Long Conversations
1. Conversations: (Find a partner and practice these dialogues.)
Helen: Sarah moved in and for the first month both of us struggled to get used to each other again.
Interviewer: You shouldn't have had much trouble because you used to live under the same roof for a long time.
Helen: Unfortunately, it became clear pretty quickly that what used to work before Sarah had gone to school would not work now. Sarah had become an independent woman, and she couldn't live under the same rules and regulations she had as a teenager.
Interviewer: I think you should change your thinking about your daughter, but you also have to rethink the new life you'd taken on.
Helen: Suddenly, everything was out of kilter. Steve, my boyfriend, couldn't spend time with me at my house. I got up before Sarah and I found myself tiptoeing around my own house, not being able to do what I used to do in the mornings. My telephone was ringing three times as often, interrupting my work.
Interviewer: There was no more privacy in your house.
Helen: Sometimes Sarah worked long hours and I felt I had to have dinner ready for her when she came home late. So suddenly I was eating later than I usually did and spending a lot of time cooking, which I hadn't done before.
Interviewer: You must have had clashes from time to time. How did you manage to work the clashes out?
Helen: We always talked things out and came up with workable rules, regulations and boundaries for our continued sharing of the family home.
Interviewer: Life settled down.
Helen: Oh yeah, but I found that something was still missing, no matter how smoothly the household run.
Interviewer: What was that?
Helen: It was that private space, that area that really has no physical description and can't always be described too well with words, either. That's what I lost when Sarah moved into the house with me.
Interviewer: You began to get restless and weren't sure why?
Helen: I thought maybe I was getting bored with my work, or that I just needed a vacation. That was right---I did need a vacation, but I still didn't know what I needed it from. It was like I was always sitting on the edge of my chair, poised to jump up and run, but to...what? And why? It was starting to bother me tremendously, and my relationship with Steve began to suffer as I took my restlessness out on him.
Interviewer: Did Sarah realize that?
Helen: She knew I was missing my private time, and she felt guilty about being the cause of it. She told me that she wanted so much to just move out and let me have my life back. She didn't want to hurt my feelings. She set a definite date by which she would move out of the house. Even if she didn't feel ready financially, she talked with a close friend about sharing a place, and that helped make the goal of moving out more realistic. She also agreed to share cooking chores and to be ready to take care of herself if I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to go out for the night or away for the weekend.
Interviewer: Did things improve?
Helen: Tremendously, but I still missed my private space. Finally, we had addressed the issue to a point where Sarah made concrete plans for going out on her own. Then I had something definite to look forward to---getting my space back!
Exercise: Turn the long dialogue into ONE descriptive narrative. Use only indirect speech. |