Gift of Gab

What if you kiss the Blarney Stone and you already have the gift of gab?

My mother deserves the most credit for my ability to find things to talk about. I’ll credit my dad for my ability to write about those things.

A friend told me the other day I had a ‘gift for gab’.

I do. And it’s a good thing. But, when I stop to think about it, it’s a very limited super power.

Having a gift for gab has made running a business infinitely easier. Having a service business predicated on entertaining guests, remembering their names and dispensing information on demand has put my gift to good use. After all these years, the one aspect I truly still enjoy, is gabbing with guests on the phone or by text or email and—on those increasingly rare occurrences I’m called out on the river—in person.

This particular gift I believe is a derivative of being at ease with people. Which is a derivative of being at ease with myself.

Most gab is small talk. Talk that doesn’t go too deep, meanders about wildly and never reaches a conclusion. I don’t like the small talk of random parties with equally random people but if you were to throw me into a holiday party with the office staff and management of an architectural firm I’ll be able to comfortably hold my own. I consider my gab to be a slightly sophisticated notch above small talk for survival.

What I really pride myself in is being able to pick up a conversation with someone I haven’t talked to in years with all the familiarity that came with the relationship in the very beginning. With all the warmth with which it was left.

It must be genetics. Or osmosis.

It could also be learned behavior. My mother could gab for hours with people at the grocery, fellow church goers as they clotted outside the entrance to the church at the conclusion of the service or the delivery guy from Sears. My father, of course, as a minister of a church earned his living being convivial and accessible.

Despite my chattiness and willingness to divulge large portions of my life online, as I said earlier, it’s a super power with limitations.

I’m terrible at communicating. I expect reading between the lines. Filling in the blanks. I expect visual cues to be on par with the actual words. I avoid the depth and breadth and meat of a subject for as long as I possibly can and almost always to its detriment. I count on time to heal, hide or erase whatever matter is at issue.

I’m a stoic. A stoic filled with compassion, empathy and sentiments but without the ability to express them confidently or authentically. And, by that, I mean, the moment they arise. I’d rather sit on them until I’m comfortable bringing them to the fore. Usually it is far too late.

I don’t know how this plays into this but my dad used to have a sign on his desk that read, “I have my faults, but being wrong is not one of them.”

I don’t like being wrong. Being right or wrong should have absolutely zero to do with communication but that’s not how the mind of a stoic works. You can be wrong about anything. So you're careful. Cautious. Spend a lifetime building ‘defensible space.’

I don’t know how this plays into it either but this past weekend I was talking with a couple of the female students about the gastroenteritis that swept through our group on the river and we got to talking about vomiting. None of us cared much for vomiting but they said their tendency would be to hug the porcelain throne and ride it out. Get it all out of their system.

I was just the opposite.

I will go to great lengths to avoid throwing up. I will try to go into a meditative state, if necessary, because there are few things I hate more than the acid and bile making its way up my esophagus and into my mouth. Even the expression “I just threw up in my mouth” makes me internally writhe in discomfort.

I do the same with communication.

It’s edited, considered and CAT-scanned for emotion. Tamped down for all kinds of reasons when it would almost always be better to be a little less. . . stoic.

That would be a true super power.

I was completely unaware before my quasi-coherent, unedited rambling that the ‘gift of gab’ is an expression related to The Blarney Stone of Ireland. And, here’s another confession. Before searching ‘gift of gab’ and being led to several videos about kissing the Blarney Stone, I really had no idea what the Blarney Stone was all about.

I guess the legend is if you kiss the Blarney Stone of Blarney Castle you will be smitten with the gift of gab, or eloquence, or witty one liners. Winston Churchill kissed the Blarney Stone and he was a great gabber!

I watched a few of the videos. This woman’s was the most fun. Enjoy!

Also, John Oliver’s POV for those who are vaccine hesitant. In the end, he says, don’t show people the video—that won’t work—they will be more likely to listen to you. I’ve also heard that steering them to listen to the advice of their own doctor is our best hope to bring in those who are hesitant.

Thanks for reading! Taking a bit of a breather from the hard topics, but fear not! All it will take will be a partial day’s news cycle to get me back on track. - JLM