all of the selves we Have ever been
My phone rang three times this morning before I could get to it. It was a surprise. I am accustomed to receiving text messages throughout the day, but the phone does not ring often any more. As I ran for the phone, I was reminded of my youth. When the phone rang, it generated excitement. Everyone in the household dashed toward the landline wanting to be the one to answer. If the caller was a relative or someone known to everyone in the family, the receiver was passed around until each person had a turn to talk. On the phone or in person, parents trying to civilize a child would never tolerate offspring who did not courteously respond when spoken to. And much of the time, children were expected to hold onto their thoughts and just listen. Now people show up at state capitols with assault weapons. They gather in the streets. Burn down buildings. Take over police headquarters. Bury people with tweets. Is this what it now takes to be heard? How do I ignore thee? Let me count the ways. First, there are in-person encounters. I would say face-to-face except people don’t look at one another any longer. They are busy staring into their phones and scrolling with their fingers, giving an occasional “uh-huh,” as you speak. Folks gather in the lunch room, at a meeting, or around a dinner table with others and occupy themselves with their phones. They might even laugh and talk out loud to no one in particular as they read quips from their screens. Then there is the old-fashioned letter. What a surprise to get paper mail! But how likely is a person to receive a letter anymore? And what is the likelihood someone would answer if you took the time to write? A person has better odds of discovering cave drawings than getting a letter in reply. Email was great at the start. Fast. Efficient. An exciting new technology. Now? Forget about it. People are entombed in email. If you get an answer, it might take weeks. More often, there is no answer. Ever. Recently, someone I know shared frustration that an important colleague had 200 unopened emails! Ouch! And is that just the tip of the cold shoulder? Probably. I called a business associate one day to follow-up on an email. As I waited on the line for him to search his inbox, he told me that he receives approximately 300 emails a day. I would be on life support by the end of a week if I tried to thoughtfully answer that many emails. And don’t think you can sneak up on someone with feigned urgency by calling them. Folks rarely answer their phones unless they want to chew out or humiliate a telesales person. “Let it go to voicemail” is the company song. We all know that voicemail is hopeless. Too much effort. You have to dial your voicemail box, listen, maybe jot down a number or a piece of information, and dial back. A person would need a boost from a bottle of Ensure to support all that effort. And who keeps Ensure on hand? Your best hope might be a text message, but don’t look for deep or thoughtful communication. Short messages might appear curt. Acronyms can lead to confusion. Suddenly, someone stops speaking to you because a typo lead to a new acronym that unintentionally insulted the receiver…The alphabet was once something decipherable by preschoolers, now you need an interpreter. Does that statement deserve an OMG? A WTF? IDK. And I give up. And then there is the interplanetary universe of customer service. Phone menus. Holds. Chats with AI. Scripted responses. Little that is helpful. Much that is infuriating. What is the actual goal of customer service? Drive up the sale of psychotropic medications and mood stabilizers? There is a lot of discontent brewing among the ignored and dismissed. It is a sad day when it is easier to storm the capitol than it is to get a return phone call.
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There are people in my community I only know from looking through their windows. I am not a voyeur or a peeping tom. I am a Diet Coke addict. I know that stuff is bad for me, so I try to limit myself to one a day. I am not fond of Diet Coke in cans or bottles. The quality is unreliable. As a connoisseur, I prefer my Diet Coke from a fountain. I’ve discovered that the new, next generation, Freestyle, digital dispensers have the best flavor-to-fizz ratios. And so, each day, I make one stop at a drive-through window. During this time of COVID-19, I tell myself that I am not just feeding my craving, but I am also making a small contribution to these businesses and the economy. Oh, the rationalizations of a user! I talked to a dietician once about my habit. She explained that it is not just about the substance, but about the entire experience—the cup, the ice, the straw, the trip to the store or restaurant…Wow! That was insightful. I do like a certain size cup, amount of ice, straw. I have a few preferred locations and go elsewhere only when traveling or when my usual places are closed, sold out, or the dispensers aren’t working. And I have come to appreciate that there is another important element to the Diet Coke experience. It is the people in the windows. The voices over the intercoms. The Coke and the smile. When you become a regular, you get to recognize the staff. They start to acknowledge you in a familiar way. The restaurant becomes your place as well as theirs. Their presence and yours become predictable and reliable, a brief but comforting connection in an anonymous world. Years ago, there was a young woman who waited on me each morning at a local shop. Over the course of about two years, I learned she was saving money to go to college. One day she told me it was her last day. She had reached her goal. She was off to college! I wished her well. Despite the passage of time, I still think of her and wonder how it all worked out. A permanent connection was made there at the window. Sometimes I hope to run into her again and hear how it went. In 2018, I went to work in a small rural town in Missouri. I brought my bad habit with me and scouted out a new fast food restaurant that was on my route to work. Every morning I pulled up to the same intercom to place my order. Pretty soon the staff got so familiar with me, my car, and my order that they no longer asked what I wanted. Barely at a stop, I would hear a voice from the loudspeaker telling me to pull up to the window, my drink was ready. Now that is