On Speaking and Silence

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When I was a little girl my parents thought I was painfully shy. The truth is, I wasn’t actually afraid like they thought. I remember very clearly choosing not to speak. I didn’t want to talk to people who I didn’t want to talk to and I wasn’t going to. And the more people would be trying to force me to smile, to talk, the more determined I was that it wasn’t going to happen. I didn’t speak to my nursery school teacher the whole year (the doctor made my parents send me to become socialized and no longer feral but I resisted). On the last day I walked up to her and whispered thank you in her ear. She told this story to people for years apparently.

But also I listened. When you are a quiet little fat girl with curly hair and a refusal to speak you become largely invisible in adult spaces. I got to hear all the things they normally would not say in front of children because they assumed, I guess, that I was either dumb or uninterested.

But I heard it all. I didn’t know what gay was, but the hair dresser with the open shirt and chest hair and the big gold necklaces that called my mom Doll, well I knew he was not like the other men I knew. And even though I wouldn’t “smile for me, doll” at his command, I secretly approved of him.

When my trans cousin (I didn’t know what trans was I just know that one day she came to the door in a dress and my father was upset as I hid under the table where I liked to hide when any human was around that I wasn’t sure I was prepared to speak to). I watched him tell her to leave but I didn’t understand why, I just felt the tension. I knew it was the same person that I had seen at family events. I was only 5 and I am not sure I even knew what a cousin was let alone transgender. But it occurred to me in watching the scene that it must be the yellow floral dress that was the issue, that my father had different tastes in dresses and to be honest I wasn’t a fan of that particular dress either, preferring even then more a dark fairy princess kind of vibe. I had no other understanding of the situation until I was a pre-teen and when the realization dawned on me I was profoundly annoyed at my father for worrying about the wrong problem. It was the ugly dress that was the only issue.

Honestly, that cousin’s taste in clothing never improved. And what’s more she wasn’t always a very nice person. Just because I fully accept people for who they are does not mean I don’t have to notice when they are an a-hole, I realized early on.

And yet, I went to her funeral (she was much much older than me) and I acknowledged her as she even though I didn’t see too many people doing that, and I was sorry that she never got to be fully accepted by the people who should have loved her most (even in spite of herself sometimes). It wasn’t like we didn’t have other a-holes in the family that everyone was okay with, after all.

Perhaps myself included. Because all these years I’ve done what I wanted to do and been who I wanted to be just like that little girl. I still will frequently disappear from social situations where I just don’t want to be there, still will just not talk to people if I don’t have to and don't want to.

But I have also learned to use my voice. The first time I spoke up loudly was to tell someone off in a grocery store around age 10. My parents were stunned that their silent little cherub had it in her. They did not realize that I was actually really very prickly in my way, and although I had a high tolerance for nonsense when I was done I was truly quite done.

Again, not much has changed.

Sometimes I find myself surprised though at how much I speak, interject, run my mouth. It isn’t my natural inclination. I could probably sit silently in a forest without speaking to anyone for years and be absolutely fine.

It suited me to be invisible when I weighed 60 pounds and could easily be taken down, but now I am more of a tree trunk and kidnapping me would be a workout I doubt most people want to undertake, so I can say what I have to say.