This episode’s title was pulled from a vivid memory of mine. It still makes its way into my head every time I dare not to speak. In this piece, I’m introducing you to my complicated relationship with speaking, an iceberg that I still to this day sometimes struggle to pass by.
The irony is not lost on me. You might be listening along to audio from my podcast which, by virtue, is a form of oral expression. You might be wondering how my relationship with oral expression could be so complicated if I have a public podcast…
I’m not going to answer that just yet, so you’ll just have to keep listening (or in this case, reading) to find out.
As a part of a class assignment almost four years ago, I wrote this piece to describe one aspect of my identity. If you met me in real life, you probably wouldn’t realize I’m the same person who created this podcast.
I’ve been labeled quiet and shy for my entire life and I grew to embody those characteristics. However, those words were chosen for me and do not accurately describe me.
Over my lips, like duct tape, are the words that others threw at me.
Stuck to my being like pin the tail on the donkey.
Quiet, voiceless, shy.
I wish to scream from the rooftops, but all that comes out is air, my words getting caught in the wind.
Wind that carries my confidence and my larynx to a place I can’t reach.
Six and a half hours is a long time for that wind to blow and no one to notice. But how could they when I accepted written expression as a substitute for my voice?
Kernels of words and ideas bounce across the room like popcorn.
I mold my thoughts into words, into sentences, and rehearse them for the next ten minutes.
Over and over they vibrate against the neurons in the depths of my brain
I wonder if I should even speak at all, but courage strikes my veins,
my hand slicing through a dense weight,
my arm struggling to straighten.
It waits against the weight of gravity,
only a second,
until it dawns on me.
Embarrassment strikes my arm, forcing it back to its rightful place.
It’s too late.
The conversation is moving on.
The bowl is filled.
Yet there’s a kernel missing.
Did it burn under the pressure? Did it fall on the floor? No, it never popped.
Does that kernel matter? Would it make a difference among the others within a bowl already full?
I’ve been told to let my voice take me places.
So maybe one day I’ll let go and let it.
That’ll be the day that I scream from the rooftops, through the labels that encased my larynx in stone.
That’ll be the day I exclaim thoughtful, introspective, reserved.
My ideas will no longer be forgotten kernels.
They’ll join the world’s bowl of popcorn, transcending beyond places that I cannot fathom.
7th grade. 12-years-old. Six and a half hours.
At the time, I thought it was a cool challenge of some sort. I would congratulate myself after school as if this was something to feel proud about. For six and a half hours, I went mute. I would attempt to be mute for entire school days.
I became pretty good at it, granted I wasn’t called on in class or participating in a group project. When I think about this behavior now, it seems bizarre and concerning. I can’t imagine going an entire day without speaking to anyone.
Speaking can act as a gateway to being seen, and by not speaking, I made myself invisible throughout my childhood. I became a very observant listener.
On the same seventh grade wavelength, my school had an end-of-year honors ceremony where students were awarded with subject-specific certificates.
I, along with a few other students, was awarded with a certificate for excellence in public speaking by the performing arts instructor and my peers were baffled. As I stood up from my seat and walked down the aisle to receive the award, someone said something that caught my attention above the routine applause.
“Wait, she talks? I’ve never heard her talk before.”
That has remained ingrained in my mind ever since. I wasn’t necessarily hurt by the comment at the time, but thinking of it with the perspective I have now, kind of stings.
It stings to think that for a number of reasons I prevented my peers from hearing my spoken voice and thoughts. I didn’t let them see me.
I prefer not to use the terms shy and quiet to describe myself as I associate those characteristics with the girl who prided herself on being voluntarily mute. I have a voice, I can speak and I can be social.
My hesitance to speak has followed me since I was four. An invisible anvil of discouragement often stifles any confidence to speak. I am a thoughtful person, but sometimes I overcalculate things. I try to ensure that what I say will not be offensive, that I am using correct terminology and that my words are relevant or insightful.
Not only do I pick apart my thoughts until I think they’re suitable for contribution, but I engage in a game of guesswork to figure out how others will respond.
In the poem, I discuss the way that I rehearse what I plan to say until the conversation ends – making my thoughts irrelevant. The rehearsed words, or the popcorn kernel I describe, never fully came to be. We all have kernels of ideas that never fully came to be and decayed with time.
My voice is not just the words I speak, but the words I write. I tend to be more comfortable writing out my ideas than speaking them. I wanted to highlight this because sometimes we refer to our voices as being solely the vibrations of the larynx, but I like to think that our voices include the various ways that we express ourselves.
I conclude the poem discussing how maybe one day I’ll finally exclaim the words reserved, thoughtful and introspective as those are the words I think best describe me. I discuss that one day I’ll establish my voice.
I guess you could say that I’m doing that right now. In a way, I’m setting free the thoughts inside my head for others to hear.
My voice belongs in public discourse along with the other kernels of ideas that everyone else contributes.
Your voice does too.
You may still be wondering, “why is your relationship with speaking so complicated and maybe why did you even start a public podcast?”
Well, I‘m going to keep the suspense going and pull a batman on you: same bat channel, same bat time.
In the next episode, we’ll continue to explore this.
