Honey, I Found the Phone

Old age has it’s challenges. Car keys left in the freezer, stuff like that. But it’s not just old age. Stress can have the same effect. And now with all the new ways we have to socialize, we’re spending less time with each other physically. The touchy-feely stuff is important. Studies have shown that babies, human and animals, deprived of physical contact, develop multiple problems. In many ways we have all become more isolated, suffering alone and not knowing how to reach out to others. Perhaps that’s one reason for so much divisiveness – we’re cut off from others and strike out in our frustration.

I’m not sure how that thought would have helped me find my car keys, I think they were in the refrigerator next to the yogurt but “the freezer” sounded better. Anyhow, I’m going to go with the old adage that “Laughter is the best Medicine.” And what follows is based on true events – just so you know. And we’ve recreated a picture just to prove the case in point.

Seems there’s more aloneness now than ever before. Fewer nuclear families, the traditional family of parents and their children. Extended families are a thing of the past. Zoom calls are not the same as three or more generations getting together on a Sunday afternoon for a family dinner. We’re dispersed all over the country. Hurts both ways. When the kids they can help you with computer related challenges. An parents can help when you need a hug or feel isolated.

Oops. No laughter here. But it’s our reality and hollow laughter is not real laughter. We need our feet on the ground to have a big belly laugh.

I guess I’ve learned to laugh at myself over the years, especially as more often than not people don’t get my jokes. When I taught yoga, one of the students would be the “interpreter” “Oh, I think Ken means this…” and then sometimes my remarks would get a chuckle, most times – huh? Heck, I was only trying to help them get deeper into some twist!

I’m a bit clumsy, always knocking things over. I need to continually be on the lookout for items left near light switches. Leave something there – I’ll knock it down before the week is over. Or stuff left on the corner of a bookcase – that’s my second favorite place for disaster staging.

And I’m pretty much my best straight man for jokes. You know, like, “Ken and Santa Claus walked into a bar…” I’ve learned to take life and it’s challenges with a grain of salt. Since I always forget to use salt when I cook, I guess it balances out – cut down on the salt as you get older – blood pressure advice.

In any case, most of us have been cut free of our extended families and it feels as if we’re clumsily wandering about in a dimly lit Fun House that isn’t all that funny. Finding misplaced objects should be the least of our worries.

As best I can, I try to reach out, create a new “extended” family even if it’s just the two of us. I misplace something – it’s usually my wife that finds it. And likewise, if my wife forgets where she’s left something, it’s me that usually finds it. (My go place to look is next to the yogurt.)

But we each need to reach out and ask for help at some point. That’s part of life – being vulnerable. It’s not that BIG a thing. I don’t care if the yogurt is saying “enuf already.”

I’m hoping that those of you who were in the military know about extended families: First your “brother” that had your back and you his or hers. Then your squad…etc. You know you were family. Family can pick up the phone and call 24 x 7 and you as family will pick up such calls 24 x 7!

Maybe that’s the lesson to take from all this lost and found stuff. We are not alone and should not be alone. We help each other whenever we or something is lost. It doesn’t matter who throws the life preserver or who catches it. And when you think about it, our lifeline is symmetric, there’s a life preserver on each end. The helpers are in fact helping themselves when they reach out and those being helped receive extra strength by connecting with others in their extended family.

The lifeline itself is made from the many strands of loving kindness we do in both small and large ways every day. OK. And if we’ve misplaced kindness, let’s all find it together here.

As for the missing phone – it was hidden in plain sight in the pencil jar not six inches from where the cradle for the phone was resting, laughing all the time my wife and I were scurrying around the house looking for it. And NO, I did not open the yogurt container and search inside.

Remember – acts of kindness.

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Ken was a Professor of Mathematics, a ceramicist, a welder, and an IBMer until downsized in 2000. He taught yoga until COVID-19 decided otherwise. He continues writing, living with his wife and beagle in Shorewood, Wisconsin. He enjoys chamber music and mysteries. He’s a homebrewer and runs whitewater rivers. Ken is a writer and his literary works can be found at https://www.kmkbooks.com/

He welcomes feedback on his articles and can be reached at havokjournal@havokmedia.com.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.