Thursday, October 24, 2013
Back to the Suburban Grind: Lady Bits: Bounce your boobies, Part 2.
Back to the Suburban Grind: Lady Bits: Bounce your boobies, Part 2.: Please. Take your time. I am just waiting on this news feeling like hearing it out loud could pull down the poll of the circus tent of my ...
Lady Bits: Bounce your boobies, Part 2.
Please. Take your time. I am just waiting on this news feeling like hearing it out loud could pull down the poll of the circus tent of my life and cause everything to collapse, hurting, maiming, maybe even killing some of the performers. Was it two to three business days you told me? Was Monday a holiday? I checked the cell every few minutes thinking maybe the phone was still on vibrate. Answered lots of solicitations on the home phone just in case, somehow, the call from Arizona was the lab, knowing full well that the lab was up the street and that it would, in fact, be from my doctor's office that the call came. But it didn't come. Not for two, three, four, five, or six days. I waited and let myself be convinced and reassured by friends that no news was good news. "They would want you to know right away if it was indeed C," still no one wanted to say it and I surely did not want to hear the letters that follow 'c' in that word.
My dear husband, seven plus years older than I am, always (so sweetly) reminds me that I am young. "You are still young and beautiful." And this not only when he is feeling frisky. Nowadays when we say things like this, it is often in relation to how much more of life there is to live, that yes I CAN still wear a short skirt if I like, do something crazy to my hair, start a new career, try new things. But when it comes to health issues--aches, pains, pinches, twists, tears, and pulls, age has slowly crept up with us. When I see pictures of some of my childhood mates, I see their parents' faces staring back at me. I read posts about injuries from doing things that were once facile, part of every day movement until just the wrong thing slipped or "went." We laugh about those pains. "Getting old," we say. But aging also brings more serious health concerns and a need to make at least annual trips to a physician. The laissez-faire attitude of our youth has given way to consideration of each new freckle, rising cholesterol, too much sugar in the blood, lack of time for exercise or sleep, lack of time for anything really as a sign that we are creeping over that hill. We feel young inside but our bodies demand us to acknowledge that time has passed and that we need to be tender with them.
My dance classes and my meditation practice, my family and my love for them gave me the physical and psychic strength to prepare for the worst news but really expect the best. I, full to the brim with anxiety and too much nervous energy, found ways to distract myself from the waiting for results. My house is now spotless and that includes all closets, drawers, cabinets, and the attic. I danced my brains out and allowed people to love me, care for me, bring me food, invite me to parties, looked them back in their eyes to thank them, and just breathed in and out every single day. I breathed to the top of my head and down to my toes.
On the fifth day I started calling and leaving messages. I felt embarrassed to be calling as though it was expected that I'd wait patiently for the news. I wondered, in all the prep I was given for the biopsy, had anyone in the medical profession thought about my feelings, fears, hopes, anxiety. While I'd been warned not to take aspirin 48 hours prior, and been told how the procedure would happen (ultrasound, cleaning of the breast, numbing local anesthetic followed by a tugging or pulling sensation that would collect the cells to be examined, then days of soreness, bruising, swelling, a little pain, and a tiny scar underneath), very little was said about the shallow breaths I was taking, the tears that came to my eyes when I thought of having to tell the girls that something was wrong with Mommy. When they kicked or pulled or tugged at me and accidentally hit my ailing breast, I'd wince and then smile. I didn't want to give them anything to worry about. I was reminded only once to go back to my life as usual. I felt, and I could be wrong about it but it felt this way, that no one wanted to say what it was they knew I was afraid of. One does not go in for a biopsy the way one might for a new retinol cream for wrinkles. The biopsy signifies there is something in there that is unknown and the big unknown, the one that sets most of us on edge, is fucking cancer. I was scared shitless that I might have breast cancer.
For every day that I waited and meditated and danced and wore a brave face, I was scared, humbled, awed by the life I'd managed to make for myself. For people who loved me, for a community I belonged to, for friends, family, strangers, humankind that had the urge to live, to be part of this carnival called life. It had never been called into question for me in such high resolution. Yes, I was full of anxiety in Barbados and did fear losing it there and once there was some crazy turbulence on a plane where we dropped a few feet and I grabbed the girls and cried my face off, telling them how much I loved them over and over again until we steadied, but I never put myself, allowed myself to see myself as old enough, ready spiritually, to imagine the end of my life. Breathe in. Breathe out. This I would tell myself every moment that I drifted to those thoughts. Because that was what scared me the most. I went all the way there every time.
