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Hey friend.
This is the first voicemail where we get to hear from a reader. When I heard this message, it made me cry. I can’t really explain why? Other than the fact I’ve been writing here for a long time and finally hearing one of your voices just felt…I don’t know…like real connection. I loved responding to her voicemail. And I am excited for you to hear both of our messages.
Want to learn about the voicemail project and watch an embarrassing “how to leave a voicemail” instructional video featuring yours truly? Here you go!
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In the message I left, I talk about walking alone in Durango. Here’s a little peek into what that looked like.
Here’s the transcript, for anyone who prefers texts over voicemails.
[00:00:01.130] - Meg
Hi. This is Meg Conley. Sorry I missed you. Leave me a message after the beep. Beep.
[00:00:08.050] - MJ
Hey, Meg, it's MJ. Sorry I missed you. I was sitting here thinking about something, and I thought, I need to talk to Meg about this. So you know, sometimes when you're kids and you imagine a thing that you want and you build it up in your head, and then when you finally get it later on, it's not as good as you thought it was going to be. I was thinking about the opposite, where you dream of something as a kid and you build it up in your head and you want it, and you want it, and then later on you actually get it and it's even better than you thought it was going to be. Do you have anything like that? Because for me, it's absolutely having cats. I wanted cats when I was a kid so badly, and every moment of having cats as an adult is so much better than I ever thought it could be. And I'm sitting here looking at one of them right now, and he hardly agrees. I'm really bad at voicemails, but I want to hear what you think about this, so call me back.
[00:01:00.440] - Meg
Bye. Hi, MJ. Sorry I missed your phone call. I have been kind of out of cell range for the past four or five days. I've been at a family reunion for my husband's side of the family in. It's been it's been great. It's been amazing. But I haven't been very much in touch with the outside world, so I am calling you back. While I walk along a mountain road, can probably hear, like, the cars passing by and the wind kind of being, like, forced down along I don't know, the road kind of acts like a stream. There's room for the wind to move here, but this is where I have cell range. Sorry about the ambient noises. I loved your question. And I loved your answer. I do think it's kind of the simple things that end up sustaining us, and that can be kind of a sweet surprise. I don't know. Joy doesn't have to always be a complex process. It can be as simple as a cat. Not that cats are simple. I know that they're a very complex creature, but you know what I mean sometimes. I don't know. Growing up and finding joy means caring for something that you love.
[00:02:45.990] - Meg
Which I guess kind of tracks, because even as a kid, I wasn't really like the type of kid to play. I didn't really want to play mom. I didn't really want to have a baby with, like, a little baby bottle. But I did always want to care for something. A lot of my games involved me caring for little invisible monster creatures that were afraid of all humans but me. Or there was a rock I took special care of for a while. So, yeah, I do think, like, while I am not a cat owner, I do think that we could sit and talk for a long time about how there are forms of care work that turned out, and companionship, which I think carework and companionship go hand in hand, whether we're talking about, like, people or animals or even writing. Yeah, that has, in different ways, turned out to be better even than I anticipated my answer might be, though, I was thinking about this, and I think my answer is going on a walk alone. As a kid, I always wanted to walk. Know, my parents would take us into La. Pretty often. We lived in the suburbs and we'd go into La and we'd wander through like, the garment district or we'd go to a know, we'd go to LACMA or we'd go to the La farmers Market.
[00:04:43.130] - Meg
We were always hitting like, flea markets and I always just wanted to walk off on my own. I called it exploring at that point, but I think what I wanted to do was observe. That's kind of what I always wanted to do. And observation is easier for me without people that I feel responsible for, without people or things, without care work, actually. Now that just got done saying how joyful care work is. And I was the oldest child, and so while my parents were pretty good about not making me, I guess, parent my siblings, if you're the oldest child going on anywhere on a Saturday, you are helping to look after. Like, I had three younger siblings, but it wasn't just that. It was like I don't know, even if it had just been me and my parents, I don't know, maybe I felt like I couldn't see the world the way that I would see the world if I had their eyes too close to mine. Maybe I thought them seeing next to me would shift my perspective, I don't know. So I always wanted to wander off on my own, and I couldn't.
