Silence is Golden
You can count on change. It will always be there for you even if there are times when you fervently wish it would go away and leave you alone. In the end, you can’t do anything about it, can’t explain it away. Any explanation you come up with will vanish in a heartbeat, because change is cellular and promiscuous. It doesn’t just tango with the mind. Better to slow dance in silence which, they say, is golden. Silence accumulates with compound interest every day, growing more leafy and descending deeper into your roots, until your investment bears fruit. It shimmers like emeralds and protects you with a certain reserve, money in the bank. When you have become more silent, your words are not spent frivolously on chatter. You save them for a slow news day when you need to tell your grandson how much you love him, when you need to inquire after a sick friend. I’m not talking a monastic hush here. I’m thinking more of a tendency that calls to you when you are weary of self-doubt and self-promotion alike and feel the need to explore the vast territory of interior quiet.
Some people give up speech the way others give up caffeine or refined sugar, which is to say sugar with the manners of the late Queen. But some people, my father for example, lean into silence as if it were a great pillow they might rest their head on. The quiet that surrounded my father never felt angry or withholding. It felt downy, a barely audible humming that lacked the percussion of words. He spoke occasionally, but mostly communicated with a twinkle in his faded blue eyes, a sweetheart of a smile.
Words are not necessarily up to the task we assign to them. They are at the same time both limited and indeterminate, subject to the vagaries of different voice tones. Not all “I love yous” are created equal. And now, I have to find words for the upside down nature of my situation. What can I say about leaving home? How do I feel? People ask, of course, and I am tongue tied. I know it means something big that words are escaping me like green peas off a knife, but I can’t seem to prevent them for heading off to parts unknown, down the street and into the oncoming traffic. I had the same experience when I met my husband forty-five years ago. People were avid for the skinny. What’s he like? Is he clever? Is he funny? I couldn’t think of a thing to say. This was noteworthy since I had previously taken up more than my share of airspace. I knew something was up. I just didn’t know what it was.
I wonder if this retreat from speech will encroach on the party I’ve been having with the written word. I hope there’s still time for me as a writer. So far, channelling my language lust onto the page has been a good move. In writing, I can think about what I want to say and how I want to say it. I can shape my utterances and make decisions about how long I want to carry on and which direction I want to take. Plus the words pour out into the ether without any obvious recipient. Some people will read them right away, some tomorrow, some not at all. Some will respond, but most will not, and I have no idea how the words are landing for any of them. Generally, I’m better at this than I am at speaking out loud in real time. In person, I am still prone to second-guessing myself….but if I say something in writing that leaves a sour taste, I don’t have to worry about it. You will tell me.
I’m curious about how relocating to Minnesota will impact my love affair with words. Will I lose my longstanding love/hate relationship with my New York accent which has survived fifty years in New England? Will I start sounding less like Buddy Hackett and more like Frances Mcdormand in Fargo? These are the questions of an avatar that is coming to peck away at my carefully constructed sense of self. Everything is up for grabs. Everything is mysterious. Words will not suffice. Only giving and receiving. Only change.
Copies of my 2019 essay collection, Twilight Time: Aging in Amazement, are available directly from me (signed) or from Amazon or your local bookseller.
I relate to this so much, Susie. Words rarely suffice. Or, as I often say, words fail. We simply do not have the language. And so, too, I am often silent. To speak, even to write, when the language is not there is almost an insult. Better to simply be and let it unfold. Later, when the enormity and the luminosity of the moment has passed, words will come.
Your present relocation is too large to reduce to words at this time. It is enough that you stay present. The gifts of this transformation are reaching you, I suspect, like waves rolling into the shore.
I loved this. Will read it again and again. Thank you and if you keep writing, I will keep reading. 💜