service! How far down the road did they see me coming? And it felt good to be known by someone while I was a lonely stranger far from home. Eventually, some of the regular staff learned my name and addressed me like an old friend. I am back in my hometown now. It was a little sad to leave my people at the drive-through in Missouri. Coronavirus was awaiting me back in Ohio. My daily routine was upended, and I started visiting a new drive-through restaurant. With a few months of patronage under my belt, I now recognize the voices on the intercom and the people who reach out to me from the drive-through window. They know just how I like my drink and how much ice to add to the cup. Every couple of weeks a pair of hands reaches out the window to pass me my drink, and a voice says, “It’s on me. Have a nice day!” I feel a surge of friendship for this young masked man. I will have a nice day, Kemosabe. I will. And I do. Next time you pass a drive-through window, take a look. There are actual people hidden behind the glass. Kind and gracious people. A special class of friends. When my son was a toddler trying to absorb language and grasp the difficult concept of time, he would sometimes preface a question about the future with the words “after this day.” “After this day will we go to grandma’s house?” or “After this day will I go to school?” Anticipating the future, he began trying to understand its denominations—minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years. Even little ones desire clarity about what’s ahead. That yet-to-come time can be puzzling, exciting, and fraught with uncertainty. “After this day” reminds me of the language of fairy tales and the world that existed “once upon a time.” It has a dream-like quality that makes my head feel fuzzy. What is real? Imagined? Possible? Nearly six months have passed since the start of the year 2020, and yet it seems like one long, harsh day. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and ask myself, “Did all that really happen?” It reflects the feelings of unreality we all share during this strange and difficult time of microscopic invaders, wolves in sheep’s clothing, and looming dangers like financial ruin and social injustice. What will happen after this day? Fairy tales entertain and educate the young. The stories provide life lessons about dangers lurking in the world, about how to face challenges and solve problems. The tales give us examples of how to be heroes even when we are reluctant or afraid. Heroes are good, kind, brave, smart, resourceful, and do what needs to be done. Despite difficulties, heroes win in the end, triumphing over evil and villains, captivity and harsh conditions. Often the hero endures trial after trial to save someone else. Sounds a lot like parenting. I am trying to endure and be brave though often I feel a fool. I am going through my own trials but still trying to outwit the enemies and rescue the world for my children. I will never outgrow the desire to be a hero for them. And I owe it to that sweet toddler boy who once upon a time believed in fairy tale princes, magic beans, and a mother who could see into the future. May we all live happily ever after… After this day. You might say I am small-minded. Others seem enamored with rocket ships that fly to the moon, growing wireless networks, or classy automobiles. All of the Gs: g-force, 5G, G-class…That is all out of my realm. Unless they are referring to a new bra cup size, I’m not really interested. My mind and my money are on small strokes of genius. That’s my g: things that make life better for all of us. Things that stand the test of time. Things I understand. Things I can afford. Take the ice cream cone. Now that is pure genius. Hand-sized. You eat the dish and the evidence at the same time. Nothing to wash! Portable. Light weight. Stackable. Sells for pennies. What more can you ask for in a single product? What would summer be without ice cream cones? Might as well hold back the sun and live in a season of darkness. And who thought to put toilet paper onto a roll? Is that person in the designers’ hall of fame or memorialized at the Metropolitan Museum of Art? The manufacturers can make the paper softer, stronger, more colorful, and even scented, but the beauty is in the roll. Intellectuals might debate the proper manner in which to hang toilet paper—should it be over or under? Who cares?! It’s on a roll!!! Staying with the paper-hygiene family, how about the soft, dry tissues packed into a pop-up container? If you have ever had to carry a soggy cloth handkerchief glued together by snot, then you know the inventor of Kleenex deserves a permanent exhibit at the Smithsonian. Moving on. I still love a good, sharp pencil. My mind is like a Formula 1 race car when I have that old-fashioned, skinny tool in my hand. I’d like to pay homage to the person who thought to put a tiny eraser on top of a pencil. I hope that he or she went straight to the head of the class and got a full scholarship to MIT. And, finally, what about the humble fork? While many traditions eat with their hands or scoop food into bits of bread or use chopsticks, I gotta say, I love a fork. It gets the job done whether I’m preparing food or eating, and it keeps my hands clean too. It is easy to wash, maintenance free, and lasts a lifetime unless you have children who manage to misplace their silverware or take it to school for science class or show-and-tell. With the world in so much chaos, I prefer to focus on the small things. Things that stand the test of time. Things I understand. Things I can afford. If you want to talk more about this, call me on my flip phone. We are in a world of hurt. First the coronavirus surprised us, wore us down, made us tense, vigilant, exhausted. “Let’s sacrifice the old people and get back to commerce,” said some leaders. “Our black and Hispanic communities are disproportionately represented among the COVID-19 victims,” reported others. “There is a new, terrifying syndrome breaking out among children,” the scientists testified. Obese people, folks with hypertension and “underlying conditions” were included in the warnings. Health care workers fell like dominoes. News men and women broadcasted their illnesses, quarantines, and hospitalizations before our eyes. No one was deemed safe from the risk of lengthy and horrifying illness. And while we were broken and