Ann's space

There is a very nice woman named Jasmine who works at the Serena Hotel in Mombasa, Kenya.  I know about Jasmine because I spent much of my morning on the phone with her making hotel reservations for the weekend.  International phone calls make me nervous.  I tend to talk too fast and too loud and the poor person who is unfortunate enough to answer my call will have their patience tested before our conversation is complete.  But Jasmine was very kind to me.  She listened to my requests.  She was able to decipher my unique alphabet code to discover the name of the person who needed the room (take my word for it, "granola" won't necessarily bring the letter "G" to mind in all contexts).  She was efficient and capable and by the time we said "good-bye" I felt pretty good about the whole experience. 

 

Since I started working on an international programs staff, my overseas phone call track record is far from stellar.  When the calls actually go through (which is only about half the time), I often end up having to shout "Hello" into the receiver over and over again before someone responds in kind.  I have been hung up more than once.  And, on occasion, I've attempted to have conversations with people who don't speak a word of English and the last language I studied was Ecclesial Latin.  (I'm hoping to get a chance to call the Vatican.)  Earlier this week, I placed a call to Johannesburg.  Someone with a beautiful South African accent answered the phone.  "Is this Mister..." I asked.  "No, this is Missus..." she replied.  Oh, crap.  I apologized profusely.  She was gracious and funny and much kinder than I probably deserved.  Thinking about the impression I'm making all around the world causes my palms to sweat.  

 

Who knew that communication could be so hard?  If you have the right phone number and the equipment works, the phone call itself should be a snap.  After all, I manage to talk quite a bit every day.  And I seem to be able to convey my thoughts and wishes pretty well to the people I encounter (the maintenance people at my apartment complex excepted).  Talking on the phone should be equivalent to talking in person.  You've just got a bit more space and a piece of black hose in between.  Now I know that long distance calls require miles of cable and satellites and probably some kind of EM wave thingies, but to me it might as well be two tin cans and a very, very long string.  Just give me the connection and let me talk.  But international calls involve a lot of not knowing what you don't know until you come up against not knowing it.  Everything I take for granted about language flies right out the window when I'm floundering through a call about project budgets and contract amendments to someone who lives multiple time zones away.  It is a very humblng experience.

 

Top of the list of things I've learned while talking to people a half a world away--there are some interesting individuals who pick up the phone in places like Kenya and Colombia--South Africa and the Philippines.  And though I know it can be frustrating to call about a problem with your toaster and get an operator in Mumbai, by chatting with computer technicians as they walk me through issues with my laptop, I've received invitations to visit Panama and spend time in New Delhi.  The world is getting smaller and as the program I work for expands, I foresee many more international calls in my future.  So I'm going to adapt.  I have the military alphabet code tacked up above my desk.  No more "abacus neon noodle" for me next time I have to spell my name.  I'm going to speak more slowly and try not to deafen the person who's answered my call.  And from now on I won't ask, "Hello, is this Mister...?"  Instead, I'll say, "Hello is this the ....residence?"  Problem solved!         

 

         

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today at lunch I had an epiphany.  I'm not usually given to bursts of intuition, especially in the cafeteria at work on a Tuesday afternoon, but these things usually pick their own place and time.  It certainly hadn't been a day conducive to intuitive leaps.  The stress of the morning had left my brain mushy and my mood less than cheery.  Arctic breezes cranked out of the building's cooling system making me pull my sweater tightly around my shoulders as I huddled over my turkey and cheese croissant.  I checked my watch and realized that if I ate my lunch in record time, I would have 20 minutes to sit on the patio in the sunshine before I had to be back at my desk.  And then it happened, between one soft, salty bite and the next, it struck me.  I'm living the life of an eight-year-old.  It's the truth.  Except for paying the bills and having an occasional glass of wine with dinner, my life hasn't changed much since I was in the third grade.  I grudgingly drag myself out of bed every morning to go sit at a desk for most of the day.  I do stuff with math and English and I have to watch my punctuation.  If I do a good job, I get rewarded.  If I blow an assignment, my boss makes me do it over.  And when I can't stand to sit still a moment longer, I take a walk to the ladies' room, whether I need to go or not.  Third grade. 

