WordSisters

Category: Connections

  • Scheduled vs. Spontaneous Phone Calls

    A spontaneous phone call from with a close friend or family member is a nice surprise. Depending on who it is, we might chat about upcoming plans, air out concerns (kids, siblings, work, the country), discuss a plant I’m excited about, describe a meal that turned out way better than expected, or grumble about how hard it is to find shoes that fit. 

    After a good talk, I feel closer to the person and buoyed by our connection. I think the habit developed years ago when I lived 16 hours away from family and friends. Then the calls nourished and re-centered me. They were the logical extension to my in-person conversations—I definitely got the Shriner talk gene.

    Recently, a few friends and family members have started asking to schedule a time to talk instead of trying our luck. That surprised me, since I like spontaneity. For some people, it’s a way of saying our conversation is important—let’s make sure we don’t miss each other. For others, it’s about being in different time zones. Fair enough.

    But here’s the thing—I’ve also discovered unscheduled phone calls can irritate some people or make them anxious. There are varied reasons for this:

    – Some rely on texting for casual chatting. A call signals trouble (Uh oh, what’s the matter?) Yikes! That never occurred to me since I prefer a call to a text. Calling offers nuance. Sarcasm, sympathy, irritation, worry, and amusement are easy to convey in a person’s tone of voice, but with texting, emojis have to do the heavy lifting of communicating emotional content. 

    – A spontaneous phone call may seem intrusive. Well, it can be. If I’m making dinner, working in the yard, or on a walk with my husband, I might not want to be interrupted. Then I let voicemail signal, “Not now.” If I make an impromptu call, I never assume the recipient has time to chat. I always ask if my call is convenient. If not, no worries! We’ll connect another time.

    – Texting to request a call time is now seen as more polite. The recipient will be spared the potential awkwardness or discomfort of saying, “Now isn’t a good time.” It took me a while to wrap my head around that idea, since I’m comfortable telling a caller I can’t talk if I’m in the middle of something. Or I just let the call go to voicemail. Apparently, that reaction isn’t universal.

    Scheduled vs. spontaneous phone calls? It seems to be a stylistic difference, maybe even a generational one. I have my preferences, but the goal is to connect, so I want to be sensitive to others’ needs and adjust if it improves our communication.  

    But if you’re thinking of me, just give me a call! I’ll let you know if I can’t talk.

  • Navigating Life’s Turbulence: Lessons from a Country Walk

    Candidate signs and Halloween decorations needed clearing November 7th along the country road where I walked. My feet moved slower than my thoughts of how to accept election results. 

    Five hundred feet ahead, at least a dozen large, wild, turkeys covered the road as well as both shoulders. They can be mean in a standoff. Future concerns fell to immediate safety. Should I turn around, my clap hands, swing a fallen branch to clear a path? Yelling and singing haven’t worked in the past. My walk was over.

    Two deer bounded out from woods on one side of the road, gracefully crossed the asphalt, and entered deeper tree growth in beautiful synchrony. The turkeys scurried behind the white tails. Here, then gone. The walk cleared.

     “Awesome” I said out loud at the display of natural beauty. Unattractive turkeys had been swept into a brief glimpse of something amazingly natural on another day of unpleasant election rhetoric and deep discord.

    Decades ago, St. Mary’s in Luxemburg, WI began my Christian orientation. Small towns, filled with relatives, made it easier to accept a set of beliefs and traditions. What I still carry is a careful relationship with God. Call it spirituality or faith, old-fashioned or unnecessary, I value the foundation. At the turkey and deer moment, I followed the spoken word with a silent “Thank you, God” for a reminder of good possibilities.

    In November, regardless of voting on the winning or losing side, many people remain thankful for family, friends, freedom to have a public opinion. I dread how politics and powerful men with money will affect the quality of life. 

    Fear feels like too powerful a word at a time when caution is critical. Fear was two years ago when I had major surgery to save my life. I knew what I feared that day. I could balance fear and hope. Today I can’t name what to fear beyond unpleasant changes. Fear and dread appear in definitions of each word, but fear has a more expansive description. 

    I’d love to be one of those deer easily running through the woods. I can accept moving closer to the speed of the wild turkeys shuffling through fallen leaves or awkwardly flying up to their nightly roost. During the day I will keep looking for ways to move the threatening turkeys out of the way of my walk and yours.

    Two years of thankfulness. More to come.

  • Connection

    “I see you, Crystel,” I say. She’s hanging in the apple tree above me. I pause my reading. Decide to snap a photo to send to her. She flits away before I can reach my phone. Of course. She’s elusive like that. Later, I’m sitting in the living room when I hear, “Chip, chip, chip” through the open door. “I hear you, Crystel,” I say. She sometimes follows me when I walk the dogs. Flying from tree to tree as we make our way around the neighborhood.

    Crystel is currently a senior at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “Why am I a male cardinal?” she asks when I tell her that in her absence, she has embodied that symbol.

    It’s simple. “Because I can see you. It’s hard to miss a red cardinal perched in our trees, settling on our fence line, or resting on electrical wire,” I tell her. Really, she could have easily been a yellow finch that visits our purple anise hyssop for their dried seeds, or a monarch butterfly that reminds Jody of her mother, or a dragonfly that dips into our pool for a drink.

    “There’s Granny,” we all say when we see the colorful monarch. Jody and Crystel were at Granny’s gravesite shortly after she died. They were sitting on the ground facing Granny and reminiscing. A butterfly suddenly swooped towards their faces. There was no mistaking that was Granny.  

    For our wedding announcement 22 years ago, Jody and I used the dragonfly and a poem by Scott Russell Sanders: To be centered… means to have a home territory, to be attached in a web of relationships with other people, to value common experience, and to recognize that one’s life rises constantly from inward depths. The dragonfly represented transformation.

    The male cardinal transforms my energy connection to Crystel into physical form. A sighting of the brilliant red birds and their distinctive whistle awakens my sight and hearing senses. I smile, laugh. Send her love.

    Juan is a constant presence. His car is in the driveway. If I’m up early enough I can hear him leave in the morning for work and ask him how his day went when he comes home. Jody and I bring him keepsakes from our travels. He’s solid, steady, a known entity. I like having him at home. It’s a gift. I prefer he doesn’t become a symbol, though I expect some day he will.

    Change is the one thing we can count on.

    photo credit audubon