Day 5

This is all kind of surreal. Never before have I had to stay home all day doing the same things I would be doing in school, in my living room. On top of that, if someone comes into the room and says "what do you want for dinner," or something of the sort, I have to stop what I'm doing and pull out a white board just to write my answer. It makes communication slow and in some cases uncomfortable. If someone I don't know very well talks to me, I have to scribble something down and hold it up while they read. However, the level of difficulty fluctuates. Sometimes during the day I'll be sitting and quietly working, and I'll think of how easy not speaking seems at that point. I think that if I just keep most things to myself, and communicate only vital things through my whiteboard I'll be fine and the month will pass by quickly. However once I go to the grocery store, or to a movie, I'm immediately on guard. I can't wander around places alone, because if someone asks me to hand them something, or if I need help finding anything, I have to grab someone who knows my situation so they can be my voice. But with all that aside, the situation is still very interesting. I have more time to just listen to people, and I'm learning a lot about just how much people use their voices. Also, after just 4 days (today is my 5th!), my voice is feeling better. For the past 2 years, my voice has almost always been causing me constant pain. The amount would change depending on what I was doing at the time, but it was guaranteed that I wouldn't ever not feel at least a tingle in my throat (I'm planning on writing a whole paper on what caused the pain-my nodules, and now my lesion-at a later point, so if you're curious that'll be posted here!). But after a week of almost complete vocal rest, the pain has almost gone away. We're hoping that the "month of silence" will make the lesion go away along with the pain, and after that I'll be free to do theatre and sing to my hearts content.

This past week hasn't been very exciting. On Wednesday my younger brother, Merrick, got to stay home from school, and the two of us went with my mom to her office at the college where she teaches. I mostly did schoolwork (I have a lot of it), and Merrick wandered around chatting with the secretary and other teachers. Later that day when we went to the thrift store (we can just acknowledge the fact that I go there a lot. It's the best store in the world), as Merrick and I were looking at Halloween costumes a saleslady came up to us. "Do you need help with anything? What are you looking for?" she asked. I had just used my one sentence (I get one every 15 minutes) a couple minutes ago, and she was staring at me expectantly. Merrick, also, being the 9 year old that he is, seemed to have forgotten that I couldn't speak and stood there staring at me. I wasn't going to answer her question, so I stared right back at Merrick. Our little staring triangle went on for a moment, until Merrick exclaimed "OH!!! No, we're fine." And the saleslady left, looking confused. Circumstances like this tend to come up a lot. If my mom introduces me to one of her co-workers, I just stand there smiling and waving at them until my mom jumps in and says "Oh by the way, Scarlett can't speak. She's on vocal rest." It's odd not being able to verbally communicate questions and responses. Almost as if I'm in a one-person silent movie, with bad miming and slow captions. However, I'm almost a quarter of the way done already, and I'm sure I'll find creative ways to spend my time and communicate with people. In the meantime, I have plenty of time to go thrift-store shopping, learn sign language, and watch Mean Girls as many times as humanly possible.

The Beginning

Yesterday (Monday) I started my "Month of Silence." But before we start referring to it as that, I'd like to make it clear that it's not really silence. We got an email from my voice therapist saying I'm allowed one sentence every 15 minutes, and I should do some very soft, short vocal warmups each day so my muscles don't decondition. So technically I'm not in complete silence for the next month, but considering what I'm used to, it's going to be really difficult. I'm not typically a quiet person, and I prefer to talk on the phone with someone rather than chatting with them online or texting. I'll also be out of school for the next month. I'm keeping up with all my work online and through email, and going in once a week to silently meet with my teachers. I'm not supposed to be at many social events where I could get excited and accidentally yell or make noise. Which means I'm going to be home a lot and doing quiet activities. Taking away the freedom of speech will be a real challenge, especially considering the fact that I'm the one holding myself back. I don't have something like tape over my mouth that prevents me from speaking, it's my own willpower that's stopping me. People say that the first day of everything is the hardest; the first day of school, the first day of a diet, or the first day of working out. So I'll tell you about my first day of vocal rest, and how weird it was to start off.

Last week I went to Target with my brother, and we bought three whiteboards and a pack of markers. After one day I've already managed to lose 2 markers and an eraser, so we might not have been as well prepared as we thought. We weren't exactly mentally prepared either. My mom and I went to the thrift store, and it was really difficult trying to communicate when every time I wanted to say something we either had to go through a ridiculous game of charades, which neither of us were good at, or we had to stop and my mom would have to patiently wait for me to write something out on the white board. Then, of course I lost my marker, so I had to text things to her. Once when my mom said "text it to me," I saw a woman passing by give us an odd look, as if she didn't understand why we had to use our phones to communicate. I got a lot of looks like that as my mom had to talk to people for me and do things someone should be able to do for themselves.

Monday night was also the Ivey awards. They're basically the Tony awards of the Twin Cities, a huge celebration of art and theatre where performers, directors, designers, etc. win awards. So many people from the Twin Cities theatre scene are there, and it's almost impossible to not run into people you know. Along with that, I was with a big group of friends. It was really, really hard to refrain from talking to people and catching up with the ones I hadn't seen in a while. Luckily, I had a friend who was with me the whole night who could explain and 'interpret.' It was a really odd experience for me, because I've never not been able to speak to people. I suppose I'll get used it though over the next month. I'm planning on learning some sign language so I'm not constantly making rooms stink with the awful smell of whiteboard marker. I'll also see plenty of theatre, and since my mom teaches at a college I can sit in on some of her classes. And then of course, I'll have this blog. I'm going to be updating this every couple days with stories and difficulties involved with having to tell people I'm a mime.