Finding Voice (Holden)

I have been forced in this Pandemic Period to think about voice and its power or lack thereof. My new retirement job (yep, I couldn’t go cold turkey after forty years of being busy) relies solely on phone communication and I am not talking Zoom. It is all about the old-fashioned connection via phone between two people who have never met and may never meet. I am a part-time case worker for a group of men who are currently homeless in downtown Cleveland. How to establish a mutual level of trust, respect, and connection with just my voice has been a new, interesting, and challenging puzzle.

Jobs I’ve held have always been intensely social: bookselling, teaching, workshopping. I have seen and been seen.  We don’t normally pay conscious attention to body language, eye contact, appearance of the other because it’s automatic; it’s all part of the interaction.  But now that there are no visuals, it’s as if I’m wearing a mask over my eyes instead of my mouth. Let’s up the ante of our already off-the-charts anxiety, right?!

I am cold calling each client to introduce myself. “Hello, my name is Annie Holden and I am your case worker. In twenty-five words or less please tell me your life story, okay, and we’ll see what we can do for you…”  That’s not my actual approach but it is essentially what I am doing. There are a lot of men to assist and time is critical. Each person requires a distinct set of responses tailored to his situation. This is true anytime, but in Covid Time, it’s audio first and last, and it has to be absolutely accurate. But the telephone is notorious for miscommunication, is it not?

I am older and my hearing not so keen. Wireless connections are not as solid as the old land lines. Then there are all the quirks of the human voice: mumbling, softness, the intensity of anger, anxiety, and distrust that creeps through. The other day, a new client said, “How do I know if you’re male or female?” That knocked me back a step. I know I have a low voice but…

With the multitude of barriers on both sides, we still manage to find common ground much of the time. I can be grandma wagging her finger; world-weary broad who’s seen it all; business-woman; tough talking mama; pesky little sister. I am pretty shameless at using any tactics that seem to work.

You might say it is because they find themselves in desperate circumstances and will reach out to any lifeline. You could also say that being men, they are more likely to respond to a female voice over the phone. And I know from experience and my passion for this work, the essence of my motivation gets transmitted through my voice. Or at least, that’s my hope. I still want to hug, bump fists, pat backs, shake hands (will that ever return?), but those are in cold storage for now. In this weird time, I am depending on my voice and theirs.

Annie Holden is a full-blown Clevelander. She tried to escape in the ‘70s but was unsuccessful. Born and raised on the far west side, she has spent her adult life on the east side. A “book person” by trade -- from Publix Bookmart to the Cleveland Museum of Art to Borders Books & Music. She reinvented herself out of necessity in 2009 and joined the non-profit community of Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry to work with men who are homeless, incarcerated women, and developmentally disabled students. Not a poet, she ecstatically runs a poetry workshop at the men’s shelter, currently via Zoom.