Where are you?

I want to see a picture of you in my mind's eye when I talk to you... I want to visualize you where you are right now and I want picture your surroundings, your clothes, your hair, your smile....I want to know I can make the connection between what you are saying and how you look where you are.



a really old picture

 When I was growing up, we had a telephone that hung on the wall.  It had an actual dial and was a party line.  For those under 40 or not from a rural place, a party line isn't where parties are planned, it is a group of families who all share one phone line.  Very strange to remember now, in a time where almost every person has their own phone line.  If you picked up the phone and another person was speaking, you were supposed to hang up and wait your turn.  The phone rang differently in each house and if it wasn't your ring, you weren't supposed to pick up.  If it was an emergency, it was ok to speak to the people using the phone line and ask them to please hang up, so you could make an important call.  All calls cost money, it wasn't cheap, so nobody stayed on the line much anyway.  You only called loved ones and you knew where they were when you called them.  You can bet all of those ettiquette rules were followed religiously (ha!). 



my brother.  isn't he adorable?

 I remember getting our own phone line.  It was a big deal.  There was no caller ID back then and no answering machines for a long time, so when your phone rang, you rushed to answer it!  Back then, when you called somebody, the first thing you asked was 'what are you doing?'.  Nobody thought that was rude.  It was just a way of asking if it was a good time to call (usually).  Eventually somebody (probably Miss Manners) realized that it was pretty rude to start a conversation that way.  After all, if the person was doing something private, they would be left in the uncomfortable  position  of having to make something up.  Or even worse, if they said 'nothing', then they could reasonably be roped into doing a favor for the caller!  So that eventually transitioned to 'can you talk now?' or something similar, at least for polite people.  (I'm not sure I ever made that transition.) 

Things stayed like that for a very long time.  The only changes being the decrease in long distance charges over time, answering machines, and caller ID.  Finally the cell phone came out and became affordable.  My generation embraced the cell phone early.  The conversation starter then became 'where are you?'.  Another rude, but logical question to ask.   My parent's generation didn't embrace the cell phone quite so quickly.  They were often embarassed to catch someone on their cell phone.  They didn't ask where the reciever was, because they assumed the person was at home.  When they were told the person wasn't at home, it was often followed with an apology for bothering them when they weren't home, that they didn't mean to call the cell phone, and they quickly disconnected allegedly out of fear of using all the minutes or bothering the person. 

Now of course, almost everyone has a cell phone.  Everything from the simple phone to the smart phone.  My parent's generation still hasn't quite got the hang of it, but they don't get embarrassed by reaching someone who isn't at home any more.  Now they are the ones likely to ask where you are when they call you.  But the younger generations have moved on from that too.  Now that cell phones are a business necessity as well, it is no longer ok to ask where you are.  It doesn't matter any longer where you are, at least on a business call.  The company pays the phone bill to ensure you are available 24/7.  And the personal call has gone back to a simple 'what are you doing', 'are you busy', or even perhaps 'where are you' but only if it is pertinent to the call...i.e. 'I'm waiting for you' or 'can you pick something up for me on your way'. 

But the phone call for my generation and younger is almost gone.  Now we text.  We pass information without having to have a conversation or dealing with any niceties at all.  We insert an emoticon and that is good enough.  I find telephone conversations extremely awkward and stilted most of the time anymore.  At least with anyone I am not very, very comfortable with.  Comfortable enough to ask, 'where are you?'

I was pondering the significance of this the other night when I couldn't sleep.  This is what I came up with: 

When you talk on the phone to someone you know, you have to make a picture in your mind.  If you don't know them, you make a picture you can live with in your imagination (although time can prove our imaginations wildly inaccurate).   If you can't make that picture, you are slightly disconcerted. 

If it is someone you know well, it is even more disconcerting and invokes a feeling of loneliness.  When I talk to my husband on the phone when he is at work, I can picture him at his desk.  Recently they renovated their office, but that didn't bother me because I still had a mental picture.  When I visited his office, I immediately, without effort, revised the picture.  It is a natural function that our mind does without thinking.  I wonder if this is why my parent's generation was slow to embrace the cell phone and also, maybe, why my children's generation eschews phone calls in favor of texts.  Maybe talking to someone when you can't picture where they are, is too uncomfortable.

I remember when I was in the military and had long deployments away from the family.  It was so important to get those pictures taken and sent home, so they could have a mental picture.  We didn't really think of it that way, but that is how it was.  We instinctively knew  it was important.  It took away that uncomfortable feeling of the unknown. 



Created By Alecia Clark

 I wonder how much less lonely the grieving would be if the departed could send back a picture?  Just one snapshop of themselves in eternity. 

If when I talked to Michaela, I could create that mental image of where she is and how she is sitting, what she is wearing....how much less lonely might I be?