Message Received
She quietly ended the telephone conversation, bid her customer farewell and slowly, every so carefully, returned the telephone receiver to its base.
Now, I’d keenly listened to the woman submit to this necessary but rote action multiple times per day, every day, for over five months, and each time I heard her telephone receiver lock down, I cringed, lately to the point a swift shudder of heat rolled over my skin, albeit momentarily.
Yes, it was irritating me. I mean, I didn’t know it could take sooo long to hang up a phone.
Recently though, I’d begun feeling like the mad protagonist of Edgar Allen Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart—ready to snap into a small fit of delirium over “the sound, THE SOUND“ of the plastic receiver being set into its base, ever so methodically. Click—click, click—click was all I heard.
Don’t worry, concerned readers, no need to be checking the internet for deals on strait jackets, but you’ve been forewarned.
My hearing, I believe, is sometimes overly attuned to the airwaves. So much so, it’s hard for me at times to regulate.
I digress...
One day, I pondered my sensitivity to the seemingly small, telephonic violation and considered why it snagged my attention so easily. Then I turned my focus away from the talking tool and toward her.
Why did she hang up the phone THAT way and why did her WAY fluster me so? Then I got a clue!
What I recognized about those small moments throughout the day, outside of the fact I really needed to laugh at myself (it helps tremendously you know), was something special about THAT woman.
It wasn’t “the sound” of the receiver connecting with its base which pleaded for my attention, stymied my work groove and made me want to call out “would you just hang it up already!”
The steady control she used to measuredly handle the small instrument—quietly, consistently, and with resolute cadence commanded my pause and attention. I should know—I watched her (smiling).
It was the rhythmic pace, that process of hers, which interjected on my mental activity and forced me to take note.
No matter the nature of the woman’s many telephone calls, be they light, mundane, heartily cheerful or often times tense, the woman granted steadfast care to something as unassuming as a telephone, as only she would.
My comrade revealed a component of her unique self, a part of her which directs my “inward” self to a higher level of human relations and virtue.
It was self control I was witnessing every day, delivered by the simplest of tasks, and the agitation I felt was caused by the forced pause I experienced each time I heard the clicking of the telephone receiver, signifying a definitive end to a conversation.
The forced pause was contrary to my skin but piqued the interest of my higher self. The competing nature of the two, my skin and my higher self, is what caused the conflict I was experiencing within, rather than the rote act of hanging up a phone.
The habitual nature and comfort of my skin wanted to press through the day without interruption but my higher, inward self was curious about that pause which required time for an extra step, more thoughtfulness, a slower pace and a moment for reflection. The pause, I perceived, was a better way to engage the day and consider a more mindful approach to daily interactions with all things.
Today, I both value and respect the imprint the woman’s habit has left with me!
We’ll call the woman, Temperance... Click—click!
©
Crystal Black, as Blackhandmade
3/12/2014