Here is a face that says gidday if ever I've seen one (and obviously I've seen lots around here). I snapped this gentleman in the Blue Mountains a few weeks ago. He was quite amiable about the first photo but when I moved tad closer he turned his face and dropped his smile. I admired his communication skills.Today I had to talk to our finance guy. I'm sure you have a finance guy too, the senior management guy in the company who runs all the corporate affairs. I dreaded this call because I never feel that I can make myself understood in our conversations. I don't think he enjoys the calls any more than I do but today we struck a happy medium and the conversation was crystal clear: He had shortened some text I needed for a document and explained this edit as producing an "eloquent sufficiency".
I was mightily impressed.
Later this afternoon I had call to email a brave friend some Mary Oliver -
clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
and he understood exactly what was meant.
It interesting how we can make ourselves understood, I thought tonight as I pounded away on the treadmill, sweating away the last traces of poisonous cottage cheese. We wrinkle up our nose, use single syllable words, adopt an accent - all kinds of things to get our message across. Clothes are language, I decided. Suits are full sentences, skirts are verbs, blouses are adjectives and these, part of my staples for the Spring I'm assured will be here any minute, are my semi colon:
And this, an old friend with lovely manners...
is an a-line Tara Jarmon dress that I've cropped to emphasis the buttons, which must be fullstops.Do you have any language in your wardrobe? Are your earrings apostrophes? Do you have a full palette of exclamation marks? Tell me - I'd love to improve my language skills!