A rogue nurse in the office sent me a secret text to tell me that the results of my biopsy were negative two days before my doctor's office gave me the official word. I want to say that I danced on the ceiling, but I instead sat quietly on the floor, complete silence all around me, save the ticking of the clock in another room and the hum from the fridge. I felt relief for myself and compassion for those, many of whom are my friends or family or acquaintances, whose tales don't or have not ended on this note. I can still not touch the bullet resting on the inside corner pocket of my left breast. The bruising and soreness has proven a longer healing period than expected, but I know my little lump is there. I want to remove it. It is no talisman and I am not brave enough to carry it. Even knowing that it is benign, it presses at everything dear to me and threatens to pull the tent down. I'd prefer a scar where it once made itself cozy, an 'X' to mark the spot where my fears were released and my dreams held tight in a deep inhale were released.
Do your self exams and get a mammogram, ultrasound, MRI, or thermal scan if you are over 40 or have a history of breast cancer.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
My dear husband, seven plus years older than I am, always (so sweetly) reminds me that I am young. "You are still young and beautiful." And this not only when he is feeling frisky. Nowadays when we say things like this, it is often in relation to how much more of life there is to live, that yes I CAN still wear a short skirt if I like, do something crazy to my hair, start a new career, try new things. But when it comes to health issues--aches, pains, pinches, twists, tears, and pulls, age has slowly crept up with us. When I see pictures of some of my childhood mates, I see their parents' faces staring back at me. I read posts about injuries from doing things that were once facile, part of every day movement until just the wrong thing slipped or "went." We laugh about those pains. "Getting old," we say. But aging also brings more serious health concerns and a need to make at least annual trips to a physician. The laissez-faire attitude of our youth has given way to consideration of each new freckle, rising cholesterol, too much sugar in the blood, lack of time for exercise or sleep, lack of time for anything really as a sign that we are creeping over that hill. We feel young inside but our bodies demand us to acknowledge that time has passed and that we need to be tender with them.
My dance classes and my meditation practice, my family and my love for them gave me the physical and psychic strength to prepare for the worst news but really expect the best. I, full to the brim with anxiety and too much nervous energy, found ways to distract myself from the waiting for results. My house is now spotless and that includes all closets, drawers, cabinets, and the attic. I danced my brains out and allowed people to love me, care for me, bring me food, invite me to parties, looked them back in their eyes to thank them, and just breathed in and out every single day. I breathed to the top of my head and down to my toes.
On the fifth day I started calling and leaving messages. I felt embarrassed to be calling as though it was expected that I'd wait patiently for the news. I wondered, in all the prep I was given for the biopsy, had anyone in the medical profession thought about my feelings, fears, hopes, anxiety. While I'd been warned not to take aspirin 48 hours prior, and been told how the procedure would happen (ultrasound, cleaning of the breast, numbing local anesthetic followed by a tugging or pulling sensation that would collect the cells to be examined, then days of soreness, bruising, swelling, a little pain, and a tiny scar underneath), very little was said about the shallow breaths I was taking, the tears that came to my eyes when I thought of having to tell the girls that something was wrong with Mommy. When they kicked or pulled or tugged at me and accidentally hit my ailing breast, I'd wince and then smile. I didn't want to give them anything to worry about. I was reminded only once to go back to my life as usual. I felt, and I could be wrong about it but it felt this way, that no one wanted to say what it was they knew I was afraid of. One does not go in for a biopsy the way one might for a new retinol cream for wrinkles. The biopsy signifies there is something in there that is unknown and the big unknown, the one that sets most of us on edge, is fucking cancer. I was scared shitless that I might have breast cancer.
For every day that I waited and meditated and danced and wore a brave face, I was scared, humbled, awed by the life I'd managed to make for myself. For people who loved me, for a community I belonged to, for friends, family, strangers, humankind that had the urge to live, to be part of this carnival called life. It had never been called into question for me in such high resolution. Yes, I was full of anxiety in Barbados and did fear losing it there and once there was some crazy turbulence on a plane where we dropped a few feet and I grabbed the girls and cried my face off, telling them how much I loved them over and over again until we steadied, but I never put myself, allowed myself to see myself as old enough, ready spiritually, to imagine the end of my life. Breathe in. Breathe out. This I would tell myself every moment that I drifted to those thoughts. Because that was what scared me the most. I went all the way there every time.