shaken, the knee came down on the neck of George Floyd. Came down on all of us. Undeniable. I am beginning to feel like I can’t breathe. And maybe that is the point. That we share the suffocating feeling. Join with our black and brown brothers and sisters in their pain, their sorrow, their outrage. Understand the weight. The burden. Everyone is raw. Perhaps the new coronavirus is a last-resort, divine intervention to help us all see and feel what it is like to live in a world where silent danger lurks in our homes, our families, our neighborhoods, our churches, our shops, our schools, our workplaces, and out on the street—to understand what it is like to live with the awareness that you are not safe anywhere. For me and for others, the current, collective circumstances have awakened memories of all of the injustices I have known and carried for myself and for others. Injustices that occurred in homes, on the playground, in the classroom, throughout the neighborhood, in church, in the workplace, the doctor’s office, and on the sports field. Injustices that occurred because of age, gender, religion, ethnicity, race, and temperament. It is overwhelming that there are so many voices, so much hidden hurt. It is like the worst possible car crash. Every organ, every bone, every bit of tissue of society is damaged. Where to begin the treatment? When the doctor asks, “Where does it hurt,” we must be able to tell the truth. We all need to be heard. When terrible things happen the frequent question is why didn’t someone speak up sooner? Noble as it may be, it is difficult to speak truth to power. There is reprisal. When even at the highest levels in the land, there is a revolving door of the dismissed, what hope is there for a common laborer or a black man on the street? Far too often, the bad guys win. The whistleblower is deemed a hysteric, a liar, a disgruntled employee. Not only do they lose their job, they lose their reputation. Their character, their divine spark is called into question. Speaking truth to power leads to disdain, disbelief, and dismemberment. People in power do it to us, but we do it to each other through social media. These powerful outlets can be a tool to bring the truth to light, but too many times, it used to destroy others. Hidden behind their screens, individuals say outrageous, hurtful, destructive things that cost people their jobs and their lives. Trolls and mobs rule. How do we stand up to this new force? When influence and a following become more important than expertise, when living in the spotlight becomes more important than truth, when desire for “likes” overwhelms right action, when pandering to a fan club becomes more important than genuine leadership, what hope do we have? When I am injured, I want to know the ER doctors have reliable knowledge, skills, tools, and experts with whom to consult and refer. I want to be able to trust that they know the right questions to ask and how to triage. I want to know that everyone brought to the emergency room gets care and reassurance. We are in a world of hurt. We need to be able to say that we are hurting, where it hurts, and what caused the pain. Action is the only way to confirm that the truth has been heard. Leadership action once meant that the captain went down with the ship. Such a potential outcome provided motivation for getting everyone out alive. In that scenario, the exercise of duty to others and to self is one and the same. We are hungry for leaders of moral courage, leaders who are part doctor, part captain, social healers who can dig down and find the truth, stop the bleeding, right the ship, and steer the course. Is there anyone out there--on duty or on vacation--who can get us out of this world of hurt? I am taking a break from heartache today. All of it. The coronavirus, death, hospitalizations, unemployment, economic collapse, murder, racial injustice, protests, looting, politics… My mind is on overload, my spirit on life support. Today, I retreat to the world of early childhood where everything wonderful is still possible. I am reminded of a day long ago. Another difficult day. I finally threw in the towel and said out loud, “I give up!” I plopped down in a comfy chair. My preschool daughter, Emily, who was playing nearby said, “Well, then I give up too.” She squeezed into the chair beside me. Emily had no idea what we were giving up on, but it was wonderful to have her snuggly, agreeable company while I retreated from life. I don’t recall what apocalyptic thing I was giving up on. It was probably another string of events that added up to too much for one day. In any event, it was a small, sweet child who saved me. The voices of little children are sure to soften and fill the heart. I remember attending a seasonal concert at the grade school my children attended. The auditorium was packed with picture-taking parents. The concert began with the oldest group, the sixth graders. The energy of their voices resembled something one might hear in that twilight stage of sleep during a colonoscopy. Not memorable. I imagine that in the minds of these sophisticated upperclassmen, the eleven and twelve year olds, it was just a lame dog-and-pony show meant to entertain even lamer parents who had lived too many years on little sleep and lots of NCIS re-runs. The music teacher worked her way down the ranks class by class ending with the kindergartners. Suddenly, we were in the Garden of Eden. Life sprang up all around us. The five years olds leaned in. It might be where Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, got the idea for the title of her bestseller. Those kindergartners were in—all the way in. Dressed for success. They leaned and they swayed. Their faces were aglow with pride and heaven’s light. They sang with heart and with all their might. Earnest and proud were they. They filled our hearts with song and with joy. Suddenly, I was a believer again. Anything was possible! That music teacher knew how to end a concert on a high note! In this election year and time of deep discouragement, I propose we designate a music teacher to gather up the world’s five year olds—create an international round table of kindergartners. They are full of good ideas. And they are all believers. Everything wonderful is still possible. |
AuthorLilli-ann Buffin Archives
April 2024
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