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After our losses over the past year, only Lily now needs specially compounded medication, which we order by phone, a transaction that rather astounded me until I got used to its unexpectedly efficient brevity.
Whenever possible, I avoid using telephones. I am a fairly useless conversationalist and when I do talk, I prefer it to be face-to-face, which gives me a chance to interpret the other party’s reaction, to see whether or not they understand what it is I am trying to say.
There is also telephone etiquette. One wants to be polite without wasting time:
“Hi, how are you?”
“I’m fine and you?”
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Depending on the parties concerned, this can go back and forth for a quite bit, without getting to the purpose of the call, never mind accomplishing it.
The pharmacy I mentioned manages to keep it short and efficient:
“McCann’s.”
“I need to refill a prescription and get it mailed, please.”
(Please always comes out because I’m programed that way, but I think it’s not expected.)
“Number?”
“12345.”
“We’ll take care of it.”
Done.
It took getting used to this. At first, I wasn’t convinced the order would arrive, but it always did and quite promptly. I thought initially it was just one individual who had this abrupt manner, but if indeed it was, her technique obviously caught on!
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Discovering a short and to the point phone service was surprising enough. To find the same sort of thing in a physician was nothing short of astonishing.
When recently a stone was found to be causing the inflammation of a gland, I was sent off to meet a specialist who turned out to be a very pleasant young woman. She promptly explained in simple terms what removal of the thing would involve. Did I wish to proceed? A few weeks later we exchanged a few more words before the surgery and yesterday, after not many more, the matter was concluded.
Admittedly, this was a minor affair, but I’ve had several that were equally so, yet seemed far more complicated and time-consuming.
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Yesterday’s visit took us back to Clifton Park which has rather fallen off our radar this year.
Just two days prior, we had travelled the first part of the route on the way to Albany, at very much the same time of day, but under a cloudy sky the terrain looked quite different.
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At this time of year it tends to change almost hourly.
Instead of turning left on route 40, we headed east on Wright’s Road, an old favourite.
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Until the age of 16, I’d lived in cities and it was not until I came to live on Long Island that I discovered wide open horizons. For a long time I was daunted by them, feeling exposed, as if I might blow away in a stiff wind or get plucked off the planet into the wild blue yonder.
Over time, the feeling went away, replaced perhaps by more tangible concerns, but I had always liked mountains and was delighted when I had the chance to move to Washington State, where I could live surrounded by them.
The proximity of the Pacific Ocean also had great appeal.
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Out there I met Grant who spoke wistfully of the wide open horizons of his native South Africa. While I thought I understood his nostalgia, it was not until the morning of our arrival in New York after a flight from Seattle, that I really did and it came as quite a surprise.
After driving north for an hour or more, we suddenly broke free of suburbia, into open country and together we gasped like a couple of kids on Christmas morning. I had not realised that I missed New York, remembering only towns and busy highways. I’d forgotten the long past days when I lived further east on Long Island, where I’d felt so overwhelmed by those horizons, years ago.
Does living in a particular place make it your familiar? Does it get into your blood?
Although it had been in five different locations, I had lived in this state for 36 years before I left for Seattle in 2000.
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It was absolutely the right thing to do and I had no second thoughts, but looking back I can see that it was like ripping out my roots. I really hadn’t thought I had any, but that first sight of New York’s broad horizons, that late September morning, seven years ago, I had the curious feeling of having returned home. It isn’t home in the normal sense, it’s just as I said – familiar.
And there is comfort in the familiar.
Thank you, Carolyn, for the update on the event in your life. I love the open spaces where the sky meets with earth, and one can see to the left and to the right, without any signs of human habitation. When you wrote about having comfort in the familiar, it reminded me that in old England, the withes had a familiar, usually a black cat.
Joanna
There is, indeed, comfort in the familiar, and we are fortunate to have that experience!
It says a lot about the modern world that when a transaction over the phone goes smoothly, and with no issues, we immediately suspect it will not happen. I’m glad yours did.
I also soon got used to the big skies and almost deserted parts of the country when we moved to Norfolk. Now I could not go back to live in a city, not even to a large town.
Best wishes, Pete,
I love the infinite horizons here in South Africa (also those of Namibia which we recently experienced). There is no doubt that New Zealand is a beautiful green country, but while we were there for four months, it was the plains and vast horizons of SA that I missed the most.