Listening Intently

Early summer always reminds me of my Aunt Geri's house. Geraldine Post was my

mother's oldest sister by twenty years. Geri and my Uncle Carl lived in a tiny house on a big farm. I still have no idea what they farmed since all my memories of them were in my youth. The thing I remember most about Aunt Geri's house was a screened-in cement porch. The floor and supports were painted summer green, and I swear it had a different smell when the sun warmed the cement floor. She had an outdoor couch on the porch. She, and my mom called it the porch davenport, as in, "Laurie, why don't you go take your nap on the porch davenport?" I didn’t mind since she had a fat, fluffy white cat who liked to hang out there with me.

My nap time was the time my mom and her sister would sit in the kitchen and catch up,

and I would strain to listen through the open window that overlooked the porch. I don't

really remember it as gossip, but they always had a lot to say about a lot of people and

topics. Rather my mom had a lot to say, since my aunt was not what I would call

talkative. Still, I would listen and daydream, watching the plumes of the giant weeping

willow dance in the wind, and pretend to be napping whenever one of them came to

check on me. Eventually, I would nod off to sleep, and if my mom didn't wake me, the heat from the late afternoon sun would eventually nudge me awake. The porch, though nice on breezy days, had a way of baking you from the inside out when the temperature rose. I would wake, drenched in sweat, but only the parts of my body that were smashed into the davenport. The rest of me felt like something left in the oven too long, dry and overcooked.

I would ask for a drink of water, and then it was usually time to leave. Occasionally,

we would stay for dinner, and I think I might have spent the night a couple times,

but it wasn't like we had a relationship without the conduit of my mom. I liked

my aunt, but she just never had much to say, and being the youngest (and chattiest)

sister, like my mom, I had a hard time relating to people who didn't like to talk.

I have a whole new respect for quiet people now. Ironically, I think I have become one,

or at least much more introverted than I used to be. I spent a lot of my youth, and young adulthood trying to find myself by talking. Maybe it's social media, the confinement of

Covid, or just finally realizing the value of not speaking every word that pops into my head, but listening has become my new favorite. Learning to wait that extra beat before

interjecting is a life-long skill that I’m still developing. Even in written word, my edit function jumps in, and I find myself writing paragraphs to someone only to delete it completely before sending. If you know me personally, you may be thinking, “This is the edited version of you?” Yes, yes, it is.

I cringe when I think of the hours of my verbose pontifications I have subjected friends and family to, in order to put my voice into the world. I’ve always had a lot to say, but I’m not nearly as sure as I used to be, whether what I say has any value or not. Sometimes I wonder if I should say more, but mostly I just hold back and chuckle to myself at how witty I think I am. Still, what I wouldn’t give to redo some pivotal conversations in my life, and approach them with listening ears instead of a point to prove, a story to tell, or a statement to make.

One conversation that stands out to me is a phone conversation with my mother on my way home from an out of state white water rafting trip. I had fallen in on the first set of rapids, been churned underwater and spit out on the other side of the river. Before I knew it, the current was taking me away, and I went down another set of rapids in the water. The rafting company owner came to my rescue since no other rafts were close by. He had me hold the front of his kayak and I went down two more sets of rapids, holding on for dear life, being frequently dunked underwater. By the time he got me back to my boat with my husband and friends, I was blue-lipped, having an asthma attack, and terrified. My mom called when we were on our way home from the trip. I spent the better part of twenty minutes telling her about my ordeal, all the details, and how scared I was. She was very quiet through the whole story. I remember thinking, how could someone not be moved by this story? Here is your daughter telling you how she could have died and had to be rescued and you’re not saying a word. I finally stopped to take a breath, and that’s when she told me my father had had a bad fall and was in the hospital with a head injury. Clunk. That was the sound of my heart falling out of my body and hitting the floor.

Sometimes it’s hard to listen to others when we are wrapped up in our own trauma, but those are probably the moments we need to listen the most. Not because an even bigger trauma might be dropped at our feet, like it was in this case, but because there are golden moments of communication that happen during a pregnant pause. There are missed opportunities for clarification that may never come again if you are straining to fill the void with chatter. There are chances to learn something new that someone may offer, which you might not even think to ask about if you’re not listening intently.

To this day, that porch green color, and the early days of summer always take me back

to Aunt Geri's. The tiny house, the big red barn, the weeping willow, the massive fields,

and of course, the screened-in porch. It's funny what sticks with us through the years.

For me, the lazy days of summer will always remind me of my aunt, who I barely knew.

I don’t have a davenport, but I still like to nap on my porch and dream of those simple days on the farm. I often wonder what I might have learned from my aunt had I stopped to listen to what she was saying with her silence.