What Does “Communication” Mean to You?
I asked my wife, and her simple answer gave me a whole new perspective
“It’s like catch ball,” she told me, eyes glittering. Sunlight shone through the window. “It’s an exchange; it has to move both ways.” The restaurant we were in seemed to dilute into black and white, leaving my wife the only splash of colour in the place.
Her honey eyes had taken on that now-familiar shine, that sparks to life when she’s talking about something that interests her. “But…” She trailed off before raising her hands, motioning them into a shape no doubt far more sharp and detailed in her imagination. “Hm, actually I think it’s a tool. Communication is a tool.”
I’d asked her for her impressions, and overall general feeling, that she gets when she hears the word ‘communication’. It’s a source of constant fascination and conversation for us, as our relationship’s circumstances demand we pay attention to it every single day. A married couple comprised of two different nationalities, we don’t share a native tongue.
We don’t know the same context clues picked up from a shared cultural experience, and we certainly don’t intimately understand the inculturations that made us into the people we were when we first met. She doesn’t feel that bone-deep twinge of warmth and comfort when someone looks you in the eyes and says, “Give us a cwtch,” a phrase that feels as familial to me as my mother’s smile.
For my wife, a hug is simply a hug. Similarly, I can’t begin to comprehend how she hears voices in the buzzing of certain insects, which speak to her about weather, or the changing of the seasons, and always about the mountains and fields that she and her family call home. To me, it’s just a loud blanket of clicking and chirping.
“A tool?” I raised an eyebrow, inviting her to continue. I wanted to know if she was talking figuratively, using the concept of communication as a way to understand how people can share their thoughts, feelings, opinions, or if in fact she somehow meant the term more literally. She smiled at me, nodding, taking a few seconds to consider her words.
It’s a habit I’ve watched evolve in her over the years. When she talks, it’s a performance of active and intentional movement: a bringing together of careful consideration mixed with wonderfully ecstatic gestures, the end product a symphony for eyes and ears which I still stand in awe of.
“I think it’s something we use, yeah, like a tool. Think of weapons: they’re tools which can hurt people, just like words. Caring actions or gestures are the same as tools used in medicine, since both can save your life. Words, communication: it’s a tool, something to use. But you can’t just use it and be finished. There’s more.”
She paused here, grasping around for the right words. I watched the small frown cross her brow, knitting them together as she concentrated. I sat quietly, transfixed, willing her on. A moment passed; she raised her eyes to mine and continued. “For example, take a tool in real life, like a fishing rod. You can’t just pick it up and use it. Or, I mean, use it well.” I watched as her hands moved through the air, conducting my attention with a practised ease.
“You also need skill, you need to learn how to use it by using it. The person who has practised with the fishing rod one hundred times will reel in more fish than the person who just picked it up for the first time. With communication, that’s how you get people who can talk well, or listen well, or who can explain their feelings easily. They have the tool, because, well, we all have the tool. But they also have the skill, because they worked at it. You have to practise. The more you do it, the better you get.”
She sat back, eyes shining, triumphant. Her joy at explaining herself, at being heard and understood for who she is, is still infectious. One look at that smile and it was already too late: the wonderment rolled over me in palpable waves. “That’s what I think. That’s what I feel when I hear “communication.”” I mirrored her movement, sitting back and thinking once again how lucky I am to share a space with someone like her.
We humans, in our infinite uniqueness, all hold the tool of communication within ourselves, in-built and ready at a moment’s notice. Using it is not always easy — can the first grasp of a hammer build a house? — but it’s something we can work at.
The fruits of our labour, if we choose to exercise our communicative muscles when we can, are potentially endless: coming to understand situations or circumstances from an entirely different point of view; hearing and learning about an experience that touched or moved someone special to us; approaching the realisation that, even though we all move around on and interact with the same world, nothing is truly shared until we actually share it.
This conversation with my wife came to mean so much more to me as I continued to ruminate on her words. We left the restaurant and walked home, the cold, wintry wind chilling our ears and blowing fallen autumnal leaves across our path. Our conversation continued on to other subjects — the food we’d just eaten, a new TV show that had caught our attention — and we headed back in a perfectly ordinary, mundanely human way.
Later, it finally struck me that, despite their simplicity, her musings on communication in fact stand as a rallying call. I decided then and there to answer that summons, to take what I’d learned from her and put it into practical action.
Therefore, I vow to continue picking up the tool. I vow to continue honing the craft, using it as best as I can in all the different arenas of life. I’ll never be perfect — hell, I might not ever be good — but I’ll keep picking it up and practising. We should all find the ways in which the tool of communication feels most comfortable in our hands, and then wield it with a confidence and air that shows our fearlessness.
When we communicate with one another, we truly come as close as we can to somehow opening our minds and showing others what lies within. It is the tool that allows us to thoughtfully and intentionally build a bridge, plank by plank and stone by stone, in order to cross that unfathomable void that exists between our mind and everything else outside it.
So, let’s do it together. Let’s unfold ourselves outwards and connect. Let’s ask questions, truly listen, offer advice, and extend help.
Build the bridge. Practise the skill. Communicate.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on what “communication” - the tool, the skill, the act, the concept - means to you, as I clumsily reach out here, hand outstretched. Thank you so much for reading; I deeply appreciate it.
