I don’t know about this whole Skype thing. Sure, it’s wonderful to see all your extended peoples and talk to them in an electronic face-to-face, but we’re missing something, too.
When I first reconnected with my extended peasant Balkan folk in 2001, I had to board a plane and fly to the motherland to do it. Track everyone down the old fashioned way–which meant waiting until I was actually in town (or village! we are peasants, after all) before anyone would call or see me. Nobody back then was into this American idea of making a plan. Which explains why, when I was unable to track down a family friend in her Croatian city, it was because she was in Italy.
Nowadays, Facebook has pretty much eradicated the need to physically travel anywhere if you’re trying to put together the missing pieces from your past. But it’s a bittersweet reunion to trade a few words with that lost someone before moving on to the next to-do of your day. And while a FB post might update me on your status (What’s that? You’re downing a giganormous latte while your baby heads into traffic?), the thrill of the chase hollows pretty quickly. There’s no patting someone on the back when you’re catching up in cyberspace, no sizing up a decade’s worth of changes over a smokin’ Turkish coffee or leisurely meal, no lingering hug to be gotten upon departure.
And what do you do when the news isn’t so great? When you find out that someone’s sick, battling cancer or divorce, a lost child or job? Do you walk away, or find a way to crawl closer? If it’s a friend from FB, would you even know? And if you do find them on Skype, will the distance crumble when you finally call? Video hiccuping as the static mirrors a space inside you, pause of your heart.
