The Conversation We Didn’t Plan.

We were supposed to discuss a topic. Instead, we talked about weather, daughters, blood, running, films, pizza and whatever happened to come next. Maybe that was the better conversation.

By Sylvie. France.

We were supposed to talk about our topic.

We didn’t.

We started with the weather. It was 24 degrees where I was, but rain was coming and the temperature would soon fall. Perhaps we would need the chimney again. I like the chimney because it is cosy, but then you have to clean more. I told my husband I was happy about it, but not completely happy.

In South Africa, Janita had the opposite problem. It had suddenly become hot, and she was regretting the black skinny jeans she had chosen that morning.

From there, somehow, we moved to school holidays, the best time to visit South Africa, driving to Italy instead of flying, petrol prices in France and Germany, cigarettes and whether either of us smokes.

We had hardly begun.

One thing leads to another.

This is sometimes how ordinary conversation works. One small thing opens another.

We talked about films and books. I had recently gone to a restaurant and then to the cinema with my husband and my daughters. I like reading, and when I see the film afterwards, I notice the details that have disappeared. My husband and younger daughter do not really like reading, so they did not have the same problem. They simply enjoyed the film.

Then we compared what we watch. Janita likes some films that I would probably never choose. Harry Potter is not for me. I prefer stories with an ending.

That is important.

When a series finishes with an open ending and the next season comes years later, I hate it. By then I do not remember what happened. Janita had been watching The Gentlemen, and when we discovered there might be another season, my first reaction was exactly that: in a few years I will have forgotten everything.

Then the conversation moved again.

My younger daughter is thinking about her future studies. She has a test in November that could eventually help her enter a school for a master’s programme. I paid the €50 for the test because, if she is motivated to do it, I want to give her the best chance.

With my daughter, however, there is always another story.

She also wants to join a fitness centre. I suggested that she first try it for a month rather than immediately signing a contract she will have to pay whether she goes or not. Maybe she will surprise me.

That morning she already had.

A good surprise.

She called me because she wanted to know her blood type.

At first I wondered what was coming next. Then I discovered why she was asking: she wanted to donate blood.

I was positively surprised.

Janita told me she had once gone to donate without knowing her own blood type. They tested her and later told her she was O-negative.

“I’m the same,” I said.

That gave us another unexpected connection between France and South Africa. We joked that if I ever needed blood, perhaps she could send some from South Africa to France.

But for me, blood donation has another side.

After my treatments, I wanted to donate. I was motivated to give something back, but I learned that I could not. I had not known that before.

So when my daughter decided she wanted to donate, it meant something to me. I imagined perhaps some of her friends were doing it too, and that had encouraged her. Whatever the reason, I thought it was a very good thing.

Sometimes she makes good decisions.

It happens.

Five kilometres, eight kilometres, and pizza.

Cancer entered our conversation in another ordinary way. This month there are walks in France raising money for breast-cancer research, and two friends asked me to join a five-kilometre walk in a small town nearby.

Of course I said yes.

I have done one of these walks before. A few years ago, friends and I took the train early in the morning, did the walk together, went to a restaurant afterwards and then came home by train.

Janita told me about cancer fundraising in South Africa, including a run where men wear very small purple swimming costumes. She even found a photograph to show me.

This was not quite how I expected our cancer discussion to develop.

Meanwhile, I am still running. The morning before our conversation, I went out early enough that it was dark and I needed a headlamp. I had planned to run seven kilometres.

I ran eight.

Not because I had suddenly become ambitious. I was thinking, continued too far and realised too late that I had made the route longer. I was actually a little angry because eight kilometres had not been in my plan. But by then I had to continue.

My next run was planned for Friday, followed by the five-kilometre cancer walk on Saturday. Sunday was less certain. If we invited people for tarte flambée, I would not run because I would spend the day preparing everything at home.

That counts as movement too.

My health still includes regular checks. I had recently seen my oncologist and had more tests planned, including a future cardiology check because of my earlier treatment. Three years have passed since that treatment, but some things still need to be watched.

And then, almost in the same breath, we were talking about food.

I generally eat well. Vegetables, fruit, good food.

But just before our conversation I had eaten a Magnum ice cream.

Afterwards I wondered why I had done it.

Janita was not worried. I had run the day before, I was playing tennis, I would run again on Friday.

And that evening we were having pizza.

Actually, I had eaten pizza the evening before too.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I can manage that.”

The topic can wait.

By the end, we had travelled a surprisingly long way without going anywhere.

There had been weather and laundry, petrol and films, daughters and university, blood donation and cancer walks, running in the dark, medical appointments, ice cream, pizza and the cost of studying. We had compared small pieces of life in France and South Africa without deciding beforehand that this was what we were going to do.

Then, after more than an hour, I remembered something.

“Normally we needed to talk about our topic now.”

Janita laughed.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Sometimes it’s good to have a natural conversation about life.”

And perhaps that was the topic after all.

Every week, there is something new to tell.