A rogue nurse in the office sent me a secret text to tell me that the results of my biopsy were negative two days before my doctor's office gave me the official word. I want to say that I danced on the ceiling, but I instead sat quietly on the floor, complete silence all around me, save the ticking of the clock in another room and the hum from the fridge. I felt relief for myself and compassion for those, many of whom are my friends or family or acquaintances, whose tales don't or have not ended on this note. I can still not touch the bullet resting on the inside corner pocket of my left breast. The bruising and soreness has proven a longer healing period than expected, but I know my little lump is there. I want to remove it. It is no talisman and I am not brave enough to carry it. Even knowing that it is benign, it presses at everything dear to me and threatens to pull the tent down. I'd prefer a scar where it once made itself cozy, an 'X' to mark the spot where my fears were released and my dreams held tight in a deep inhale were released.
Do your self exams and get a mammogram, ultrasound, MRI, or thermal scan if you are over 40 or have a history of breast cancer.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Back to the Suburban Grind: Lady Bits: Bounce your boobies, Part 1.
Back to the Suburban Grind: Lady Bits: Bounce your boobies, Part 1.: There is a lump. Well, I like to call it a marble on the inside corner pocket of my left breast. It is close to the sternum, so close that...
Lady Bits: Bounce your boobies, Part 1.
There is a lump. Well, I like to call it a marble on the inside corner pocket of my left breast. It is close to the sternum, so close that it was missed in the mammogram. But I can feel it. Rub it, move it around. Sometimes I lose it, but then it reappears, especially when I am lying flat and my once perky breasts drift to the sides of my body like loose bags of Jell-o, no longer resting on top of my chest, but on the sides like bat wings. I called my doctor and asked for further testing. My breasts are dense, lots of tissue and mass and weird stuff that I somehow never chose to use as a selling point once upon a way-back-when when I just wanted boys and men to touch them and was not feeling around for an exam. Go figure.
The exam is important. The mammogram is important and what came next for me is also important. After the mammogram did not detect my marble, I followed up with an ultrasound. Fortunately for me, my health insurance covered the follow up because it was requested by my doctor (thank you), after it was requested by me. Lying flat on my back in the exam room, breasts to the side, my nurse chit chatted with me about the usual subjects--my kids, my work, my voice, how it wouldn't take long and then I could get back to my life--while moving the roller-ball all over my right breast, not even stopping at the speed bump of my cold nipple, rubbing ultrasound goo all over the place and typing frantically like a science fiction space crew member who was soon to be ambushed and killed in the first ten minutes. At least the gel had been warmed up, something almost never done when, years earlier a similar roller ball was checking in on the babies growing in my belly. When she got to my left breast her voice began to trail off. She asked me about nipple discharge and breast pain. Huh? Then she said she was all done and left me to wipe off the goo. I was told to wait in case the doctor wanted to see me and was not allowed to get dressed. (Not that fitting my clothes over my slimed body seemed appealing at that moment.) When she returned, she told me the doctor did not need to see me and that my results would come in a few days. The call would come from my doctor and not their office.
I knew I felt a lump, so I was certain they were going to tell me something about it. I was just hoping for something more reassuring, a "this is just a precaution/I wouldn't worry too much/Let me put you at ease," but nothing like that came. I went home and waited. Waited with high levels of anxiety and a nervousness about the threat to my peace, to the sanctity of my family, about the break in my good fortune on the health front.
Two days later I was called by my doctor and the imaging office. Both left messages. Both wanted to talk to me. Not quite reassuring. I called my doctor's office first. She told me there had indeed been some abnormality that needed to be further investigated with an ultrasound guided biopsy. They wanted to do an ultrasound to see the marble and then lance it with a needle and vacuum some of the tissue to examine it and determine its nature. They wanted to find out what it was, what it was made of, and was it malignant or benign, cancer or...something else. I spoke with ease, professionalism, and calm. I told all parties that I understood what was happening. I tried not to expire on the floor when the earliest date to perform the biopsy was more than 2 weeks from the moment of the phone call when inside I was screaming, "Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I will come in tomorrow. How about today? How about right now?" But the truth is, I was and am scared to death and cannot stand that I don't know. All sorts of apocalyptic, end-of-days images flashed before my eyes, and my anxiety which usually rides pretty high at an 8 out of 10 on normal days was nearing infinity.
There is no history of breast cancer in my family and while that makes me feel good, from what I learned all those afternoons in the imaging center, 80% of breast cancer patients have no history. So there is that. The doctors and nurses were kind as I would expect them to be. Somber faces and head shaking would not really have been apropos. I thanked everyone for everything in the hopes that my kindness could have something, anything to do with my results. And then I walked out of the office into the light of day and matriculated back into the suburban stream.
