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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