Silence and I
A quiet relationship that is only spoken in writing.
Notes:
This writing was part of an exercise inspired by
from the Substack’s page A Writer’s Notebook during her Essay Camp.I totally recommend Summer’s
anybody who writes, or at least tries to (and it is free); and to those who love to read as well. I love Summer’s way of writing and explaining things.For this exercise I wanted to write about something difficult and profound to me. The idea was to explore how far I could go when writing about me and about the relationship with personal issues.
I tried to do my best when it comes to structure, logic, and editing; however this writing felt (to me) more like something I needed to say rather than writing style and editing (like pretty much all of my writing feels, but this one was different, too personal). However, this is part of my process of learning how to write, therefore, critiques are welcomed.
To listen to my Hispanic accent reading of this writing CLICK HERE. If you want to venture into reading the Spanish version, CLICK HERE. To listen to me reading this in Spanish CLICK HERE.
What is your relationship with your silence? Would you write about it? What genre would you use to write about it? Do you enjoy and embrace your silence? You don’t have to answer these questions below, but if you create a writing about it, I wanna read it. ¡Tag me!
Enjoy the reading… like, share, comment, and…
Silence and I
Since I was little, I always had issues with expressing my feelings verbally. For whatever reason, I've always kept quiet.
I always had the thought that it was never in my right to speak. I thought that speaking made me small, and that the world was going to find out about my weak and insecure voice, or realize how insignificant I am. Speaking would make me lose what I don't want to lose (love, peace, happiness)!
Silence is a room where I hide to live my anxieties and my fantasies. To argue with ghosts in my head. To travel to existential planes that I cannot physically experience - because of the multiple realities in which we exist; or because of the limitations of the body. Or because they only exist in my head… in silence.
It has been so much the case that apart from the two or three psychologists I have visited, the number of people who have experienced the breaking of my silence does not reach a handful. Although I can say that both my dog and the trees in the forest where I go hiking have heard a lot.
Sometimes silence strikes at the most appropriate and necessary moment. Like when you think about venting about something - with someone who will listen to you - and you find that person is in pain and suffering; and you notice how unfair it would have been to complain. Or making a comment would not contribute anything to the situation of either.
It also attacks when the moment is not about our happiness, but that of others - and to open your mouth would screw everything up because you would be stealing someone's moment. Like when you celebrate an achievement, and somebody comes to highlight theirs at that precise moment. Or like when you share your pain, and somebody all of a sudden suffers more than you.
Silence also happens at times when I really need to talk. My sense of smallness is stronger than the greatness that sometimes I think I have, and I shut up. That's when the anguish begins to grow, to heat the blood, to make the oxygen feel heavy. To roll my shoulders, make a hole in my chest, lower my eyes, and to breathe without desire. Every sigh comes out wanting not even to go out.
Silence is something that I have gradually learned to navigate; I don't think this is something that can be fully controlled. There are many reasons why opening your mouth would result, at the very least, in a slow deterioration of the situation, of a relationship, or of life itself.
On many occasions, silence is a method of self-discipline, in which I tell myself ¨Shut up, it is not necessary to speak¨. And the ¨quiet I look prettier¨ ends in an ocean of internal screams that can only be seen in the redness of my eyes, in the pain in my neck, in not sleeping, in not finding the desire to talk, and in not paying attention to those who speak to me.
Writing helps (me) with silence. It's like a therapy that allows me to channel my voice into a different format in which I capture what I want to say, but in which my mouth remains closed. These very same lines are an example of that. Opening your mouth to express these emotions would require an extraordinary and unlikely event.
My silence is communicated through my emotions and my body language, that is, my entire body speaks, except my mouth. But from time to time, I'm looking for ways to silence the movement as well.
On the other hand, it is in silence that I can reflect on my life, on those times when I have to speak and express my feelings.
The issue is when I stay in a reflection loop that freezes my tongue, and I stay silent.
However, it is in silence where I have known myself in a profound way. In silence I have known my most primitive fears, and my deepest desires. It is where my deepest fantasies come true, where joy is free to be, and where my dreams have led me to the unimaginable, to pleasure beyond the carnal, and to pain beyond the real.
That is the relationship between silence and I.
The end!