It was a secret. I blended right back in, going with the flow, talking about homework and after school activities and the struggle to get the girls down for bed time. I greeted friends on the street, chatted with my cashier at the grocery store, let the girls snuggle with me at night though their kicks to the now sore breast were excruciating. Suddenly the marble felt like a ticking bomb sitting right in the middle of my chest, at the center of my heart chakra. I told myself, this is a metaphor, this is a lump of coal in your house of love. You need to open your heart and find a way to love greater. I sat with this. Called my Buddhists and meditators, walked in nature, danced my brains out in class. Never one to share news, good or bad, for fear of being consoled or seen or loved or cared for in such a visible way (see Childhood traumas), I told very few. The first were told the day of the biopsy because one hour after my scheduled appointment time, I still had not been seen and my husband, who'd taken the day off to be with me, had to go pick up Virginie. I sent out cryptic notes to two of my closest friends asking if they'd be able to pick me up. When they fully understood the gravity of my bizarro texts, they immediately offered to help and pulled the heart strings and loved me. Ow. I mean, yay.
I write this now to share because I need to, because I want to be close, make connections, but also to say, "Touch your lady bits. Rub your boobs. Do your self exams." Sitting in the waiting area/recovery after the biopsy before heading in for a second mammogram, I found myself next to a woman from Jamaica. I cannot tell you her age because she looked as young and clear-skinned and vibrant as she could, but she mentioned her family, children who insisted she come in for an exam. She'd not seen a doctor in twelve years. Needing to gab, feeling quite nervous in her surgical gown with strange ties and loose strings, she turned to me and asked, "How do you tie this thing anyway?" I showed her the inside ties and the outside snap and she finally felt OK. In those few moments we were community, family, support, mirrors.
Talking about our breasts, our bodies, women's bodies is still so awkward and uncomfortable, even amongst ourselves. So many of us joke about the manhandling that goes on during a mammogram, feeling your breasts pressed together like between two large-volume books, some even avoid it all together. But it is certainly no more painful than having a nursing baby bite your nipples or some of the pulling and tugging they experience at other times (name yours). An exam takes just minutes. Many are unsure if they are doing the self-exam correctly, so they just don't do it at all. It feels silly. There's so much going on in there, who knows what you are feeling--a muscle, a knot, a mammary gland, a fibroid, but you should still do it. Touch them, feel them, get to know them. In our youth we asked our lovers to do it. Caress them, be kind to them, love them. We must do the same.
And now I wait. The bruising is clearing up. A small purplish, black and blue mark slowly fades on the inside corner pocket of my left breast. There is a tiny little pin prick mark underneath where the boobs were once ripe and delicious before the girls nursed them all away. Immediately following the procedure the poor thing was sore and tender and my core was wounded but I could go on about my business. After forty-eight hours I was allowed to dance again. Last night I took a hip hop class and laughed and smiled with friends and dancers. As I sit in anticipation of my results I implore you to get examined, ask your friends, lovers, wives, girlfriends, mothers, and daughters to check.
To be continued...
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
The exam is important. The mammogram is important and what came next for me is also important. After the mammogram did not detect my marble, I followed up with an ultrasound. Fortunately for me, my health insurance covered the follow up because it was requested by my doctor (thank you), after it was requested by me. Lying flat on my back in the exam room, breasts to the side, my nurse chit chatted with me about the usual subjects--my kids, my work, my voice, how it wouldn't take long and then I could get back to my life--while moving the roller-ball all over my right breast, not even stopping at the speed bump of my cold nipple, rubbing ultrasound goo all over the place and typing frantically like a science fiction space crew member who was soon to be ambushed and killed in the first ten minutes. At least the gel had been warmed up, something almost never done when, years earlier a similar roller ball was checking in on the babies growing in my belly. When she got to my left breast her voice began to trail off. She asked me about nipple discharge and breast pain. Huh? Then she said she was all done and left me to wipe off the goo. I was told to wait in case the doctor wanted to see me and was not allowed to get dressed. (Not that fitting my clothes over my slimed body seemed appealing at that moment.) When she returned, she told me the doctor did not need to see me and that my results would come in a few days. The call would come from my doctor and not their office.
I knew I felt a lump, so I was certain they were going to tell me something about it. I was just hoping for something more reassuring, a "this is just a precaution/I wouldn't worry too much/Let me put you at ease," but nothing like that came. I went home and waited. Waited with high levels of anxiety and a nervousness about the threat to my peace, to the sanctity of my family, about the break in my good fortune on the health front.
