As I make my way through life as any other, I have taken notice that when people state that they are seekers of truth, it is often far from this they stray. It is perhaps within the purview of human nature to state one thing, while simultaneously meaning the other or being guilty of just the very thing one speaks against. This is a complicated maneuver seen in even the most banal conversations, experienced just as well within major political discourse, and taken part in just as well by young to old.
It seems to be the case that more often than not, what many deem to be passionate and opinionated argument is simply quite a transparent window into the very personal battles the individual stating such things is enmeshed within. This, I believe, is a revelatory moment when one sees this, perhaps enough to cause a personal revolution in the ways in which one views his fellow human beings and his relationship to them. For what then is our relationship to others when we begin to see that much of what is said is merely others espousing those things which they themselves are battling against? It is a wonder then to me what the point of conversation is. Perhaps we must then come to terms with the idea that no one knows what they are speaking about but are rather continually attempting to “figure out”, allay their own inner fears or battles, or avoid them altogether. I believe this can either null the point of conversing at all. I believe it can also do dramatic things towards opening one up to being able to listen to other human beings without having preconceived notions painting the ways in which one experiences another’s speech or avoiding the bothersome intrusions of one’s ego.
This much is true: should we ever care to hear another human being, it is not far-fetched to begin to view their speech (whether verbalized, written, or made clear through other means) through very personal, and sometimes shared, influences. The myopic view. however, of believing that each person’s speech belongs to them and them alone must end for what is conversation other than either the direct or indirect attempt to convey one’s own position or mental state in the hopes that someone, somewhere may feel the same, may share the same sentiments? Conversation then, is a “reaching out” and even in the most vigorous and vulgar of approaches, must be listened to through a lens of understanding: that everyone, regardless of what they may be saying, is reaching out, perhaps for consolation, perhaps for much-sought condemnation, perhaps for insight, or perhaps for support. And perhaps (and likely this is true) there are a myriad of other reasons.
What then does it mean to converse? What then does it mean to listen?
Edward sat at the cafe typing while listening to a number of people around him typing or talking on the phone. In the background the music played; a song he could not place. He sat motionless, immersed within that moment in a place of great intrigue: how is it, he wondered, that while we sit so still we are within such a chaotic wind of activity? The point of him pondering this was not to prove to himself that he could be profound. In fact, there was little profound at all about this observation and in being so drab and normal, he sighed a deep sigh of blue dust which covered the table in front of him in a thin, almost imperceivable layer. To those that watched Edward, however, they could not help but be affected.
Incessantly, the woman behind him spoke on the cell phone. It was less bothersome that she spoke. Rather, the irritation came with the speed at which she did so. Her words spilled over each other, a rolling wave of ants crawling one over the other, reaching towards some definite goal: to be understood and understood loudly. She accomplished neither and upon realizing this, spoke even louder in faulty attempts to outwit the device she held in her hand which was, through many molecules of air and cell phone towers placed strategically around the city, gargling her voice to resemble that of an irritated chipmunk.
It soon became clear to him that not only was the woman directly behind him speaking on the phone but the woman behind her was also chatting wildly on her cellular device. She was quiet though, her conversation punctuated only occasionally with comments. It was as if they were speaking to one another, the one wildly chatty, the other forced to listen to her rantings. At this thought he smiled for Edward would not be surprised were this to be the case. Two people having conversations through devices while in the same room 15 or 20 years ago would have seemed absolutely mad. Today it was a common occurrence, children texting their mothers downstairs to bring up chips and salsa, a friend texting her other friend who sits two seats away at a closed meeting, people chatting via Skype even though they sit not one seat from one another. It was the law of the spectacle: that once had, the only way to continue to experience something as the spectacle was to have it expand, become even more intrusive, even more over-the-top and robust. And quick. One must never forget quick for Edward knew better than anyone that today was ruled by how fast one could accomplish whatever it was that one was doing, regardless of its unimportance in the larger scheme of things. “And how little didn’t fit that bill,” he would think to himself.
