, and when I ran out of breath she said, “Have you been drinking?”

Not yet.

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