Please Leave A Message

Five letters to go. We can do this. I'm staying true to my theme in the A-Z Blog Challenge which is The Things We Keep: An A-Z of Ordinary Objects. 

Day 22- V is for Voicemail

Recently I was connecting two friends who were going to co-host an event and one friend said she'd tried texting and emailing the other but hadn't heard back so I suggested she call her. On the phone. Ewww. 

Is that your reaction too? The friend laughed and said isn't it funny that actually calling someone to talk on the phone is more or less our last thought and not our first. 

In 2026 we are all about texts and emails and all the other tech options we now have, and are less about actually phoning someone we don't know well or when some sort of 'business' is involved, be it pleasant or unpleasant. Sure I talk to my daughters on the phone and also friends who don't live nearby, but for the casual interaction let's text. 

How does it make you feel to open your phone and see that little red number indicating someone has, gasp!! left you a voicemail? 

For the most part if I phone someone and they don't answer I do not leave a voice message. I send a text or decide to try again later. 

That being said, I do have a few voice messages on my phone that I can't make myself delete. Mostly from my mom who uses her phone very infrequently these days, but occasionally will accidentally call me and if I don't answer she leaves a voicemail. 

These voicemails are nothing special, just hello I miss you and love you and call me if you want to kind of things. 

Except they're special to me. 

Because my mama turns 96 years old on her birthday this year and I know that time is fleeting and also precious. So I save them. 

It feels nice to have her voice on my phone. I plan to keep it. 

Hodgepodge Questions-Volume 615

Here are the questions to this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge. Answer on your own blog, then hop back here (on Wednesday of course) to add your link to the party. See you there! 

1. August is National Golf month...do you play? Do you enjoy following golf? Have you ever been to a professional tournament? 

2. Astronaut Jim Lovell of Apollo 13 fame passed away this past Thursday. Are you interested in outer space and what's happening today in terms of space exploration? If space travel became common in your lifetime would you go? How do you personally relate to the idea of exploring something vast and mysterious...does the idea excite you, intimidate you, or something else? 

3. Describe your communication style in three words. 

4. Do you have a favorite cookbook? A favorite celebrity chef? Do you watch any cooking shows on TV? 

5. As a child did you have any back to school traditions? If so, did you carry on those same traditions with your own children? Do you have any back to school traditions you've started on your own? 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Video Killed The Radio Star

TGIV...we're on the home stretch in the April A-Z Blog Challenge with today's letter. 

V is for Velocity

'the speed of something in a given direction'

Let's talk tech. I know. Not my favorite subject either, but it's here to stay and we gotta deal. 

I'm of the generation who grew up with three channels on the family television set and now here we are posing questions to a genie in a bottle and getting entire essays written in response. Technology moves at the speed of something in a given direction alright, and that direction is forward. 

I want to keep up. 

Maybe want isn't the right word. It feels more true to say I need to keep up. I'm not going to be an early adopter to whatever the next new tech thing is, but I'll get there eventually. 

The generations behind mine have grown up unafraid to use technology, they've discovered ways tech can make some of our daily tasks easier (bill pay, online shopping, and grocery delivery to name just a few), and they get excited about the next new thing on the tech horizon. An unwillingness to acknowledge this marks you as 'old'. 

Now there's nothing wrong with old (it's all of us sooner or later me included), and I realize some of the above is generalizing, but I don't want to be discounted because of this whole glob of knowledge I'm oblivious to, or that I frown upon, or that I'm constantly criticizing.  

I have grandchildren who aren't going to know a world without technology at their fingertips and I want to understand that world. I want to be able to interact with them about the things they encounter on a daily basis and if I'm not keeping up with technology I won't know what in the world they're talking about. 

There's also the social aspect to technology that I can appreciate. And sometimes hate, but I'm thinking more here of what I enjoy about online interactions. I appreciate the real life friends I'm able to keep up with online, old friends I've reconnected with, and new friends I've made in this little space right here. 

While my kids are living nearer to us now in terms of geography, that hasn't always been the case. Facetime meant we could be face to face via the screen and I think of all we would have missed without that virtual connection. 

In a completely different vein...have you noticed how much of our health care is now managed via technology? I get my lab results before my doctor's even read them, and I can track my steps, my heart rate, even my sleep via the watch on my arm. I'm sure all of this will only continue to expand in scope and capability and I want to be able to access the tools I need to navigate my own medical records and care. 

Do you play word games or Sudoku or something along those lines on your phone or computer? Work online crossword puzzles? Read books via Kindle? These are all things we used to do with pen and paper (and still do of course), but now we can enjoy them and exercise our brains while waiting for an appointment, cleaning house, or taking a walk. Too much of anything is too much, and that includes screen time, but it has its place and I want to keep up with what's new and fun.

If you don't keep up the gap just continues to grow and then feels too daunting to tackle. 

Technology doesn't mean I can't continue to make in person time count. I can still write letters to my grandchildren that are thoughtful and worth holding on to. I can read them my favorite books and teach them the board games I grew up playing. I can tell them the stories of my childhood and I can wish the world were another way. 

And I can let them take me by the hand and teach me something new. 

Writing It To Remember It

How do you describe a conversation with your 4 1/2 year old grandson? 

I don't know. 

I only know I want to remember it. I want to remember that when my daughter called the old fashioned way, the mancub, who was sitting beside her said, 'I want to Facetime', so we did. 

I want to remember the way the screen came to life and there he was, with his bright eyes and his sweet sweet smile, happily pounding out play dough on the kitchen table while baby brother slept and sunshine flooded the kitchen.