Two days later I was called by my doctor and the imaging office. Both left messages. Both wanted to talk to me. Not quite reassuring. I called my doctor's office first. She told me there had indeed been some abnormality that needed to be further investigated with an ultrasound guided biopsy. They wanted to do an ultrasound to see the marble and then lance it with a needle and vacuum some of the tissue to examine it and determine its nature. They wanted to find out what it was, what it was made of, and was it malignant or benign, cancer or...something else. I spoke with ease, professionalism, and calm. I told all parties that I understood what was happening. I tried not to expire on the floor when the earliest date to perform the biopsy was more than 2 weeks from the moment of the phone call when inside I was screaming, "Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I will come in tomorrow. How about today? How about right now?" But the truth is, I was and am scared to death and cannot stand that I don't know. All sorts of apocalyptic, end-of-days images flashed before my eyes, and my anxiety which usually rides pretty high at an 8 out of 10 on normal days was nearing infinity.
There is no history of breast cancer in my family and while that makes me feel good, from what I learned all those afternoons in the imaging center, 80% of breast cancer patients have no history. So there is that. The doctors and nurses were kind as I would expect them to be. Somber faces and head shaking would not really have been apropos. I thanked everyone for everything in the hopes that my kindness could have something, anything to do with my results. And then I walked out of the office into the light of day and matriculated back into the suburban stream.
It was a secret. I blended right back in, going with the flow, talking about homework and after school activities and the struggle to get the girls down for bed time. I greeted friends on the street, chatted with my cashier at the grocery store, let the girls snuggle with me at night though their kicks to the now sore breast were excruciating. Suddenly the marble felt like a ticking bomb sitting right in the middle of my chest, at the center of my heart chakra. I told myself, this is a metaphor, this is a lump of coal in your house of love. You need to open your heart and find a way to love greater. I sat with this. Called my Buddhists and meditators, walked in nature, danced my brains out in class. Never one to share news, good or bad, for fear of being consoled or seen or loved or cared for in such a visible way (see Childhood traumas), I told very few. The first were told the day of the biopsy because one hour after my scheduled appointment time, I still had not been seen and my husband, who'd taken the day off to be with me, had to go pick up Virginie. I sent out cryptic notes to two of my closest friends asking if they'd be able to pick me up. When they fully understood the gravity of my bizarro texts, they immediately offered to help and pulled the heart strings and loved me. Ow. I mean, yay.
I write this now to share because I need to, because I want to be close, make connections, but also to say, "Touch your lady bits. Rub your boobs. Do your self exams." Sitting in the waiting area/recovery after the biopsy before heading in for a second mammogram, I found myself next to a woman from Jamaica. I cannot tell you her age because she looked as young and clear-skinned and vibrant as she could, but she mentioned her family, children who insisted she come in for an exam. She'd not seen a doctor in twelve years. Needing to gab, feeling quite nervous in her surgical gown with strange ties and loose strings, she turned to me and asked, "How do you tie this thing anyway?" I showed her the inside ties and the outside snap and she finally felt OK. In those few moments we were community, family, support, mirrors.
Talking about our breasts, our bodies, women's bodies is still so awkward and uncomfortable, even amongst ourselves. So many of us joke about the manhandling that goes on during a mammogram, feeling your breasts pressed together like between two large-volume books, some even avoid it all together. But it is certainly no more painful than having a nursing baby bite your nipples or some of the pulling and tugging they experience at other times (name yours). An exam takes just minutes. Many are unsure if they are doing the self-exam correctly, so they just don't do it at all. It feels silly. There's so much going on in there, who knows what you are feeling--a muscle, a knot, a mammary gland, a fibroid, but you should still do it. Touch them, feel them, get to know them. In our youth we asked our lovers to do it. Caress them, be kind to them, love them. We must do the same.
And now I wait. The bruising is clearing up. A small purplish, black and blue mark slowly fades on the inside corner pocket of my left breast. There is a tiny little pin prick mark underneath where the boobs were once ripe and delicious before the girls nursed them all away. Immediately following the procedure the poor thing was sore and tender and my core was wounded but I could go on about my business. After forty-eight hours I was allowed to dance again. Last night I took a hip hop class and laughed and smiled with friends and dancers. As I sit in anticipation of my results I implore you to get examined, ask your friends, lovers, wives, girlfriends, mothers, and daughters to check.
