Punctuation

Chogyam Trungpa in Cutting through Material Spiritualism, says, imagine reading a letter with no punctuation. Sometimes we talk like that. I sat at dinner and talked with no punctuation except maybe lots of exclamation points and somewhere towards the end, my friend got up, was at the computer. I had not finished talking, was in the middle of things, didn't know why he left. What a letdown that space was. I was tired, had just gotten out of work. Much later, he said he wasn't feeling connected to what I was saying. I imagine he was overwhelmed with words and ideas and no punctuation, like a letter with no periods or commas. I imagine the angst and hurry to get all this "highly valuable information" out to someone, meant for him that he had to leave the table to create space for himself. Talk, space, gap, words, space, words. That's better. Pausing, not rushing, not pushing. Beauty in communication. Not needing to push the river. Resting in the river. Pause, space, gap. Comma, comma, period. Much, much later he says, "I got up to put an address in the computer that you wanted so I wouldn't forget." I remember now. He did say that. I remember how tired I was, unable to move. Another giant log breaks free of the dam in my head.