ASYNCH TUESDAY: my voice
10:04 am
My words: tight, scared, pressure, why, imbalance, centered, lost, where, voice
Even though the alarm went off at 9 am, I got out of bed at 9:58 am, because I’m scared to open my mouth and my voice not being there. Each day since last Thursday has been that, the pressure to hear myself, to be myself, to find my way back to that familiar sound, and even now, I still haven’t tried yet to figure out if I’m there. What am I afraid of? Why?
There’s a tightness in my throat, a tightness that I seem to focus on and everything else exists in this imbalance of “where.” Where is my voice? It’s an odd feeling to search for something that you can’t see, because it’s not like losing an arm or a leg or even an organ. These are physical things that take up space. But my voice is not an actual physical thing. It’s ephemeral. It’s air and vibration. It’s attached to my spirit — and even that I’ve never seen, but I can feel it, just like my voice. It’s at the center of my body.
I want to hear it again.
2:43 pm:
My word: FRANTIC, CONFUSED, BREATH, PANIC, INADEQUACY, INCOMPLETE, LOST STILL, WHO?, ME?, FLOAT, THROAT, PRESSURE, FEAR, OH, OKAY
This last check-in with my MIND, BODY, & SPIRIT really left me with a lot of questions, and the words coming out of my non-dominant hand made me nervous, because there’s a lot of fear in these words.
I never thought about why I use the word THROAT in my poetry so much, and as I’m sitting here thinking about that word over and over and over and this frantic sense of fear and confusion, it seems my BODY was trying to signal something to my MIND and SPIRIT, something I was taking for granted this whole time.
What is this feeling so concentrated around this part of my BODY that I seem to be obsessed with in my writing? While I was breathing and listening to my SELF, I felt such a wave of inadequacy. What would happen if my voice never came back? What would I do as a teacher, as a poet, as a podcaster? How would I express myself?
Of course I know there are other ways, but I’m a talker. It’s in my genes, those loud Italian-American-Sicilian-German-New Yorker genes. I feel pressure to heal and that pressure is not helping the healing process.
My body is lost. My spirit is confused. My mind is racing with questions about WHO am I without VOICE? What is ME if I lose my laughter my oral poetics my grammatically incorrect and expletive-filled voice?
And then, with a single breath during my 1 minute of breathing, a wave of calm came over me, and I was like, “Oh, okay.”
11:56 pm: My Elder:
Dear Grandpa,
When I sat to do this piece of writing, to speak to you, I didn’t really now what I would say, and even using that word say right now is ironic considering I’m on vocal rest.
When I was a kid, I used to watch you eat when we were over, and I would be so interested in the silence you ate in, how you focused on the moment, the food, every taste and every moment. You hardly spoke at the table, and you said it was because you had a lot of siblings and if you were talking someone would take your food.
One of the last meals we ate together that I remember vividly was cured black olives, Italian bread, and some really good sharp cheese. I don't know if we even talked. I just remember the food and that moment.
After that, I saw you one last time when I came home from Boulder, CO after I met the girl I’m married to right now, who you never got to meet, and then you went back to Florida.
Years passed, and I never made my way back to Florida, but we would speak on the phone about food, and at that point, I was basically a pescatarian, except for the occasional sushi dinner. We talked about soup recipes and you told me about the David Balducci books you were reading. I told you about my PhD program and teaching and how my girlfriend was doing.
You told me about living in Hell's Kitchen, working on the docks at age 14, having to scrape by, and here I am now complaining about not being able to talk. Maybe I need to be silent for a bit to see what I have right in front of me.
When you died, I was in Michigan visiting my wife’s parents.
Every day since then, I regretted never going to see you so we could talk one more time, in person, and so you could meet my wife.
Every day I think about that last meal, the way you’d cut melon and pass it around the table, how you focused and took in everything around you. I think about how you were the last person to ever call me Danny, until I met your brother’s son when I moved to LA, and he immediately called me Danny.
I think about the man I want to be when I remember sitting in your presence.
There are days that I ask your forgiveness for not coming to see you, and I imagine you saying it’s okay because I hope it is.
If I've learned anything from not having a voice these last few days, it’s that you were doing it right all that time. Sometimes we have to say less in order to express more.
Thank you.
Your grandson,
Danny