To be continued...
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
City Mom in the Jungle: Tennis Elbow
City Mom in the Jungle: Tennis Elbow: Didier was determined to find the grip tape used on tennis rackets and baseball bats, so when we happened upon a sporting goods store at t...
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Back to the Suburban Grind: Picking up the phone
Back to the Suburban Grind: Picking up the phone: I remember when I was a little girl that the ringing phone sent everyone into motion. My little sister and I would jump up, racing our pare...
Picking up the phone
I remember when I was a little girl that the ringing phone sent everyone into motion. My little sister and I would jump up, racing our parents to answer. This was after rotary but before cordless and long before caller ID. Answering the phone was an adventure. Who is calling? Is it someone who wants to play with me or just someone for my parents who wants to talk about boring adult stuff? The phone was the social media and everyone learned how to do it. Little kids had play rotary phones even though they were no longer the fashion or little push button phones that they could pick up and talk into for hours. "Hello? Hello? Yes, this is So-and-so" or "Hold on just a minute please. Let me see if I can find him/her (presumably Mommy or Daddy)."
My parents did not forbid us to answer the phone, but there was a hierarchy to the phone tower. Mom and Dad on the top, kids on the bottom. Don't answer if there were no adults at home because they had to "run up the street for a minute and you don't want anyone to know you are home alone, do you?" We learned and we practiced. We just answered, "Hello?" But some of our friends were taught to answer, "So-and-so residence, who may I ask is calling?" I always got a kick out of those kids. They seemed so professional and formal, like they were Ricky Schroeder on Silver Spoons. But they knew how to answer the phone and they got the job done.
By the time I was a teenager, my parents had to install a second line in the house for my sister and me so that, even with call waiting in the house, they'd actually get a chance to talk to someone and not find a message about an important call three hours later when one of us had finally finished talking to a BFF about who the heck knows what or whispering repeated sweet absolutely nothings into the waiting ear of a paramour. We loved the phone. The phone was the life line. The phone was connection, communication, community, and it was direct. You had to pick up the phone if you wanted to know who was on the other side because there was no call waiting and much less phone solicitation. So other than teenaged prank callers or appointment confirmations, more than likely someone in the household wanted to talk to whomever was on the other end.
My kids aren't getting that practice. When Lily was in kindergarten, she was given an assignment to call someone on the telephone as part of a monthly activity log. I thought it would be fun for her to call up one of her classmates and talk to them about whatever it was they were doing at home and vice versa. I prearranged the call time with her friend's mother and we all, on both sides, geared up for the momentous occasion. The prep was as much for the adults as for the children. Because dinner time, the time scheduled for the call, has now become prime time for solicitous phone calls, fundraising efforts, surveys, and other robocalls, we had to avoid those landmines. At the appropriate time, the phone was to ring on one end and the child was supposed to answer with a greeting, the other would respond, and they'd get to chatting.
And so it went. The caller nervously dialed the phone number and started talking into the receiver before the call had even connected. "Let's try again. You have to wait for the call to connect, hon. Listen for the tone, dial, hear it ring and wait for someone to pick up."
"Hello?" someone answered shyly on the other end and *click,* our caller had gotten nervous and hung up. We tried again. Phone rings and Lily answers in a near whisper, "Hello?" Silence. "Hello?"
"Hi."
"Hi."
"It's me from your class."
"I know that."
"I am calling you."
"I know that."
"OK, bye."
*click*
Not much has changed since that exchange because, frankly, the kids don't get much opportunity to set up their own play dates and are too young to gab it up on the phone with their friends. Long before they've gotten off the bus, I've texted, emailed, maybe called, possibly seen the others' parent(s) and made the arrangements myself. I don't have the girls answer the phone when it rings because the caller ID tells us who it is and gives me the chance to decide whether or not I want contact with the outside world. The lurking danger of someone, anyone assuming that my children are home alone, a learned paranoia from my childhood, has stopped me from having them pick up (I mean, why would a child answer the phone in the middle of the afternoon?), as well as the fear of all the info they might divulge when prompted. (Oh, yeah, my mom is here. She is in the bathroom and waved her hands for me not to tell you that. She's so silly.)
