On Hold

On hold. Waiting. Idling. Marking time. Hanging on. These words describe the suspended animation of waiting to speak to a “representative”. I have found there are a limited number of doodles that one can create in the duration of this deferred discourse. Dull repetition takes hold after the initial brilliant inventiveness. Spirals are popular, as are daisy petals, clouds, rainbows and curlicues. These softer shapes are not necessarily gender specific. The general term for them is doodles. The impulse to fill empty space, an empty mind or a blank page is probably universal. It is honored by the cliché ‘nature abhors a vacuum’. The refined and trained graphic artists among us may produce more sophisticated renderings of moon rockets, concert halls and corporate logos rather than the more common sketchy comic caricatures. On one hand, it is a marvel to me that the human brain can operate simultaneously on separate complex levels and on the other that we can shut down those higher mental synapses so readily. I see the mind processes as a layered sandwich with or without some of the layers: lettuce, tomato, bacon, mayo or mustard for instance. Salt and black pepper and pickle are optional. This metaphor can grow to imaginative complexity. The point is that the idle mind is not truly inert at all and that is where doodles (from the German Dudeltopf ) come in. They occupy the day dreaming space, the marginalia of the focused mind.

Since we have been coping with the extenuating circumstances of this viral epidemic, there is lots of hanging on, especially when we are on the phone. We are making appointments, getting information, filing complaints and generally dealing with officialdom. It is here that we run up against some of the most dreadful sounds ever transmitted. The phone tree complications are bad enough: “Our menu has recently changed.” The subsequent musical diversion intended as a soothing passage is so scratchy and disjointed that it is practically unbearable. I inform the next representative that it is a trial to endure that sonic experience, saying, “Your interlude music is about the worst I have ever heard and almost deters me from waiting, let alone to doing business with you!” That horrible and repetitive noise is a maddening distraction when I could be accomplishing some useful and creative doodling. Since that signal is probably bouncing off a communications satellite 20,000 miles above Earth before it arrives in my ear, there is some allowance to be made, but REALLY! I don’t care if it is a clarinet concerto. It is unrecognizable noise and repellant. Something about the sound waves is so disturbingly distorted that when the cheery representative finally comes on the line and distinctly wishes me a bright welcome, it is disorienting and annoying at the same time. Of course the representative can do nothing to remedy my irritation except to say, “Yes we have heard that before.’ I would prefer silence with the occasional “We will be right with you” rather than the aural assault of abrasive din. Thank you for allowing me to vent. I don’t think I am alone in this and I know that this is small potatoes of all the things to be upset about. Much bigger issues well deserve the biggest protests right now.

Hanging on is the default mode of operation right now. Waiting for a resolution of uncertainty is foremost for everyone. The halting progress, if you can call it that, is frustrating in the extreme. The rollercoaster ride of optimism and despair has brought me to tears more than once. There is civic danger in that beyond a personal hazard. Mental health consultation however, is not my specialty; table settings and candelabras and napkin folding and floral arrangement is more of my territory.

When I say civic danger, I mean it. The national mood may bottom at such a low ebb that we settle for some swaggering tinpot authoritarian who promises a guaranteed solution to our problems, who operates without counsel, who confabulates his own worth as a leader of the people, who flatters our national pride with jingoistic drum-banging, who sells shallow nostrums for complex problems, who has no personal guiding principles unless they are polling well with the voters and who has no understanding of the meaning of Civics. Pretty scary if you ask me. We are vulnerable to this sort of manipulation if we allow it, especially if the situation gets worse than it already is. To my thinking the national ‘mood’ is critical. Fear and apprehension are not solid voting guides. Thank you for allowing me to vent again.

What has this to do with gracious living? Look to standards of action to answer that. High standards are not exclusively for the elite. A table with a camellia in a jelly jar can be just as satisfactory as any floral extravaganza. A votive candle can offer as much accent as any designer taper. Standards of performance and presentation cross all boundaries; practicing discernment in that sphere offers the opportunity for a genial life. In our own domain we set criteria all the time. Applying that to the larger society is not a bad thing.

On hold is nowhere. It is not here or there. It is limbo. (Never mind that that word is a construct for the purpose of religious rationale.) It is the province of daydreams and doodles and uncertainty waiting to be connected. In olden days when telephone lines ran through switchboards with actual people supervising them, to be ‘on hold’ meant that the physical connections were not yet made and you might be asked to ‘hold on’ in anticipation of an actual plugged connection. Being on hold now encompasses a sort of universal insecurity. Those standards I spoke of can now aid us in mutual support. We encourage and offer compassion to others as an emblem of solidarity. Or we bake them a pie. Or we share from our garden. That is the acme of gracious living.

Swell kisses                           Celeste