Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Jan. 18, 2003: About Alyce

Tonight I got an affectionate, loving message on my answering machine. It was a wrong number. This happens quite often, actually, in part because I've kept the default outgoing message, a flat-sounding computer voice. The message was from somebody named John. In a tender voice, he left a message for his girl, telling her he hopes she has a wonderful time with her family tomorrow, and that he loves her very much, that he will always love her.

I called the number on my caller ID and got an answering machine, a flat computerized voice. Into the machine, I said, "You left a message tonight on my machine, but you got a wrong number. I just thought you ought to know that the person you were trying to reach didn't get your message."

I don't know why I did that. Usually I just erase them.

This type of thing happens all the time, despite my unlisted number. I've had messages wishing warm greetings to people who don't live here and probably never have. I've had messages from work places looking for missing workers, messages from a father to a daughter, a girlfriend to her "boo."

If it's true that there's no such thing as coincidences, there must be a reason for all of this. I have a theory.

The other day in belly dancing class, two of the women were complaining that they've been losing weight, but that it started with their chests. Simultaneously, one of the class members is pregnant and has been developing quite impressively in the mammary area. So my instructor joked that that's where their shrinking chests were going.

What if the universe really is balanced this way? What if the things you lose end up somewhere else? And not just things like missing socks or dropped coins (ever find a sock you didn't recognize?) but messages of love, hope and tenderness?

Every time I get one of these messages, I wonder if someone else is getting the ones I should be hearing. Things I wanted to hear, from the people I wanted to hear them from, tossed up on a wild shore 20 years from now, in a sandy bottle?

The worst part is when you do get those messages and don't realize it until it's too late. Sometimes people say things in such subtle ways it can take months or years to seep in. And then, once it has, it's often too late. I once found a letter in my drawer and realized, nearly 20 years after it had been sent, that the sender had been interested in me. Gee, you think the "S.W.A.K. (Sealed with a Kiss)" on the envelope would have been a clue.

Or maybe we're just all too accustomed to Hollywood movies, where boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl and then boy pulls an incredibly romantic stunt and gets girl back. Real life doesn't happen that way. Real life is far more subtle. Too subtle, some might say.

That's why, if Jack Nicholson gets a Golden Globe, or even an Oscar, for About Schmidt, I will be applauding. In an understated and yet incredibly moving performance, Nicholson's Warren Schmidt works through the mixed emotions of grieving after his wife dies. He shows everybody a bright, cheery face but beneath it all, he's a tumult of changing emotions. Grieving is like that, whether it's a loved one passed on or a relationship, now gone.

In the movie, Schmidt keeps his emotions to himself, only pouring them out to an African child he's sponsoring through a feed-the-world type program. It is only to this stranger that he can reveal his true self, and all the emotions that wash over him.

Being a writer is a lot like that.

I'm putting together an e-book right now of columns I've written, and as I work my way through them, I am more than often stunned. The words in them, the messages behind them, are so deeply helpful. The speaker is kind and understanding and a little bit funny and even a little wise.

Could this be me?

I happen to know that over the years, some of my columns have been clipped out, hung on office walls. I frequently received kind letters from people, telling me how much these words meant to them. And if anyone ever asked me how I came up with them, I had a simple but truthful answer.

I wrote what I needed to hear.

Moral:
What goes around comes around, even missing socks.

Copyright 2003 by Alyce Wilson

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