Mine are still small and I have heard from their contemporaries' parents that theirs also don't get much phone time. My oldest had a friend/classmate who would frequently make her own robocalls using the school directory and reach out to every person in her class she might like to play with until someone finally answered and said yes. Thanks to caller ID, I would see the name come up and expect the caller to be the parent of said little girl and would answer. I regret to inform that I fell for this okey-doke far too many times. On the other end there would be stammering, whispering, and the question, "Can Lily and I have a playdate?" Depending on how quickly I recovered she'd either offer thanks and hang up, offer thanks and scream to her mother across the house that she'd connected and what time could they get together, or offer disappointment and ask me to call her back another time when Lily might be able to play! I should call her back?
Talking to this little girl on the phone made me batty, but I admired her gumption, and though I was not sure if her parents were intentionally teaching her the ropes of phone communique, I appreciated the effort, even remarked to a friend that in a time of crisis I'd hoped that Lily would stick with that one because she knew how to get her point across, wasn't afraid of adults, and would figure out the path to safety. She had no shyness, no fear, and complete confidence.
Thanks to FaceTime and SKYPE, my kids have the opportunity to talk to AND see my parents. I imaged the conversations would be easier since they are able to see them, almost like in a real conversation. Not so. They talk on FaceTime much like they do on the phone. In monosyllables, blips, blurps, and beeps. If they do indeed find something they like to talk about, they do so in a whisper. I can see their mouths moving, am even sitting right next to them, but can barely hear a word they are saying. My parents smile at them and nod, occasionally saying, "That's wonderful, " even when the girls are saying that the guppies in class have died. Everyone is just thrilled to see each other. I suppose the real talking will come later.
Or maybe not. Do people even talk on the phone anymore? So many people have just their smartphones, having said goodbye to landlines long ago. There is texting, emailing, FaceTiming, Skyping. It seems that long gone are the days of chatting up a storm or falling asleep on one end of the phone while your best friend does the same on the other. And yet, to me, the lessons learned on the phone, communicating when you have to rely on the words, the tone, the pauses, the cracks, the muffled sound of crying, giggling, listening, paying attention, considering appear to be less important. I am guilty too of preferring a text to a call, an email to a long drawn out explanation of what and where and when and how. But when I need comfort, human contact (yes, the phone now represents human contact!) I reach for the phone and if I am able, I settle in for a delicious conversation with a friend who will calm my soul, reassure me, reinvigorate me, set me back on course. And when I say settle in I mean walk around the house doing dishes, folding laundry, general cleaning, and checking texts on my cell while talking. But that "hello," that "what's up?", that "I'm here," is worth a thousand :-) or LOLs or :-/. Somehow I feel that we are together.
Sharing yourself can be challenging. Being vulnerable, nervous, afraid, reaching out and admitting the need to connect can be embarrassing especially now that even in highly emotional states we can emoticon and air quote and asterisk our feelings in text. But we need each other, might need to make the call, might need to receive one. So we soldier on, the girls and me, one *click*, one hang up, one awkward silence at a time until talking to one another, sharing with one another, listening to one another is easy.
(c) Copyrighted 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
My parents did not forbid us to answer the phone, but there was a hierarchy to the phone tower. Mom and Dad on the top, kids on the bottom. Don't answer if there were no adults at home because they had to "run up the street for a minute and you don't want anyone to know you are home alone, do you?" We learned and we practiced. We just answered, "Hello?" But some of our friends were taught to answer, "So-and-so residence, who may I ask is calling?" I always got a kick out of those kids. They seemed so professional and formal, like they were Ricky Schroeder on Silver Spoons. But they knew how to answer the phone and they got the job done.
By the time I was a teenager, my parents had to install a second line in the house for my sister and me so that, even with call waiting in the house, they'd actually get a chance to talk to someone and not find a message about an important call three hours later when one of us had finally finished talking to a BFF about who the heck knows what or whispering repeated sweet absolutely nothings into the waiting ear of a paramour. We loved the phone. The phone was the life line. The phone was connection, communication, community, and it was direct. You had to pick up the phone if you wanted to know who was on the other side because there was no call waiting and much less phone solicitation. So other than teenaged prank callers or appointment confirmations, more than likely someone in the household wanted to talk to whomever was on the other end.
My kids aren't getting that practice. When Lily was in kindergarten, she was given an assignment to call someone on the telephone as part of a monthly activity log. I thought it would be fun for her to call up one of her classmates and talk to them about whatever it was they were doing at home and vice versa. I prearranged the call time with her friend's mother and we all, on both sides, geared up for the momentous occasion. The prep was as much for the adults as for the children. Because dinner time, the time scheduled for the call, has now become prime time for solicitous phone calls, fundraising efforts, surveys, and other robocalls, we had to avoid those landmines. At the appropriate time, the phone was to ring on one end and the child was supposed to answer with a greeting, the other would respond, and they'd get to chatting.
