A Spoonful of Sugar
Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down so they say.
My French language skills contain a ton of errors, and I have a heavy accent. So when I meet up with someone who doesn't want to understand in any language, let alone someone who speaks French like I do. It stands to reason that very little will be understood. It is as if I am peeing in the wind, few of my words hit the target.
Communication is mainly listening and mostly body language, this is to my favor! But if our ears are plugged and our eyes closed our hearts cannot understand.
This morning the carpenter came by, he had to re-measure. He was in no mood to listen to anything, let alone to a woman who spoke with a heavy accent. He calculated and re calculated the numbers, nothing added up. I tried to suggest something and he went ballistic! I bite my tongue, I swallowed hard, and I counted to ten. It took a truckload of patience not to enter into the realm of his anger and frustration. While he was yelling I stood there thinking to myself, he must have alot of pressure in his life to snap like this.
After awhile he calmed down. We looked at each other differently. I smiled awkwardly. My stomach was in a knot. He said he was sorry, I said I knew he would do a good job.
Sometimes the best we can do is to remain silent and offer understanding.
photo: A French 19th century piece of hand written music paper singing of sugar.