I want to remember how his momma and I chit chatted and he chimed in from time to time. How he heard our every word, thought about their meaning, and asked his own questions as they came to mind. The way he still does not settle for a simple answer, but needs all the information please. 

What's a braid? Well it's a hairstyle' What's a hairstyle? Insert demo by momma as she explains a braid is something girls like to do to their hair. But what's a braid? Well it's three strands of something criss crossed over one another. And so on and so forth and so on and so forth. 

My daughter calls fairly often but boys are boys, and they're toddlers, and they're brothers, and most times when we're on the phone they have places to go and people to see. The under 5 set generally needs less talk, more action and we're okay with that. 

They pop on and off the screen and tell us they love us and they miss us and hey Nana look what I made! watch me! where's Hunley Bunley? show us Hunley Bunley! They ask at least a dozen questions and tell us lots of things all while turning somersaults, constructing block houses, and wrestling each other to the ground in a fit of giggles. 

They blow kisses and there is almost always a 'debate' over which one gets to disconnect the call when it's time to disconnect. It's fun and loud and busy and we don't always have their undivided attention when we're on the phone. Which is more than fine because we so enjoy watching them play and do and be all the things little boys love to play and do and be. 

But Monday. 

Monday we had the most precious little grown up chat with our mancub about all manner of everything including the rolling pin he'd taken to school for show and tell that morning, the letter r, what's a braid, why was Uncle A and Auntie M's flight cancelled, what's cancelled, but why, what's a crew, was the plane broken, if it isn't broken why can't it fly, does Uncle A fix bones too, why not, what does Uncle A do, and fa la la la la the entire hour was sheer delight. 

It was the kind of call that leaves you feeling better about life, people, the world, pretty much everything. 

He was so cheerful, so gentle, so in tune with our whole conversation, so utterly precious that when we hung up hubs and I looked at one another and said that was just what we needed to wash away the heaviness of this world. 

Of which there is much, but today I want to think about this. I want to remember this. 

The innocence of a grandchild and the way the wheels turn in his head as he observes the world around him and understands it a little bit better every minute of every day. 

How life lately feels overly full of people who thrive on conflict and complaining, whose negativity stirs everyone up but ultimately brings everyone down, and how I want less of that in my life and more of this. 

More sweetness. More tenderness. More sunshine and smiles and definitely more seeking and finding joy in the tiniest little wonders of the world because they are there for us to unearth and savor. 

I want more family. More love. More seeing the world through the eyes of a child and feeling hopeful and heart-full because this world is not what the loudest voices say it is. 

It's a grandson saying Nana let's not hang up. Not yet. 

One Ringy-Dingy

If you're a millennial you might not have a clue what that title even means.

Sometimes when people find out I don't 'work' and they ask what I do, I'm half tempted to say I talk on the phone. I'm not kidding when I say it feels like I spend a fair chunk of my week talking on the phone. In the year 2013 it's often lamented we don't talk anymore, but people are still calling me.  Lots of people in fact. Mostly family, but friends too. There are times when a text just doesn't cut it. When all the people you love are spread far and wide across the globe or right next door, you sometimes need a real live voice to set the world back on its axis.

Such has been my day thus far. I was still in my workout clothes this morning when my mom phoned. We talk pretty much every Monday morning and I look forward to that. Plus her email is often 'broken' so the phone is our go-to method of communicating.

I postponed my shower because by the time we hung up it was going on 11 and I hadn't had breakfast.  I pour  my granola and stir in my yogurt and there's the phone again, this time an old friend is on the other end of the line. She's had a laundry list of hard stuff going on recently, and wanted to catch up.  Electronic communication isn't enough when life sits heavy on your heart. You need to hear that person on the other end of the line nodding their head and sighing right along with you.

We talked for a while, and I finally ate breakfast and was heading for a shower when Daughter1 called. She phones me on her lunch break many days and it's the surest way I know to brighten my day. We had a lovely talk about all manner of things including Christmas, boyfriends who live many states away, clothes, movies, and Southern manners. The deep and the not so deep.  She was having lunch and I was still in my work out clothes finishing breakfast at noon.

While Daughter1 and I were chatting hubs phoned. We text several times a day most days, but he's out of town and under the weather so he wanted the feel of home that comes with words said out loud.

Essentially I've spent my Monday morning on the phone. I know there are people who would say that's a waste of three hours, but I think the world needs middle aged moms with time in their day to talk and listen. To be the real live person on the other end of the line. Despite our love affair with technology we still long to hear a voice. To share our day in more than 140 characters and abbreviated syllables. To know that when we reach out someone will pick up.

When did life become an emergency?

I remember as a young girl talking on the phone for hours. Taking the phone from the wall in the kitchen, and moving on into the dining room where it was quiet. I'd walk as far as the cord would stretch, and then I'd sit on the floor and talk to my friend. As we'd talk I'd twirl the twisty chord between my fingers and contemplate my place in the ever evolving world of teenagedom.

These days people are always on the phone, literally everywhere you look including but not limited to the restroom stall beside you. We text, check email, update calendars, play games, ask where are you and have you even left yet?, snap pictures of our dinner entrees and ourselvsies, check in, update statuses, and probably a hundred other things I'm unaware my phone can even do, but good old fashioned conversation?  Not so much.

In a world where time is ticking loudly, ferociously, and without mercy, there is something about a phone conversation that says I've got time for you. Thanks Mr. Bell!