Belly of the Whale

Say What?




Monday, 12:05 pm__________________
It’s done. I left a message on my voicemail: “sorry, can’t answer my phone today. If you need something come and see me personally. I will answer all calls tomorrow.” I feel strangely excited. I don’t know what to expect. This is something new, hopefully challenging. Am I going to stay home and hide, or am I going to go out and do things, interact with people?
I just realized I forgot to call a friend of mine to tell her I need the paper back she borrowed. Too late now. The goal is to not speak a word until this time, 12:05 tomorrow—everything is off until then.

12:18 pm__________________________
Within fifteen minutes, I’ve already slipped up. Widge, my chocolate lab, was looking at me pleadingly, and I said, “Widge, you want to go out? Okay.” I didn’t even realize what I was doing.
Talking to Widge is like internal monologue; how do you shut that off?

12:46 pm_________________________
My first interaction. Coming back from walking Widge, I ran into Bob, my neighbor. “Snowbowl is open,” he said putting his skis in his trunk, “I’m going to get ‘um all waxed up.”
I just looked at him and made funny gestures. I was totally at a loss. I mouthed some things then pointed at myself, did the “talking” gesture with my hand and nodded my head “no.”
“Whaddya do, lose it all?” I just held my arms out with my palms up. He started brushing snow off his car, and I ran in and grabbed my pad and scribbled a note to him. He nodded but didn’t say anything, as if he couldn’t talk either.
It was awkward. I wasn’t ready. Communication is so naturally vocal, doing it any other way takes a bit of conscious effort.

Walking Widge, I tried to cross as few roads as possible. He doesn’t walk on a leash; he heals as we cross, but I normally use voice commands like, “heal,” and “good boy.” Today when we came to our first street crossing, I patted the side of my leg and he came and healed. We crossed the street and when we reached the other side, I raised my arm forward from my side, as if throwing a frisbee, which is the signal for “break,” and he ran off sniffing trees. He did well—I was proud. But once, only once, he stepped into a one way street; it didn’t look much like a street all covered in snow, but I had to groan at him, and he ran back to the sidewalk.
Am I allowed to groan? I don’t think so. Groaning and whistling are out, I think. No vocal communication. So now I have flubbed up twice, but I am getting into the swing of it. I think I’ll pack up some things and go run some errands on campus—without Widge.

1:19 pm_________________________
I just made myself a notecard that says “Yes” on one side and “No” on the other. I want props. Everything is more fun with props. I’ve got the highlighter out and I’m going to town. My little notebook is ready to go, also highlighted and underlined.

1:22 pm_________________________
My first missed call. It’s exciting, I guess—a whole day without my cell phone (the only phone I have). This day is the antithesis of the cell phone revolution. Anyone can talk to anyone at nearly anytime, anywhere on Earth. And can talk to nobody, not my friend down the street to see if she can give me my paper back, not my family on the East Coast. I’m cut off. How unusual in this day and age. Remember beepers? In my house I grew up without an answering machine. I love getting phone calls—I hope they leave a message.
Yep, there’s the voicemail: beepbeepbeep, beepbeepbeep. I feel loved.

1:28 pm__________________________
Not talking is turning into a pain in the ass. (I checked my voicemail.) How am I supposed to manage my life? I have an independent study to arrange and some girl is trying to change it; I need to call the professor—but I can’t. Ahhh!
Nothing will be lost in a day. Patience, my friend. Honestly, I need the break. I have had the most stressful few days. Now I understand the path to mental breakdown. Nothing has made much sense recently; everything I thought was true was somehow skewed if not an outright lie. (Mind the absolutes.) So, will this day of silence be calming—a step back from my beleaguering stresses—or will it be a magnification and intensification of them?

2:51 pm__________________________
I am getting ready to venture out into the world. I am a homebody and am loath to leave, but this won’t be all that interesting if I don’t. So here goes.

4:20 pm__________________________ I have made it to the computer lab on campus without interaction. In fact I am hiding here. I was nervous that the bus driver was going to say “hello” to me. I was ready to smile and nod, but he said nothing.
I hate being rude to people. I can’t say, “hey, how are ya?” I’ll just smile and nod, smile and nod. If they stare at me strangely I reckon I will pull out my highlighted notepad and notecard and explain that I can’t talk: “You see, I’m doing this project because I talk to much. . .“

4:46 pm__________________________
My first good interactions. Can I use the word “exciting” to describe a conversation with a notepad and a cashier / coffee maker? Whatever!—it was fun. I went to the University Center, a quasi-mall on my campus where I go to school. It is an easy place to run into folks you know. Since I’ve had a hard few days and still felt a bit low, so I thought I would buy a soft drink to treat myself. So I went in the Market and thought, why don’t I ask how much a chai costs? I love chai. So I took a deep breath and went to the counter, made eye contact with the girl there who walked up to me. I scribbled a quick note: “How much for an iced chai?” I was expecting a one line numeric answer—a simple interaction.
“Do you want a ‘something-something’ or a Tipu’s chai?” she said.
I didn’t hear the first part, but I wanted a Tipu’s, so I made a letter T with my hands. She understood, and then she asked what size I wanted. I didn’t want to buy a chai; I only wanted to know how much one costs. Again I went to the pad. I underlined the “how much” part of the question and circled the question mark.
“Yeah, but what size?” she asked.
I wrote twelve.
“And what kind of milk?”
Soy, I wrote.
“$1.75. You get twenty-five cents off for happy-hour,” she said.
Ah, at last an answer. I smiled and nodded my head “no thanks.” The “thanks part I added with my smile. I think she got it because she smiled back as I walked over to the fountain drinks to make a suicide.
I left the U. C. and decided to walk over to the Writing Center where Janie, a friend of mine, may be tutoring students on how to write an essay. Perhaps I could go and “communicate” with her for a little while. It was dead quiet, no students and no Janie. There was a man I didn’t know working behind a computer and he looked up at me. I didn’t have my notebook handy so I did the “point at myself and zip my mouth” charade. Just like Bob, he nodded, smiled, but didn’t say a word, and went back to the computer. Being mute, you seem to mute those around you as well.
I looked at the board where the tutors make their appointments and wrote my name down to see Janie tomorrow. Before walking out, I took my notebook from my pocket and showed the guy my highlighted page explaining that I wasn’t talking for a day and why.
He smiled. “I thought that might be what was going on. I did something like that for a project I had once.”
I nodded and smiled and walked out satisfied. I’m kicking ass, I thought. I don’t even know what that means really.

