At the controls

I was feeling in a bit of a funk today. I suspect part of it is my semi-annual mental fog brought on by the time change, or it could be work-related issues on my mind, or it could simply be that I was hungry. Whatever the reason, this afternoon I was feeling down and wondered what it would take to rise above it.

Then at 6:15 I was headed over to Triangle Radio Reading Service for a volunteer shift. Earlier today I’d gotten an emergency call from TRRS’s volunteer scheduler that they desperately needed a reader for tonight’s USA Today session. I checked with Kelly to see if she’d have things under control with the kids and, once she agreed, I accepted the shift.

I was paired with a relatively new reader, Dorine, who was a lot of fun. When I learned I had read more than she had I volunteered to run the sound board. The clock ticked steadily to showtime and soon our microphones were going out to 20,000 subchannel radios being listened to by the blind and visually impaired (and over satellite to potentially anyone in North America).

I threw myself into reading today’s stories, putting as much life into the words as I could and painting a picture in the mind’s eye of our listeners as best as I could. Then I handed off the talking to Dorine, whose smile was delightfully audible as she laughed through stories of hot peppers and the like.

Before I knew it, our 90 minute shift had ended and, unlike the last time I worked the board, we had absolutely nailed the length of the program. I had conducted a live broadcast for the second time and never once broke a sweat! There were cheers once the mics and the headphones were off!

It was a rush tonight, tuning out all the distractions of my day to focus completely on that intimate space between me and that blind person out there, into whose world I’m adding color and life. It was just what I needed to cheer me up and make me feel good about the world again.