As minds wandered beyond the confines of the cafe walls, Edward’s eyes began to glisten, a tearful reprise to the unending absence experienced in the city, an utter loneliness experienced in an inexplicable way amongst hoards of human beings. It was still strange to him to at once be with and yet, so distant, separated by unseen walls and lines of social discord and financial malfeasance. It was to his computer he was wedded, divorced from the larger society, relegated to easily understood and controlled forms of online discourse. He typed emails to himself and, upon receiving them, experienced as much satisfaction had a complete stranger or confidant sent him one for it was the receiving (and not the content) which excited him. His email was replete with self-sent correspondance which he filed neatly under “Notes from Me to Me Under the Guise of No One But Myself”. It was a long title to such emails which made him tired when applying it to new notes and he therefore referred to it as NFMTMUTGONBM and hardly could a more difficult abbreviation be created for poor Edward, prisoner to his own wild fancies.
A woman in her 80s entered the cafe and slowly approached the front counter. She wanted a cold coffee, not iced, with 2 mm of whole milk splashed with intention on the middle of her drink. There was to be no spillage. She explained this to the barrista slowly, methodically, as if through decades of practice she had now, finally, perfected the art of being a pain in the ass. The barrista grimaced and complied, no doubt gathering fodder for a story to tell her colleagues once the lady had left. Either this or she gathered steam and would unload this pent up rage on her unsuspecting lover much later in the night. The experience, no matter how one cut it, was unpleasant but the barrista, once done, took the woman’s money and sent her hobbling on her way. The emergence of rotund and spoiled energies came as waves upon the shore, leaving their imprints on the spaces they came through, sedimented layers upon the brows of those they touched. Edward would then picture this as a constantly undulating landscape of energies brought to and from the space and people, a tapestry of constantly-changing colors and hues. This made him smile for in that instant, amidst the churning chaos, he felt somehow in control as master viewer to the patterns emerging in front of him, most (if not all) inspired by the ghosts which dwelled in the confines of his mind.
I take notice of the soiled pot upon the stove, the way the water boils as time has passed, feel the fibers of the coffee filter under my fingers as I push it gently into the mould of the strainer. Bodega coffee can with the lid popped off and the hole, created by slowly taking a knife and sawing the lip, cutting into the middle of the can, pushing the tab of shorn metal inwards, the smell of fresh coffee emerging. The water is poured into the mould and I am mindful not to spill, mindful of not filling it too high for it will overflow. The hissing of the water as it rolls against the red-hot sides of the pot, the bubbles underneath the natural flow that push the water upwards as it loosely streams downwards, into the filter, into the mold, mixing with the coffee. One pours and one waits, waits for the water to slowly seep through, waits for the coffee to mix with the water, release its flavors. It is important that one waits.
This process began as one induced by poverty, as the result of not having a coffee machine, not having a can opener. But there are things to learn through stretching out time, waiting for things to steep. The Earthy flavor of these moments intermixes with a getting-to-know of the daily objects we so often use and discard. The strainer, worn and chipped, becomes priceless. The pot’s marks upon its shiny exterior no different than the liver spots of an old man. It is through touching and taking time that one enters into a new realm of knowing, a deeper sense of what one’s life is comprised of. They are moments of contemplative meditation, simple and pure.
It is amazing how pasts, once gone, can return at unexpected moments. It was one night at the sound of the piano playing that I remembered something far away that I had thoughtfully misplaced. And immediately I wanted to forget. This is a move which, at the beginning, simply cannot be done. With time and great perseverance, forced forgetfulness can occur and it as this point that the storm quells and a great silence overtakes one. It is, in that momentary bliss, a feeling that one has succeeded in weeding out a troublesome memory. And one may think that this will last forever but it is in this belief that one is found to be completely wrong. It begins with a song, perhaps the way a person’s voice slightly drops the consonants, with the way the sun hits a window. And the memories begin to trickle back at first. The torrential downpour is not to be far behind. It is in an unexpected moment that these memories return and it is then as if one has entered into a canvas wielding voluminous nuanced memories of that time and one after the other they wash over one’s mind. A person is left defenseless when this occurs, the mind a barrage of thought and pent-up emotion. And then, upon the flicker of a light in a deepening darkness, one remembers something quite simple but ultimately profound: that it is acceptable to feel. And suddenly and quite without warning, the flood of darkened tides turns light and the “then” is no longer “now” but a memory as memory perhaps should be, lived once and remembered but felt altogether in a then which according to no rule must continually be felt today. It is in this moment that one reclaims their agency, the ghosts of one’s pasts dispirited by an opening, a tear, a welcoming-in. It is to accept the energies that flow to and through, to no longer forcefully repel. And it is these moments that I find quiet and the piano becomes nothing more than a piano, the minor scales turned major. One finds that it is then acceptable to release.
