In Absentia

I don't know why it was considered so weird when Clint Eastwood addressed an empty chair at the Republican Convention.  There are plenty of empty chairs in my house, and while I don't ask the invisible inhabitants of those chairs to pass the bread at the dinner table, I most certainly talk to them, whether in their chairs or elsewhere.  Certain things need to be said, even if the audience for those words is not in attendance.  Clint Eastwood had little chance of having President Obama in attendance to listen to him, and  I have about as equal a chance to gather my would-be audience together.  So Clint, and I, engage in one-sided conversation trying to explain our viewpoints, atempting to right what we perceive as wrong, wanting to be listened to, to be understood, speaking out inaudibly to those we can't even see.