What would Eleanor think?!

What would Eleanor Roosevelt - who famously said, "Great minds discuss ideas, mediocre minds discuss events, small minds discuss personalities." - think about MY mind?  Not the one that I come to by nature, but the one nurtured over the decades?

Perhaps the thing I longed for most from my sister was to have a meeting of minds.  I was always in awe of hers.  I'd sit in absolute amazement as she'd engage others in stimulating uplifting illuminating discussions about theater & literature & all sorts of intriguing subjects & ideas.  Truly a great mind that drew on a treasure trove of knowledge.  

Not like her younger sister.  I cut my teeth on the family myth that my mind was as vacuous as hers was lively.  When I was young, my oldest brother complained to my mother, "Must she always talk such drivel?"  To this day, he's given me no reason to think he's changed his mind about the level of my intellect.  

It's impossible to describe how it feels, always being on the outside looking in.  One discussion stands out in my mind, less than 20 years ago.  Peter, Whitney, Mim & I were waiting in Holy Redeemer Hospital's family lounge.  Mom was in surgery, so we were there for at least a couple hours.  Even now, I remember the sense of awe I felt listening to the three of them batting back & forth topics totally outside my ken.  How I longed to have the sort of mentality that gave harbor to such knowledge & had the dexterity to remember it, to tap into it & use it in conversation.  

I've always admired & envied the skill with which both Mom & John draw out other people, get them talking about themselves, engage in & prolong interesting entertaining enlightening conversation.  

One of my deepest, still-entrenched beliefs is that longed-for ability to connect, engage & converse is past my ken, something to be admired but never attained.  But even deeper down, past a nurture that labels my mind capable of discussing plots & characters from T.V. shows & little else (aka drivel) is its curious thirsting true nature, a mind worthy of Eleanor's time & attention.  

Chalk it up to my drivelish mind looking to pop culture for inspiration, but am reminded of a scene in the film version of Little Women, Susan Sarandon's Marmie saying to Winona Ryder's Jo, who's inherited Plumfield from Mary Wicks' Aunt March - "Turning it into a school - now there's a challenge for you!"   Turning my mind from its nurture to true nature?  I accept!