Today is Mother's Day and I thought I would share a story with those of you who, like me, have slightly odd tastes and, perhaps, a bit of the voyeur inside them. This goes back about ten years, when I was placing a call to my mother on that most important tele-communications day of all, Mother's Day. It was early evening - perhaps 5:00 or 6:00 Central Time U.S. - and I had picked up my cordless phone to place my call. My normal habit was (and still is) to pick up the handset, click the TALK button, bring it to my ear quickly to check for a dial tone, and then start dialing. Logical enough. I think 99% of the popualtion does it this way. (The remaining 1% have lost their phone priveleges.)
However, on this particular occasion I apparently picked up the handset, clicked the TALK button,
and dialed "1", and then brought it to my ear. And what I heard was one of the most oddly beautiful pieces of music I've ever encountered. Over the phone, anyway.
I heard a calliope of beeps and tones coming from other callers, who were at that same moment dialing their own mothers. They were out there in tele-space somewhere - all over the country - seperated from their mothers by geography, but not by modern communication. The calls were singing out. Some tones were strong and clear, as if the caller were on the same line. Most of them were in the audible mid-range, where I could discern the pitch and duration of the "note" being sounded. It was a constant swirl, like the revolving doors of a downtown skyscraper at noon on a Tuesday - the excited and hurried rush of individuals pushing their own path through a shared telephonic doorway. And there I was, right near it - but not a part of it. An invisible doorman.
The most intriguing tones of all were the faint ones. I listened intently for them. They were so fragile and rare that I imagined these calls to be the most important. Phone calls placed from the desert, a lonely motel, or a snowbound cabin. Last-minute phone calls. Change-of-heart phone calls. Phone calls on the night before surgery.
I went to the kitchen for a glass of wine, returned and sat down on the floor next to the phone stand. I stretched out my legs and the cat invited himself to stretch out over them. We relaxed there for about twenty minutes, listening to the distant music of telephonic exchanges. I thought I might actually overhear a conversation, but that never happened. I don't know a lot about telephones, but it was obvious that this was an extremely busy day on the routers(?) and that the overflow from the dialer pipeline(?) was spilling into my home reservoir(!). Whatever the technical reasons, it was a curious glitch that provided a few moments of imagination and wonder.
I drained the wine glass, clicked first the OFF button, then the TALK button, and proceeded to call Mom. It was now my turn to join in the song.