 

Kids believe that adulthood is the ultimate fun fest.  You can play when you want, sleep where you want, eat what you want.  As a boy, my ex-husband believed that when he grew up he would keep his refrigerator stocked with root beer and his pantry full of Twinkies.  Why would any sane adult want to eat anything else?  However, the Twinkie and IBC diet paled about the time he discovered pizza and beer.  (I couldn't swear to it, but I think that is still his primary source of sustenance--with a peanut butter sandwich thrown in every now and then).  All of the joys and privileges children anticipate as they grow, usually travel in the company of responsibilities and obligations.   So by mid-life, you have schedules and expectations that dictate how each day will look and, ironically, you think back fondly on the freedom of your childhood. 

 

I propose that we take a little bit of that freedom back.  Why should kids hoard all of the best stuff?  Let's re-institute recess.  For fifteen minutes every day, let's be eight-year-olds.  Just think what it would do for employee morale.  A fifteen minute vacation from all of the things that put worry lines around your mouth.  Imagine your IT department jumping rope and the accounting staff on the swings.  For fifteen minutes, we could play tetherball and take turns on the slide.  We could be silly and goofy and loud.  And when the bell rang, we would go back to our desks and spreadsheets and budgets and databases, but we would still have the smell of sunshine on our skin. 

 

I really don't expect anybody to take me up on my idea, even though I think it beats the hell out of coffeebreaks.  But I would encourage you to take a little visit back to childhood every now and then just to take a look around and remember how it felt.  Until I see you on the playground...tag your it. 

 

 

 

    

He was magnificent.  Flashing dark eyes.  Wavy black hair.  And a moustache.  No one at our high school, not even the teachers, wore moustaches.  But there he was, new to the school and the community, smelling like High Karate cologne and looking like every girl's father's worst nightmare.  Better yet, he was smiling at me.  I fell in love immediately and completely.  I was fifteen.  We dated; we went steady; we fought and made up.  We sat listening to each other breathe on the telephone for hours, struggling to make conversation long after we'd run out of things to say.  In short, our relationship mirrored those of all my friends.  We couldn't imagine anything else.  This was the sixties, but the Summer of Love was still on the horizon.  If I had been wise, I would have known that a seventeen-year-old boy with flashing eyes would stray.  And maybe I did know on some level, having seen my girlfriends nursing broken hearts between classes behind their locker doors, too embarrassed to cry in public.  But I never could have imagined the betrayal would be so public, so Days of Our Lives.      

 

Our high school gym was big and old--a huge ark lined with wooden bleachers and smelling of decades of sweat and Ben-gay.  In the afternoon, light spilled through the windows that overlooked the parking lot.  Dust motes danced on the air.  After school let out, we would practice volleyball among the whirling dust and flashing sunlight.  Clad in shapeless blue gym clothes, knee socks and white Keds, our hair was teased and laquered; our bangs, ala Jean Shrimpton, almost covered our eyes.  Our energy was limitless.  But there came a day when I stepped out of the locker room into a gym of quiet chatter and a row of blue clad bottoms lining the upper bleacher.  Something outside the windows had drawn my friends and teammates away from practicing serves and spikes to press their noses against the grimy glass.   Whatever was going on in the parking lot, I couldn't wait to see.  It had to be good.  "Hey, what's up?"  My last innocent question. 

 

I never did get a peek out that window.  Like mother hens, flustered but protective, a score of girls shoved me away from the window and gently led me across the gymasium floor.  As the girls told me what they'd seen in the parking lot behind the gym--as my heart broke for the first time in my life--my boyfriend, wavy black hair and moustache, was making out with a Senior girl of a certain reputation.  Looking back over the years and remembering how I felt, I realize that the nature of broken hearts never change.  The weight pressing on your chest, the catch in the back of your throat, the sting and prick of tears is just as intense in mid-life as it was when you were in high school.  And each time it happens, you swear the next time you'll be wiser; you'll protect yourself; you'll not give your heart so freely.  But love doesnt' allow us those luxuries.  Would I have erased that boy from my life to avoid that first hurt?  No way.  Today, I may have a heart that boasts a few battle scars, but I believe it is a heart larger and more compassionate than one that's never been broken.  The doctors tell us the heart is a muscle, it has to be exercised to keep it healthy.  I believe that's true in the metaphorical sense as well.  Live well.  Love well.  Broken hearts do heal.   

