A Creative Piece of Listening, Watching, and Wisdom

            I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about how folks function in 2015. Clearly our ways of communication have changed drastically over the past decade and that fact both bothers and intrigues me. Don’t get me wrong. I’m on my iphone, ipad, and computer often. Perhaps I am a little old fashioned though. It seems the art of conversation, of looking a person directly in the eyes, of listening and hearing, has taken a back seat to texting, tweeting, blogging, messaging, and posting on Facebook. Furthermore, how often are folks staring down, at a screen or the ground, rather than gazing about at the people and places around them? Because of recent observations, I decided to create a short scenario. It’s totally fiction, but reflects what I have had on my mind.

“I just want you to listen,” Julie pleaded.

“I am listening,” Robert replied.

“No you’re not.”

“I am.”

“Well, perhaps you’re listening, but you’re not hearing. There’s a difference.” Julie’s eyes filled with tears. She wasn’t angry any more, but exasperation had set up storage space inside her. She sighed deeply and stared at the man she had lived with for fifteen years. He had ceased hearing her years before. She could almost pinpoint the day.

“Robert, I love you,” she had tendered for no particular reason on a lazy, Sunday morning when they were younger. A moment of unexpected affection had bubbled inside her and simply had engendered her to say what she had felt.

Robert had not responded.

“Robert?”

“What?” he had answered, his voice reflecting annoyance at being disturbed. He had been reading.

“Nothing,” she had managed. “Nothing.”

Julie consciously stopped talking to Robert soon, at least about anything of substance. She began watching though, and quite likely by employing that sense as never before, appreciated life from a new perspective. She startlingly realized that she had placed the art of observation on the proverbial back burner for much too long. She had been too busy talking, too anxious for answers, and tormented by what she tolerated but could not change. Bringing that truth to the fore both saddened and enlivened her.

On the very day of her decision, Julie had made her way down four flights of stairs, away from her silent studio, and distancing herself from a husband, isolated now with his books, alone.

She had been acutely aware of the staccato click of her heels tapping each step and echoing eerily until she reached the city street below. All around her were the masses, people pressing forward intent on reaching goals, destinations, or simply seeking some purported purpose. They did so alone it seemed. Eyes focused on the pavement or on cellphones, and earphones blasted music protectively, sealing off other sounds. And the people pushed on, secluded amid the bustle around them. Their bodies lurched forward striding down the busy sidewalk, near misses here and there.

“Get outta the way!” a voice shouted.

No response.

“Sorry. Excuse me,” someone else mumbled as he collided with another pedestrian. Neither had been looking, at least at each other.

Julie had watched that day as never before at the movement of human bodies, all shapes and sizes, the hues of clothing, buildings, monoliths to the sky, and neon signs still flashing into the morning light. She listened too. She couldn’t help herself. Sounds seduced her and held her captive. Traffic rumbled, horns honked, and breaks screeched. Smells encased her too: sweet perfumes, putrid perspiration, street sausages sizzling, and breads baking. Her senses were bombarded.

Julie finally had stood still that morning, flattening her body against the bricks of her building. Amid the hustle, the odors, the vibrancy of color, and the cacophony of sounds, she thought of Robert. He was the love of her life. For what perhaps was the first time ever she listened to herself, to her inner workings, and knew for certain that words were not needed.