Resting Listening Face
is what we all carry inside of us.
Beneath coat hoods drumming with rain, I walked out of the Sherwin-Williams store on the Oregon coast with my daughter-in-law, Kyra. “Now, do you believe me?” I asked.
With a gallon of paint swinging at my side, we both laughed. “Yeah, it all makes sense.”
What was I asking her to believe in? A belief in the human kind.
Back inside the store, the male clerk with sandy brown hair and beard, entered my order on his computer. “Are you a member of the military, or do you have family in the military?” The company proudly supported active and retired military.
“My dad was in the military. But that probably doesn’t count, since he’s deceased, right?” I gave him a wry smile before I turned to motor around the store, picking up paint sponges and putty.
“I’m afraid it doesn’t,” he gently said back. The machine cranked away, doing some of his work in the back room, shaking up some semi-gloss paint in kiln beige, while we waited back at the counter. With no other customers in the store except us, he began to enumerate his entire family’s military history.
“My ancestors were in the military, that would be a great, great, grandfather, I think. Came over in 1620 as an admiral. We’ve traced it back to Boston…My dad was in the military…I was Marines, served time in the Gulf War (doing the mental math, I was beginning my working life in Cincinnati, while he was giving his life in the desert)…My son had a chance to play college football, he was my best friend. We did everything together. He played three sports…But right before signing, he signed up for the military instead. Marines…He’s home here for a few weeks with a new granddaughter. Well, we have two of them….oh man, I only wished he would played football too, for me to watch him.”
The whirring of the machine stopped. His storyline did too. He packaged up my paint, and we skipped out of there. Yes, Kyra finally believed me.
The store clerk had only been the latest in the past 24 hours of some listening tour I didn’t know I was on.
On a recent zoom call, one of the organizers had quoted the Greek philosopher Epictetus, “'We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
I don’t know if this kind of listening more is the habitat and terrain of story carriers versus storytellers, who spend more time talking—like my old man and sea friend, Sam. He’s changed his career and job more times than his underwear, and I use that analogy because he once managed an underwear store.
My husband and I purchased a bungalow on the Oregon coast. It’s situated alongside other residential and rental homes. Sam is a neighbor, maybe my favorite.
The day before the paint incident, he showed up on the heels of the HVAC repairman. I pulled out a few chairs for us to bask in the rare February sun (he experiences vertigo, and tends to need a seat or at least rest with his beautifully hand carved walking stick). Our chairs sat on the crack between the garage and drive, and between wisdom and wackiness.
The technician whiled away behind us, installing a new flue collar.
Sam’s mother-in-law had just died. The family was headed to her funeral in Vancouver that weekend. (Here we had to clarify, Vancouver, Washington, not Canada). “It was supposed to be a small gathering, but she’s part of the Cherokee nation. Now she’ll have a Cherokee poet at her memorial. And some Cherokee songs sung.” In my mind, I wondered if it was Joy Harjo, but didn’t want to stop the march of Sam’s time.
Each time the tech walked past us, he grinned. Sam, the elder, and, though I sometimes appear youthful, I, the not so young woman, taking in the flight of the seagulls, the winds and spray of sun, leaning west like we all do, to hear the roar of the waves, drunkenly rumbling in at that hour.
It wasn’t long before Big George, the other neighbor, came to join. In an instant, life came tumbling out.
Big George lived with his wife, Sally, and his brother-in-law, little George. Their dog had died in December, Big George underwent surgery for his prostate in December, and by January, his wife, Sally, for whom smoking had been a way of coping and life since she was a young teen, entered the hospital on January 3, and came home six weeks later. She’s now under home care, improving by inches, despite “one hospice nurse, who’d been doing this for seven years, gave her about two weeks,” he went. “I think she’s wrong.” Then he pivoted.
He walked me around our property lines, explaining how when the house behind him sold, the sale prompted a survey of the surrounding lot lines. For some odd reason, one of those lines ran through my landscaped bed, and not directly between our properties. “As long as I’m alive, I don’t mind. I’m here til I’m dead.” George avoided talk about Sally anymore, but nothing stopped him from telling me abot the herd of elk he’d seen in the woods, and the mamma deer, “I think she had two babies….”