And so it went. The caller nervously dialed the phone number and started talking into the receiver before the call had even connected. "Let's try again. You have to wait for the call to connect, hon. Listen for the tone, dial, hear it ring and wait for someone to pick up."
"Hello?" someone answered shyly on the other end and *click,* our caller had gotten nervous and hung up. We tried again. Phone rings and Lily answers in a near whisper, "Hello?" Silence. "Hello?"
"Hi."
"Hi."
"It's me from your class."
"I know that."
"I am calling you."
"I know that."
"OK, bye."
*click*
Not much has changed since that exchange because, frankly, the kids don't get much opportunity to set up their own play dates and are too young to gab it up on the phone with their friends. Long before they've gotten off the bus, I've texted, emailed, maybe called, possibly seen the others' parent(s) and made the arrangements myself. I don't have the girls answer the phone when it rings because the caller ID tells us who it is and gives me the chance to decide whether or not I want contact with the outside world. The lurking danger of someone, anyone assuming that my children are home alone, a learned paranoia from my childhood, has stopped me from having them pick up (I mean, why would a child answer the phone in the middle of the afternoon?), as well as the fear of all the info they might divulge when prompted. (Oh, yeah, my mom is here. She is in the bathroom and waved her hands for me not to tell you that. She's so silly.)
Mine are still small and I have heard from their contemporaries' parents that theirs also don't get much phone time. My oldest had a friend/classmate who would frequently make her own robocalls using the school directory and reach out to every person in her class she might like to play with until someone finally answered and said yes. Thanks to caller ID, I would see the name come up and expect the caller to be the parent of said little girl and would answer. I regret to inform that I fell for this okey-doke far too many times. On the other end there would be stammering, whispering, and the question, "Can Lily and I have a playdate?" Depending on how quickly I recovered she'd either offer thanks and hang up, offer thanks and scream to her mother across the house that she'd connected and what time could they get together, or offer disappointment and ask me to call her back another time when Lily might be able to play! I should call her back?
Talking to this little girl on the phone made me batty, but I admired her gumption, and though I was not sure if her parents were intentionally teaching her the ropes of phone communique, I appreciated the effort, even remarked to a friend that in a time of crisis I'd hoped that Lily would stick with that one because she knew how to get her point across, wasn't afraid of adults, and would figure out the path to safety. She had no shyness, no fear, and complete confidence.
Thanks to FaceTime and SKYPE, my kids have the opportunity to talk to AND see my parents. I imaged the conversations would be easier since they are able to see them, almost like in a real conversation. Not so. They talk on FaceTime much like they do on the phone. In monosyllables, blips, blurps, and beeps. If they do indeed find something they like to talk about, they do so in a whisper. I can see their mouths moving, am even sitting right next to them, but can barely hear a word they are saying. My parents smile at them and nod, occasionally saying, "That's wonderful, " even when the girls are saying that the guppies in class have died. Everyone is just thrilled to see each other. I suppose the real talking will come later.
Or maybe not. Do people even talk on the phone anymore? So many people have just their smartphones, having said goodbye to landlines long ago. There is texting, emailing, FaceTiming, Skyping. It seems that long gone are the days of chatting up a storm or falling asleep on one end of the phone while your best friend does the same on the other. And yet, to me, the lessons learned on the phone, communicating when you have to rely on the words, the tone, the pauses, the cracks, the muffled sound of crying, giggling, listening, paying attention, considering appear to be less important. I am guilty too of preferring a text to a call, an email to a long drawn out explanation of what and where and when and how. But when I need comfort, human contact (yes, the phone now represents human contact!) I reach for the phone and if I am able, I settle in for a delicious conversation with a friend who will calm my soul, reassure me, reinvigorate me, set me back on course. And when I say settle in I mean walk around the house doing dishes, folding laundry, general cleaning, and checking texts on my cell while talking. But that "hello," that "what's up?", that "I'm here," is worth a thousand :-) or LOLs or :-/. Somehow I feel that we are together.
Sharing yourself can be challenging. Being vulnerable, nervous, afraid, reaching out and admitting the need to connect can be embarrassing especially now that even in highly emotional states we can emoticon and air quote and asterisk our feelings in text. But we need each other, might need to make the call, might need to receive one. So we soldier on, the girls and me, one *click*, one hang up, one awkward silence at a time until talking to one another, sharing with one another, listening to one another is easy.
(c) Copyrighted 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
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