Tag: ENGL 222

Kali Henke

Can’t you speak?

My roommate smashes little buttons on a controller, the sound seeming to echo throughout the small dorm. Outside our door, our suitemates laugh loudly at some poor joke one of them made. Underneath the crescendo of voices, I can hear the small hum of the radiator heating our shared space. Outside rain gently taps our windows, and cars drive past, their engines the music of the street. Even in the quiet library, you can hear little taps of keyboards, and stifled laughter from the whispering students. No matter where you look or where you turn, there is no place where you can find absolute silence.

What? Did you say something? Talk.

Bodies move against one another as I stand close to the wall. Music thrums loudly, my heart replicating the thunderous beat. Cheeks flushed and slight heavy breathing, I stand with a water bottle tightly clutched in my hands. The boy who tried to talk to me earlier standing a few feet away from me sending me strange glances. I avoided his eyes the best I could, trying to rid the sour taste from my mouth that the conversation left. The loud music caused a throbbing pain in the back of my head, but I ignored it. I swallowed my pain and moved to the rhythm of the music side to side. My tongue filled with heavy lead. The room around me screaming, but I was silent.

Don’t you have a voice?

A group of girls stared at me wide-eyed, their heads tilted slightly in question. Anxiously, I tug my sweatshirt sleeves down over my hands and keep my eyes on the ground as they start to fire off questions. Boom, boom, boom, one after the other, the bullet-like questions lodged themselves into my head but my lips remained shut. My tired tongue remained still as the air was heavy with anticipation, as I subconsciously gnawed on my lip.  The girls shared a glance. The silence was the only thing we shared as I waited for them to leave— they did.

Do you not have vocal cords?

I have never seen a bird not sing or an artist not doodle on a sheet. I have never watched an actor not cry on command or a slow-fingered pianist. Each thing in this world has a place, on a stage, in a notebook, or inside someone’s memory. But where does silence belong? Tongue heavy and anxiety-ridden habits force my lips shut, silence seeping from me. An anomaly, a voiceless stranger who wants nothing more than to scream but her heartbeat quickens threatening a heart attack. The sound of my heart like a drum, be-be-beating ever so quickly, my lips hanging slightly opening, but nothing coming out. Silence. Where do I belong? Too quiet for a stage, too plain for a notebook, and too forgettable for a memory. I’m an apology with no meaning, a fading tart taste on a tongue that stings but quickly fades. I fade too quickly to be remembered, not there long enough to even be forgotten, just ignored.

Louder. Use your voice.

I am. I swear, I am. My silence louder than the public’s chorused voices. My silence says everything I can’t, only to those who choose to listen. My eyes, my body language, all tell a story I can’t relate with noise. A safe haven for all things silent. Thoughts, memories, and art. Silence has become a forgotten art form, there. Existing— Belonging. Silence belongs here, surrounding me and my unmoving lips, as my roommate smashes little buttons and laughter fills the room outside my door. Quiet, a choice I made from the moment I could. Silence—my default.

I can’t ever hear you.

From the day we are born, we enter this world screaming. Our throats aching with a type of rawness that seems to never fully heal. As children, we grow into wanting attention that increases into unsatiable cravings. The idea of sitting quietly and alone becoming our worst fear. A voice — their voice becomes a constant reassurance that they exist. Those who choose to be loud, turn to others who replicate their fears, desires, and loudness. They match their laughter and pity those who whisper. For, if you are not heard are you really alive? No one has fully heard my anxious worries or doubts, but I exist, contrary to what others believe. My own throat swallowing the burn, choking back my voice, letting it sit in my stomach—burning into a fire. My fire erupts and flourishes on pages, it becomes burned into the memories of those who take the time to read and understand it. My voice may not fill the world to the brim and I may not contribute to laughs or the whispers but I’m heard. I’m loud in a different way because everyone has a default, everyone has their own way of having their voice heard and that’s okay.

Brianna Allen

They speak of all kinds of numb here in the North. The been outside for five hours and the snow has soaked through my layers numb; the wood stove went out again numb; ice fishing all day long in 30 mph winds numb. There are many types of numb we all know, love to hate, and discuss here in the North. No one talks about the emotional numb that we may come across in our lifetime, however. The sitting in silence, not feeling the earth beneath you, staring at the floor numbness. The hole in your chest, static in your brain numb. The numbness of losing a loved one, your best friend, or even yourself. Everyone talks lightly about the harsh winter numbness we all experience, but no one prepares you for the detrimental numbness of your soul that comes with tragedy.

