Day 45 Miss Communication

Once upon a time, I did a brief stint as a cosmetics commando. You know the company, rhymes with Tammy Faye. I was all a-quiver, anticipating my meteoric rise to make-up fame! Not only would I get pots of money and good skin, I’d learn to speak! In public!

Despite of hours of practice, smiling and gesturing at the mirror, I was a mass of trembling nerves before my first party. My hostess directed me to the coffee table where I set out my things, centred myself, took a deep breath … and choked. Literally. This was no little coughing fit. My wide-eyed hostess whacked me on the back, pushed glasses of water at me and finally led me to the washroom where I spent the first ten minutes of my perfect speech hacking up a lung.

When I eventually emerged, she was waiting for me, white-faced, a straw in one hand and a steak knife in the other, preparing I guess for some sort of desperate meatball surgery. Her friends had fled the scene.

My voice gone, my good skin mottled blue and red, my expensive mascara dripping off my chin, I ended my first party and my cosmetics-sales career by throwing some samples at her and croaking, “Try these, (gasp) they’re great.”

But spit-valve malfunctions aside, one of my biggest life challenges is to use words properly, directly, and clearly.

“Miss Communication!”  I declared to my husband one night.  “That’s my goal!”

“Congratulations,” he said, not looking up from the sports highlights.  “You miscommunicate with the best of them.”

(To be fair, ever since our conversation about a neurotic dream of mine, he hasn’t been terribly motivated to pay attention. “You had an erotic dream?” he answered, perking up his ears.  “Was I in it?”

“You sure were!” I responded, bursting into tears.)

Language is important. For instance, some of Bikram’s flowing dialogue is just weird. “Breathing is normal,” the instructor intones. Well, unless you’re a fish, duh. It took me weeks to figure out that what they intend is not a declarative, but a directive: they’re telling us to breathe normally.

There was an older gentleman in Tuesday’s class who was definitely not breathing normally. In fact, he was gasping rather alarmingly. Then I remembered that I’ve seen him before and he keeps returning, alive and well, so I guess that’s his baseline. Maybe for him, gasping is normal.

Bikram’s instructions have other strange content, such as: the mysterious Japanese Ham Sandwich.  That’s what I’m supposed to look like when I bend forward and (try to) rest my face against my shins.

And why do we have to put our “exactly foreheads” to our knees? How about “put your forehead exactly on your knees.”

I’m aware that such loosely played language is my particular nails-on-chalkboard. I actually enjoyed grammar in high-school, what can I say? I don’t judge those of you who can’t spell or deconstruct sentences. I may laugh at you in private, but know that I do it with love.

Experts say there are many interpretations for every statement: what I meant to say, what I actually said, what you heard, what you understood … and on and on. Do we ever truly say what we mean? Do we even know what we mean? No wonder communication is the basis for relationships – and conflict. Language is a miracle.

So much lies hidden under the surface of smiles, clothing and mannerisms, waiting for the words that will reveal the person within. Those words may be different for each of us, but emotions are universal. We all feel frightened, joyful, inadequate, loved, lonely, enraged; we all struggle towards expression. Having the courage to be honest builds strength in relationships. Sharing our feelings through words is what makes us human.

So I keep trying. Speak. Explain. Apologize. Try again. Words strung together into sentences, sentences woven into relationships, a blanket to warm the wordless core of each of us.

“I don’t know why it’s so important to me,” I said to my husband later that same day.  “I guess it’s just part of my artistic nature.”

His head came up at that, his eyes widened, then softened in compassion.

“Honey,” he said, reaching for my hand.  “You’re not autistic.”