I read an article about uninterrupted listening. The writer is a lawyer, and parleys for a living. But he felt like it was always in the context of being cut off or rebuked. In the simple structure of Eight Minutes Each he felt an unfamiliar freedom. He experienced empathy. He listened in a way that does not flourish in the courtroom. 

The other day a friend called in distress. Her body was imploding with catapulting thoughts, responses, feelings and physical reactions. She knew if she opened her mouth to her husband, barbed and poisoned words would come shooting out. For forty minutes I held her story, even the prickly parts. It reminded me of the pressure cooker I used early in our marriage. When you are finished cooking rice you need to cool it down, with water and by letting the shooting steam come out the valve, making quite sure your face is not in its path. Then it is safe to open.

After we said goodbye she felt safe opening up the conversation with her man.

Five hours later she called. As chance would have it the sewing students were walking to their cars and I had time to listen again. 

"He heard me, even the ouchy parts, and amazingly, I was able to hear him. I learned about painful things in his childhood, choices he made early on. It was tender. Thank you for listening without judging or minimizing my experience." 

How about that. I had done nothing to change the constellation of things she was dealing with. She was capable of that, given a place to unleash her angst. 

I am not even sure how the whole process jives with what I realized the other day about complaining. They feel like unmatched pieces of a puzzle, one is blue with a white corner and the other is grey with flecks of black. Somehow they both fit in the picture. 

But I am not far enough away yet to see how.