Ruminating on “Random”…
I told a stranger that I loved him yesterday morning. He phoned me in the afternoon to say that he really appreciated the uplifting text message but that he doubted it had landed where intended. Oops. We laughed; I thanked him for calling and promptly updated my niece’s cell phone listing!
The memory made me laugh later during my afternoon run. And then sent my brain on a random, free association flight that ended only when I climbed back in my truck forty minutes later…
As I ran a steady uphill grade I thought about my own compulsion to dial back those who send me errant voice-mail messages. It truly bothers me that someone might wait in vain for a return call to a phone message never received. Sometimes I find matter-of-fact receptionist voices in my recordings; sometimes the voice is of one parent trying to tempt another into additional duties (and I have to wonder, “Am I doing the right thing here…?!). And sometimes, I hear words that ride on a tone rich with additional meanings that must be heard by the intended ear.
I phone all my voice-mail strangers back with a, “Sorry; I think you accidentally dialed my number…” It’s kind of a “have to” for me, like letting at least one car turn into the lane I’m traveling along and giving the right-of-way to pedestrians on cold days (or when they have children, or are elderly, or look sad…). You probably don’t want to be in the car driving behind me.
As I circled a long loop through a sudden and dazzling flurry of white snow, I remembered moving to Lima, Ohio in the early 90’s and losing a weekly TV job
opportunity when my phone service didn’t move with me. And then I remembered how I cherished every moment of caring for the daughter who blazed into my world shortly thereafter. No loss there at all…Refreshed by splashes of wet snow, I sailed back down a hill toward my truck and grinned yet again as I remembered my Tar Heel friend…
We were on vacation in North Carolina: my ex-husband, our three children, and the multitude that is “my family”. My cell phone, a gift to maximize communication as my dad faded from this world, was still fairly new to me.Which is why I kept dialing Bill… His local number matched my ex-husband’s local (in Columbus) number. And I just couldn’t remember to manually dial and add an area code. So, every time I punched the phone book entry for my ex, I talked to Bill… Who was terribly nice to his consistent “wrong number.” At first it was a little embarrassing, but he started saying, “until next time” as the week wore on and gradually shared a little about himself; retired with grown children and a lovely wife. He often heard my own kids in the background as I was driving to the grocery, expecting to determine a grocery necessity from my ex… By the end of the week, I thought Bill was a pretty nice guy and had to call him one last time as we drove out of his area code. I wished him a good week; he said, “talk to you next year…” and here I am remembering a complete stranger simply because he was kind.
Random moments matter, it seems. Motivating, huh…?