[00:06:01.890] - Meg
And I remember the first time I walked meaningfully on my own, like, alone. I had been an adult for a couple of years, and I'd gone on plenty of walks alone at that point, but maybe nowhere that felt new. And I went to London for the first time and I don't know, I walked through Nottinghill At Night by myself and just kind of looked into windows, like, the darkened windows of shops and then, like, the illuminated windows of pubs. And I just felt like I could see it was also after looking in one of, like, those pub windows, like I turned the corner and a man ran after me in a non creepy way and stood a respectful distance and said, would you like to come in and have a drink with me and my friends? Like, we saw you looking in. And I declined because I thought maybe that's what a 20 year old should do. But I also think because me observing him asking was its own kind of adventure, but that was enough for me. And that's kind of when I declined and walked on, I just felt thrilled. Like, this is living.
[00:07:43.510] - Meg
Being invited to a lit up place and then continuing on in, like along a darkened street was like my kind of joy. Because, I don't know, just the invitation made me feel less lonely. But somehow me declining it also made me feel less lonely. I don't know, I think I'm kind of still that way. Like even this trip we've done a lot of hikes, which has been great, and you're with the kids and you're carrying all the water and snacks and you're snapping pictures and you're so proud. Like every time the five year old scales a boulder, or the eleven year old crosses a moving river, or the 14 year old gets through the hike without burning the entire forest down with rage because why are her parents hiking her hike? And that's all great, and I feel so delighted by that. But like today we were hiking along a river and there was just like these sheer cliffs. You had to descend down into the river and you're looking up at these sheer cliffs and the river is kind of like lined with these big boulders and the kids weren't really interested in walking along those down the river.
[00:09:12.200] - Meg
And so I got to do it on my own for quite some time. And I don't know, walking and watching, it's just my favorite. And I knew I would love it as a kid, and I had to wait so long to do it on my own. As we're talking, or as I'm talking to you, leaving you this voicemail, I'm thinking about observation. Like, why did I feel like my parents eyes shift the way that I see the world? Or when I'm with my kids, I'm observing them, and that is its own joy. And I learn a lot by watching them. But why do I feel like being around them means that when I look at the world around us, it's harder for me to see it? Or maybe I see it differently. And I just keep thinking about how we know that measurement affects reality. I'll get into this in a newsletter later, but there's this thing called the double slit experiment that shows us that light acts is both a particle and a wave. And that until you decide to measure light, like by putting up a wall and then shooting a photon at the wall, like a single photon.
[00:10:48.270] - Meg
And when the photon hits the wall creates like a light, you can see the light, there that's measurement. Okay, right. So this double slit experiment shows us that light acts as both a particle and a wave. And that until the moment of measurement, that particle, like that photon particle, exists along all possible trajectories and in all possible realities. And with the voicemail, I'll include a little quick whatever. There's like a minute long video that explains this experiment. And it's only once that photon is measured. Once it's observed that one reality is chosen and all the other realities collapse, I think I think that when I'm looking at the world beside other people have I don't know, maybe we all have different units of measurement, so we're all living in different realities. And I can't I don't know, maybe I'm seeing, like, especially when it's somebody that I feel like, responsible for or I love or like, I want to coexist with them in their reality to some extent. Maybe I'm seeing the spots where the light hits all of their walls, but I can't pay attention to the reality created by my own unit of measurement, which is actually why it's good I don't always walk alone, right?
[00:12:53.110] - Meg
Because if I always walked alone, yes, maybe I'd be able to see the world more fully the way that I personally see it. I'd be able to observe, ah, the nature of, like, more particles, like, more intimately, but I would only see light the way that, like, my own reality let me. And so being forced to walk with others most of the time forces me to consider other patterns of light. And I have to hope that that means that even when I do walk alone, I've let those patterns what have I let them do? Change my predictions and change my methods of measurement and change the scope of my reality, hopefully enlarge it's. If you're, like a light scientist, I get that this, like, metaphor is not perfect, but I'm thinking on it, and that's what voicemails are for, right? Anyways, I'm almost done with my walk. The kids are waiting inside. We're going to walk together to downtown Durango. And I don't know, for the next little while, I'll watch them watch the world and see if it helps me see better on my morning walk tomorrow. Hope you're having a good day. Give your pets a little scritchy scratch behind the ear for me if cats like that.
[00:15:18.610] - Meg
Actually, I don't know if they do, but if they do, please do it. If they don't, please do not talk soon. Bye.
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