The Trouble with Video Calls

Video calls are uninspiring. 

Please don't think I am whining.  We have enough whiners (and bellyachers) in this country. 

When I speak of video calls, I am simply thinking of its ancient counterpart, audio call: the good-old telephone, which I feel is a tad more inspiring than seeing an image that is a poor copy, a warped poor copy, of the living, breathing original.   

Last night, JR rang me up while I was seriously revising a book chapter. We haven't heard from him for at least a month and a call, any kind of call, would certainly be met with no less than New-Year's-eve thrill, watching fireworks, and awaiting another year of grace.

His face popped up on my monitor.  And as soon as I answered the ringtone, my own face popped up on a smaller frame by his chin. I hit the maximize button and my workroom felt like it suddenly had two doppelgangers from some galaxy alien to ours.    

Oh, what faces!
I saw skin pores, zits, and stubble; all sorts of lines (mine), warts (also mine), and jowls (all mine) in slow, jerky motion.  

“Did you lose weight? Are you eating well? Have you had enough sleep?” I asked JR in succession, but one question I kept unasked, Why can't you come home so we could fatten you up? 

JR was in high spirits and paid no attention to his mom's breathy melodrama.  I yelled for  Ate Vi and her face came on the screen, too.  Now, beside me was another apparition!
 
He talked to Ate Vi about his misadventures in ironing and washing his own clothes.  Ate Vi said what I couldn't  say, “Come home!” Naturally she bragged about the dishes she's been cooking which JR has been missing.

I watched the three phantoms alternately scratch their chins and foreheads, pick their noses, rub their eyes, adjust their glasses, and exhibit a myriad of facial tics.

At some point, I turned my head away and simply listened to the sound.  The voices were marvelous—they laughed, chattered and bantered!

If it were an audio call, I would have seen JR as I see him in my mind—healthy, happy, and handsome.  I would have seen me as I see my photos fresh from Adobe Photoshop. And I would have seen Ate Vi as I see her darting here and there, keeping our house in perfect order.

When I make a call to JB, Gianina, and Adrian in Michigan, I use the Vonage, not the screen (only because I still haven't learned  how to do video calls). A good thing, too, because in my mind I see the three of them the way I want to see them.  

But despite all its imperfections at this stage of our technology, the video call has brought JR the closest ever to coming home.

Oh, that he might come close to home again soon!