CELL PHONE LARCENY

If there’s one thing guaranteed to raise my blood pressure, it’s having to listen to strangers’ cell phone monologues. I’ve wasted a lot of energy raging against people in restaurants, on buses, wherever, who insist on talking into their phones at top volume. It’s even weirder when you see people who seem to be talking to themselves, but actually have invisible phones.

After several years of futile fury I’ve discovered that the situation doesn’t have to be a total loss. In fact, for writers those conversations can sometimes be audible treasures. For when I tune in instead of out, I overhear phrases or even whole sentences worth using in a story.

The latest example came about when I was waiting outside a library for the doors to open. My poetry writing group was going to be meeting inside, so I tried to use the waiting time to read over the poems I was bringing that day. Unfortunately, reading requires something called Concentration. That became impossible when the woman beside me yanked out her phone and began to tell someone on the other end about the current newspaper story account of a woman diagnosed as “brain dead.” She went on — and on! – about the family being divided over having that infamous “plug” pulled. I fumed about being trapped into listening until she uttered one sentence: ”There are lots of brain dead people walking around!”

The writer in me pounced on that sentence. How could I not scribble it down for use in some piece of fiction she’ll never know about? I now have a growing collection of overheard phrases – and bizarre scenes.

Like the evening in a restaurant where my partner and I hoped to dine peacefully. The couple at the next table was mercifully quiet as they gazed into each other’s eyes. Suddenly, that familiar ringing. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, the man listened to whomever it was for a minute, then said – loudly enough for the next ten tables to overhear- ”Of course I miss you darling, I’m so lonely.” I thought his companion would throw him a meaningful look, but she was too busy dialing her own phone.  I savor this scene for when I attempt to write a Noel Coward style script.

You can gather material anywhere, even in the most surprising places. For instance, last summer I was strolling along Fire Island when I found myself on the nude beach. A man walked past me clad in nothing. No, not nothing, he was wearing a cell phone, and shouting at it: “I can’t hear you, the waves are making too much noise!”

So I’m now a walking tape recorder. And I suggest that writing courses include a class in the art of eavesdropping. (Is there a libel law for stealing someone’s words?)

“EXPOSING” THE DEAD?

Recently The New York Times published an op ed piece by Ken Budd titled “When Writers Expose the Dead.” The topic hit a painful nerve in me, for my memoir ”Widow’s Walk” describes the struggle my husband and I shared during his fatal illness. Was I wrong to “use” him that way?

This is a personal decision for each of us, of course. Here are are my feelings — as written in my Letter To The Editor which The Times printed. I post it here for any of you who may be struggling with the same “expose” issue.

CANDOR ABOUT THE DEAD

Four months after my husband died I began writing a memoir about his illness, death and – although I didn’t realize yet — the new life as a single woman that I was ultimately able to create.

I wrote the memoir with as much honesty as I could bear to set down. Although my husband, Mel, was a wonderful person he had weaknesses, as we all do. To ignore these would have been to paint a picture of a saint. He would never have wanted that.

Ironically, I ended up being harder on myself, revealing my fear and anger about the fact that I was losing him, which led to my saying things I would give anything to be able to erase. To my surprise, I found that was what readers responded to the most, for in countless letters they told me they felt validated by learning that their “shameful ”behavior was shared.

What needs to be saved for a later memoir is the guilt that can pervade you when you’ve had a success built on the death of someone you loved. The only comfort is my belief that the memoir has given him — and our love– longer life.

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WEBSITE: www.annehosansky.com
BOOKS: “Widow’s Walk”-available through iUniverse.com; “Turning Toward Tomorrow” –xLibris.com; “Ten Women of Valor” – CreateSpace.com and Amazon.com. Also Amazon Kindle