If my day had ended, I would have thought nothing of how I felt emptied enough to carry their stories inside me.
The day did NOT end there.
The neighbors departed. The HVAC tech completed his work. “I need to go inside and check on the vents. And then I’ll have wait 10-15 minutes to make sure there’s no leaks.” While checking the vents, I offered him a La Croix sparkling water. “Oh my niece calls this spicy water,” he said.
I asked one question. One. “How old is your niece?” He was off too. Our conversation took flight like the pelicans and cormorants dove in and out of the currents of air. We delved into everything from family (“we don’t count cousins like other people do, we’re all cousins,” ) and how his girlfriend encouraged him to enroll in therapy and it’s working for him…how he thrives in anarchy, in chaos, which means he’s really good at fixing old furnaces like mine.
Is it the nature of living along the coast, of existing always with the shift of waves and winds, that allows us to dip so easily in and out of conversation with one another?
Or is it simply the tendency of one solo traveler, there to work on her own stories, who needed the narratives of others to carry her through the day, to keep her from getting trapped in her mind. Was it the ability to exist with a resting listening face, as opposed to a resting bitch face, a term originated from a comedy group video of “sufferers” of an annoyed-looking blank expression?
In a David Brooks’ NYT essay about a friend suffering from depression, he wrote, “It’s enough to show that you are trying to understand what this troubled soul is enduring. It’s enough to create an atmosphere in which the sufferer can share her experience. It’s enough to offer him or her the comfort of being seen.” And “it’s to show that you haven’t given up on him or her, that you haven’t walked away.”
Other than the sun heating up the afternoon sands, or waiting for my son and his wife, Kyra, to arrive much later, or plotting what I might eat for dinner (always from the sea), I had nowhere to walk away too. Other than a proverbial altar on which to gave thanks to the sea gods for this little poke in my armor, I had nowhere to go.
So how would I define a resting listening face. It’s a feeling of being emptied out—in a good way—by the tides of time, like a sea cave offering shelter to those in need. It’s letting go of what inflates our sense of self-importance, filling ourselves with the salty stories of others that wash in.
Events, Appearances and News
New writings in Edible Ohio Valley about Mean Mr. Mustard and some goats are now available online (with subscription) and in-person at pickup locations, such as around Findlay Market.
A delectable story will soon appear in Italian American. Italian Americans wax poetically about Sunday Dinner. In our house, we savored Sunday Brunch. You will too.
And for summer’s Edible Ohio Valley, I landed an interview with one of the region’s most profound writers to talk about her new culinary memoir. And I’ll be talking to one of the city’s most brash breadmakers! Stay tuned…
Care Partner Writing Experiences
Pauletta Hansel and I knew in-person writing experiences were important to many of our participants, so we’re happy to continue them in partnership with Giving Voice Foundation and Jewish Family Services.
Our next in-person is August 9th, 10-noon. Watch this space, email bwilliams@muchmorethanameal.com, or visit givingvoicefdn.org register.
Our FREE, VIRTUAL writing experiences for caregivers will continue Tentative dates of May 7th and November 14th, 10-noon. Registrations details above.
April 18
The inimitable Rick Bass will be reading and signing at Campbell County Public Library—Newport Branch, on Wednesday, April 17, at 7:00 p.m. Registration is required. Register here:
May 14
Kensington Senior Living of Virginia/Maryland will host a virtual caregiver writing workshop for attendees connected to their care center. If you have interest in hosting a writing experience with my colleague and me, message me here.
Other summer workshops include writing for care partners, art museum workshops, and more. Message me for details as they become available.
July 30th
Twin Lakes Retirement Community. Same as above.
Upcoming Fall Workshops
Lloyd Library – It’s all Backstory: a presentation on memoir and writing, in partnership with Fotofocus 2024, October 9th. Sign up for the Lloyd Library newsletter for information when it’s released. www.lloydlibrary.org.
July 30th from 10:30am-11:30am, Twin Lakes Game Room
Twin Lakes Retirement Community
9840 Montgomery Rd., Cincinnati, OH 45242
I’m still reeling at the news that you have a bungalow on the Oregon coast! 🤢😀Just don’t move there permanently, or I’ll lose one of my great listeners!