“Sir, like I said before: you have violated the terms of agreement. Your contract will be terminated and we are forced to send this matter to collection if you choose not to pay the $450 that you owe us. It really is that simple.”
Nothing was ever that simple. The system had screwed him one last time and this time, he wasn’t going to take it.
“Listen you. What’s your name again? Melinda. Fine. Listen one last time. I asked you a simple question: how is it that if my phone is stolen while I am on vacation and someone runs up the minutes by making international calls in the 48 hours that I had no way of contacting you, I can not only have my contract canceled but you can immediately jump to sending me to collections? Where is the logic in this scenario?”
He could hear Melinda breathing heavily on the other end of the phone, each breath strained as if it were her last. He imagined an overweight white woman in polka-dotted spandex, Velcro New Balances, permed blond hair, squatting in a gray, musty cube, its walls covered with pictures of her little Chihuahua, an old pink shirt with finger-sized holes on the ends, and a pervasive smell of mothballs and leftover Chinese food.
“Sir, I don’t know the logic you are referring to but what I do know is I don’t appreciate your tone. I work long hours behind a desk taking a number of calls from individuals such as yourself with differing sad stories. I am not immune to your suffering but I will say that I have heard it all before and that’s the truth.”
He felt the anger boil up inside again, thought of the cabbie earlier in the week that drove him across town to a meeting he was already late to and then explained to him that in order to pay, he needed to call in his card number to the dispatcher who didn’t pick up the phone for another 15 minutes. He had utilized a service and he was being made later through attempting to pay for the service. Everything about the situation was ass-backwards and it was infuriating.
“Melinda, look. I take no beef with you.” She grunts into the phone in disbelief. “What I have a problem with is this fucked up system where I, a paying, long-time customer, am being punished for calls I did not make, from places I did not visit, from a phone I no longer had in my possession. It makes no sense whatsoever and to top it all off, from the beginning you have treated me like I was a criminal and threatened to send me to collections. On what grounds?”
He hears the squeaking of her chair over the receiver. He imagines her leaning forward now, bracing her engorged elbows on the corners of the plastic-coated, adjustable desk.
“Sir, I work for the phone company. I do not need grounds. I am not being listened to, nor monitored. My supervisor is my husband, his supervisor is his cousin. We are based in a small town filled with small-minded people who know the few blocks of this town but know them well. We have no need for big-city folk calling in as though they own the place, as if simply because we are a business, that gives you license to call in hopping mad over a missing telephone. Why, if the fact that you are missin’ a telephone has you so upset, we have plenty of those for affordable prices. May I interest you in a new phone?”
He felt like he was in the twilight zone. All rational people had been rounded up like cattle, shoved into trucks, slaughtered and ground up into hamburger meat and eaten by the small town calling center folks down on Main Street USA. Melinda puts a stick of gum in her mouth and starts chewing like a cow over the phone. The smacking grates on his nerves, crawls down his spine, sticks needles into his skin, punches him in the gut.
“HAVE YOU LISTENED TO NOTHING I HAVE SAID?! WHERE DO YOU COME FROM? WHAT PLANET MUST I DAMN FOR SENDING YOU MY WAY!”
He regains composure. “Melinda. I don’t want a new phone. All I called about was…you know what? Let me speak to your supervisor.”
“His name is Roger. He’s my husband.” Her sentences lift at the ends in sickening sweetness.
“Melinda, I do not care who he is. I do not care what his name is. Just get off the phone and let me speak to someone that has half a brain.”
He is breathing heavily now, feels his blood pressure rising, his temples pounding, remembers what the doctors said: breathe slowly, take a break, don’t get too wrapped up in a situation.
“But he’s my husband. A great salesman and knows a ton about phones. He can get you whatever phone you want, you know? But he’s busy right now and can’t talk. Sir, what else can I do for you?”
He shrieks into the phone, slams the receiver into the tabletop again and again. The inanity of the situation embroils him in a sweeping mist of hysterical anger and he curls up on the wooden floor in a fetal position, thumb in mouth, blanket in hand.