Now I am in the library, another social Mecca—as strange as it may seem. I hop from computer to computer, home, computer lab, library, hiding behind the screen, plotting and hiding. I haven’t seen anyone yet, and I am no longer afraid.


6:11 pm__________________________
My first long conversation. A girl named Zeta came up to me. She wasn’t put off at all, and we’ve never talked much in the past. She told me once she had gone a whole day with ear plugs in her ears. That is intense: I know what I am not saying, but she couldn’t know what she wasn’t hearing, for instance, someone screaming, truck horns honking as you’re walking across the road. Imagine going blindfolded for a day.
Zeta was great. She kept asking me question after question. I started writing in my pad, but since I was working on a computer, I figured I’d type instead.

“Do you have to do ‘something-something?’” She talks really softly.
“I am just making it up as I go—just no talking. I talk so much; I’m trying to become more introverted, so today I am taking it to the extreme. I thought it would be a fun thing, a change and a new point-of-view. How was your weekend?”
“I went skiing.”
“Where?” I typed.
“Up at Lolo. How was your weekend?”
“Long story…” I am glad not to have to talk about it. People don’t expect you to write out long stories and probably wouldn’t want to read them anyway.
I won’t dictate the whole conversation. It would be boring and superficial. But to me, at the time, I was loving it. I don’t know why she bothered. I’m a novelty for a day, come get it.

It’s about time to catch the bus back home. It’s dark and Widge is sitting on the porch, probably a bit pissed off. It’s dinnertime, and it’s snowing out. I must remember—Don’t talk to the Dog. Don’t talk to the Dog. Don’t talk to the Dog.

7:27 pm__________________________
The silence has been broken, again, and this time with intent. It wasn’t talking to Widge either. When I got home I stayed composed, received kisses and gave belly rubs and head scratches without any “good boy” or “hello Mr. Widge” or anything of that sort. No, it was on the way home. I missed the bus so I went and found my bike which just happened to be on campus. I remembered what I had forgotten this morning: That I had tentative dinner plans with Jeddie, an old friend. He had called and left me a voicemail, basically saying I was “a weirdo” for not answering my phone today and that he may stop by later if he could get his car running. His apartment wasn’t far off, so I thought I’d stop in and explain, with my notepad, why I was being a “weirdo.”
As I left campus, going through a crosswalk, a car paid me no attention as he turned right onto the road I was crossing. If I were really mute I would have been smacked. But I am not mute; I am voluntarily silent—so I yelled a loud “WOA!” breaking my bike halfway across. It worked; he stopped, and I went on down to Jeddie’s. What if I had been mute, would I really have been hit? What if I were blind and walking across the street? What then? I guess these are the risks one then takes.

9:25 pm__________________________
A quiet evening. I came home, fed Widge, broke a plastic cup, my favorite, while juggling behind my back. “Shit Widge, I finally killed it.” Another slip up, but I super-glued the cup back together. I got a National Geographic Explorer in the mail and spent the last hour reading it while eating dinner: peanut curry and rice. No phone calls really, only one. Jeddie never called or came by. Everyone’s avoiding me since I’m no fun if I can’t talk. Life is lonely.
I think I may go to bed seeing how I actually need to wake up early for a change. I hope I don’t talk in my sleep, but I’ll never know anyway.

Tuesday, 9:05 am___________________
At eight o’clock this morning, I had a doctor’s appointment—I have a long enduring strain in my hip-flexor. There is no way I wasn’t going to talk to the doc and explain clearly and articulately where it hurts. Pictionary sketches wouldn’t cut it. The vocal fast had to come to an end. Though, I might add that it was hardly worth it—the doctor didn’t say anything all that interesting. A disappointing, anticlimactic finish—I was expecting to get healed due to my precise descriptions of theP injury.
Now I am waiting for a class I have in half an hour. I want to sit through it silent, I want to observe and listen, I want to reinstate the fast.

12:39 pm__________________________
I’m free—but it’s not really all that exciting. No kidding! You say. I guess I was never that deprived. It felt great to be an observer, no pressure to express myself or alter anyone else’s ideas with my own. I never got frustrated. I never had to say anything. I guess that is a lie since I broke the fast intentionally a couple of times: the car and the doctor. It was a good escape. I’m calm and more relaxed than I’ve been in weeks.

I think my next project will be to try and turn off the internal monologue as well as the external dialogue—that would be something.