 

             

I have a friend who collects decorative plates.  She has plates for all seasons and all holidays--all moods and decors.  Plates with whimsical characters and plates with religious themes.  Round plates.  Square plates.  Plates with curvy edges.  And plates that are trimmed with gold gilt.  In addtion to the plates themselves, each and every plate in the collection has a special holder so it can be displayed on the wall or a tabletop.  As the year changes from winter to spring--summer to fall, the plates change as well.  Snowflakes and Jack Frost give way to daffodils and pixies.  Firecrackers and sparklers are replaced by autumn leaves and pumpkins.  But all of the lesser plates are quickly relegated to bubblewrap and closet shelves when the Christmas plates make their appearance.  The plates are beautiful and they give my friend a lot of joy, but as I ponder my own almost-bare walls, I have to wonder about the differences between the person who collects things and the person who doesn't.  Is it an elemental difference, as deep as DNA, or is it more a question of taste and economics?   

 

Yesterday I spent the day at a craft festival.  The Festival of the Little Hills is held each year in the old part of St. Charles, Missouri.  It is the quintessential location for a street fair.  Cobblestones and two hundred-year-old red brick buildings lend an aura of authenticity to the handmade wares that line the east side of the street.  Quaint shops and an ecletic assortment of restaurants add to the charm of the experience as well as offer a haven from the heat when August chooses to stifle rather than merely bake.  This year the weather was perfect, very un-August.  Being outside was a joy as a friend and I wandered from booth to booth and through the shops for the better part of the day.  In addition to the interesting people of all types, sizes and ages, we saw lots of stuff.  Stuff meant to adorn walls and sit on shelves.  Stuff meant to dress up your mailbox; stuff meant to dress up your poodle.  Stuff meant to fill every inch of open space in every room of your house.  It was overwhelming.  I smugly wondered, who would ever buy a set of ceramic trolls--one for each month of the year--or the Twelve Days of Christmas wine bottle corks?     

 

Toward the end of the day, after almost eight hours of wandering up and down cobblestones in flip flops, we dragged ourselves into a shop that specialized in "collectibles."  Ornaments, figurines, miniatures villages and more lined the walls and shelves and cases.  Collectible flags hung from the doorways.  Halloween beckoned from a corner.  Easter occupied a cabinet.  Christmas filled an entire room.  Perched on the checkout counter was a glass case.  Inside was a collection of tiny glass mice.  Wee mice with sweet faces and glossy finishes.  One mouse, no bigger than a walnut, was dressed like a pink bunny, an Easter basket in one hand and a precious grin on his mousy face.  A mouse couple, dressed in red, white and blue, tap danced on a stage the size of a silver dollar.  Mice fairies and mice babies.  Even a policemouse in a tricked out patrol car.  They were adorable and my long dormant need to collect something started sparking at the base of my brain.  What could one little mouse cost?  Or a couple...you wouldn't want just one...they are collectibles, after all.  I edged closer to the case to check the price on the tap dancers.  Reality was swift and brutal.  One hundred and forty-eight dollars.  Or four tanks of gas.  Or a couple of pairs of shoes.  Or enough groceries for me to live on for three weeks.  The acquisition fit passed and I left the shop sans mice and humbled.  Despite my earlier hubris, I was just as vulnerable as the next guy to the flash of mass-produced, over-priced gewgaws.  And I blush when I write this, but I wonder if, had I been feeling flush, I would have surrendered to the moment and taken home a tiny glass companion.  At least this way, I have one less thing to dust.