Breaking the Silence
The chill morning air was filled with voices, each individual call echoing between the cumulus clustering to obscure the sun. I stood on the breakwater, my feet pointing towards the waves disintegrating into foamy droplets the moment they reach the large concrete blocks, my spine angled back to compensate for the steep stone slope.
I stood there mute, as the gulls and the terns, the starlings, the ducks and the cormorants all sang their songs to the numinous nothingness. Cries and chirrups, tweets and twitters and poignant, long drawn out, mournful wails that pulled at something essential, right at my core.
And still I stood silent, staring out at the approaching haar, the thick sea fog that rolls in from the North Sea to envelope the east coast of Scotland, which now threatened the small peninsula I call home. It had started as a broad fat line along the far horizon, but it had travelled fast. This impenetrable bank of blank whiteness soon surrounded me, so thick that when I turned to look back at my home, it had disappeared.
I could still hear the birds, but now I could no longer see them, their songs becoming a disembodied symphony. I slumped to the concrete slope and lay down, my back adjusting to the uneven surface, and stared up at… nothing. The nothingness pressed down on my chest, my legs, veiling my face and shrouding my eyes. I gave myself up to the fog, and remained staring upwards, as silent as sleep…
After sharing yesterday’s post and reading the oh-so-beautiful comments that you, my beautiful readers, left on the blog, on Twitter and on FaceBook, I’ve found myself sitting with the realisation that I had lost my voice. Perhaps that’s not quite right… let me rephrase. I had allowed my voice to be silenced.
I began to think that online writing had to take a certain form. That it had to be presented in a certain way…
It had to be direct and punchy and in-your-face. How else did you expect to grab your reader’s attention?
It had to have headlines and text boxes and bold typefaces. How else did you expect your reader to bear with you as you moved inexorably towards some pithy point?
It had to be clear and spare with less of my favourite words like arborescent and amorphous and palimpsest. How else did you expect your reader to understand what the hell you were on about?
But you know, I can’t write like that. That’s not my voice. And, to be completely honest, I think the way we demean online readers’ attention spans, levels of intelligence, reading ability, is shameful. I don’t want any part of that.
I want to write beautiful words that evoke something deep within the hearts of my readers. Words that take us on a journey together. Words that create a sense of place, an atmosphere, a shared resonance. I want you, my lovely, to feel as though you are standing with me on the breakwater, listening to the birds calling each to each as the haar silently cradles us in its ethereal embrace.
When I think back to some of the posts that I am most proud of, they are the ones where I have allowed myself free expression, where I have cast off the online shoulds and danced to the beat of a different drum. They are the posts where I sang out my song and allowed my voice to weave in and around the voices of others, its uniqueness respecting the uniqueness of others, never feeling the need to tone down, simplify, or become a paler, less distinctive version of itself.
There is room for all our voices. There is room for mine.
**If you are interested in reading some of my favourite posts, here are my top posts (in no particular order!) from various places across the web…. Enjoy exploring.
10 Comments
Jackie Walker
Whooppeeee, she’s back! The girl and story teller I love so dearly as you share with us what you see from your heart. You stretch our imagination and reality into a place full of wonder and curiosity. You are like no other, your words are your trademark. Long may you continue to share so beautifully and truthfully xx
Karen
Thank you Amy for this beautiful and heartfelt piece. I have shied away from writing blogs because I don’t think that I would do it the way it ‘should’ be done. Your article has given me cause to pause and reconsider. Thank you! x
Alisha
Thank you for sharing this. I have felt this way for a long time; I will no longer let myself be silenced by the “shoulds.”
Lisa
Yes.
No other words are needed.
Except perhaps, “thank you”.
Joanna Paterson
Wonderful stuff Amy and yes to all of it! You have such a strong sense of place, it is one of the things I feel connects us so to this land less ordinary 🙂
Tanja
Greetings!
I totally get it. Being fairly new to this game I quickly became intimidated by everybody’s ‘awesomeness’ and punchy jargon. It almost felt like a new language, so I’m thinking perhaps this is what’s required in order to be heard. And maybe it is. But I for one soon got tired of reading all the ‘clever bugger writing’. Maybe it’s because I’m just not that clever. But who cares…I’ll take the real people any day…
Thanks for making my day! 🙂
Miss P.
*giveslovinghugs* Palimpsest is such a beautiful word, even if I have to look it up each time.
Andy Piper
You have a beautiful voice. You use it when appropriate. It’s ok to have quiet times, we all do. We’re listening, whenever you have words to share.
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Kathleen Prophet
mmmmmmmmm…. truly exquisite, my love. I feel you woooooing me, like the Muse to her Lover…. wooing me to meself, once again. My tears well up at the struggle it has been to attempt to ‘fit in’… to shore up my long-winded imagery oriented story telling ways into some form that FITS. At the same time… we are instructed to BE YOURSELF! Be uniquely YOU! well… really… which is it?
What I know, is that the above is what I desire from you… both the poetic prose that carries me on deep journeys into my self through the soulscape of YOU and this profound world you live…. as well as this questioning, shaking off the shackles like the good rebel you are.
Thank you! love Amy! Truly you are a Gift of the Way! xoxo