When I was just eight years old, I first experienced this soul withering numbness. My step father was introduced to me when I was three, was diagnosed with cancer when I was six, and was harshly taken from me and my family when I was eight. May 9th, 2006 started as a normal school day for me and my four siblings, until we were all called out of school, told that today was the day we were to go say goodbye to our father and step-father. I will spare the gory details of the two prior years, how we watched this man, who had help raise us, wither away, death knocking on the door he sat in front of, waiting to take him away. When we got to the hospital my mother was sitting on his left side, holding his limp hand, telling us that even though he couldn’t respond, he could hear us, and we should tell him anything that is on our minds and in our hearts. To look at one of your family members as they lay in a bed with tubes coming out of every orifice, is terrifying; but to eight-year old me, this was just the moment my brain stopped working. I gave the half-assed goodbye, telling my comatose step-father that I love him and will miss him. Each one of us went in the room by ourselves, while the others sat in the linked family room through a solid wooden door. I sat in that room for what seemed like days, as each of my siblings said goodbye. That room still comes to me in my dreams sometimes – the pale blue walls with dark wood trim and dark blue stiff, plastic couches. The huge television wardrobe that held a 32” television, wood matching the trim. I sat in that room for hours in silence, eyes fixated on the dark blue carpet with red texture. I sat in that room for hours with ears that did not work, everything sounding like it came from a mile away. I sat in that room in silence for hours, thinking I was going deaf, until the loud screeches of my mother hit my ear, like she was screaming right in my ear.

A numbness hit my chest in this moment, as if my heart had left with my step father’s soul. Minutes, hours, days may have passed. At one point the preacher came in and said a prayer, but, to this day, I’m not sure a single person in that room could have told you what he said. At some point we must have gone home, and some point the day must have turned into the next, which turned into the next, which eventually turned into the day of the funeral. The day of the funeral was dreary. The skies cried cold, early May rain, mimicking my step father’s loved ones as they stood around his six-foot-deep home in the ground. They said their goodbyes in silence, sending their hearts to the sky, as I stood there, paralyzed, unable to feel what the people around me felt.

No one warns you about the numbness that overcomes you when tragedy strikes – how your heart may leave your body for days, months, or even years. Everyone is ready to tell you of the good that will come of it one day – how you will be stronger, wiser, happier even. Everyone hands out advice to look to the future, while only some have the capacity to hold your cold hand through the hurt. It’s hard to see the lighter side of numbness, to laugh at your own temporary inability to feel. I turned a blind eye to the light, letting numbness make a home inside my carcass. Until one day I felt, like the tingling of a foot waking up feels, I felt. I felt all of the pain that had built up for years, and I cried. I cried for six years, until I had let it all out. And then I rose up, tall and strong, like a sunflower fully grown to stand in the light. I grew from my tragedy; I grew strong, happy, and proud of who I am and what raised me. Nobody warns you of the numbness that life can bring to you. We don’t talk about it like the weather. But, just like the winters of the North come and go, so do the seasons of our hearts and grief. June comes around and brings flowers and sunshine, just as life will bring light after a cold, dark winter.

Jennifer Gauvreau

Step back five paces. That was the rule. I was told as a young girl to stand at least five paces away from paintings, in order to really take them in and enjoy them. My parents were both active members of the arts community, and a result, my exposure to the arts was deeper than that of my peers. It was always my inclination to move very close to a painting. As a youth I really wished to experience art (and all of the things in my world) with all five senses. Of course, this notion is absolutely ludicrous, as it would not be fitting for a little girl to be wandering the halls of the Art Gallery of Algoma licking paintings and running sticky fingers along the ridges of wild oil paint. So, very early in life, five paces away became the rule.

Growing up, I found it to be needlessly inhibiting and contradictory, the five paces rule. The hippies who ran the kids’ art programs in the teaching room were all about freedom and joy, reckless abandon, oddity for inspiration. When we created art, it was of absolute importance that we felt free to do what we wanted, how we wanted. Yet, a few feet away in the gallery, we were to be silent, reverent, and distant.

When you move in real close to a painting, you see more than a content image. Go ahead, look closer. Don’t be afraid to look— on the tongues of Medusa’s snakes lie a thousand fables and lessons. Look closer and you’ll find the passion of a painter: brushes blitzing, complexions colliding, oils oozing, tint tenting to form piles of pigment and scraped down valleys. You’ll find the clockwork of colour, and the tempo of tempera. Does this view enhance or diminish the humanity of the painter, the craftsman, bent over his work, trying with every brush stroke to reach across the void?

Now, step back. Make it five paces. Take it all in, allowing your eyes to dance across the canvas. Maybe this is a more comfortable view. Do you understand more, or is it less from here? The painter is now traveling through time and space to touch your very soul. They are creating poetry in paint- humanity on display, essence expressed. Upon meeting your eyes, the craftsman’s reach across the void becomes an artist’s embrace, encircling you with all that it is to be a part of the human condition.

For a long time, I was stuck in the binary viewpoint. I thought I had to choose between openness and inhibition, experience and appreciation, immersion and altitude. The longer I consider point of view, the more sure I become that both ways of experiencing art, and life, are vital to the human experience. Moderation in moderation. Wildness in waves. Five paces be damned.