Silence and Silencing

This month, I’ve been thinking about silence, what it means, and how it feels in different contexts.

This is It Takes A Village, a monthly conversation about reading, writing, and community-building.

Welcome, lovely subscribers, lurkers, readers, and writers! And a special welcome to new subscribers who’ve joined us in the last month. So happy to have you here!

In this issue:

-       On the Farm

-       Writer’s Life

-       Book of the Month

-       Bonus: Writing Prompt

On The Farm

Four years ago, on our first night on our tiny farm, I lay in bed in our 200-year-old farmhouse, trying to sleep, but instead experienced a loud, annoying ringing in my ears. It was hard to believe the high-pitched, silvery monotone was somehow coming from inside my head, and I feared it might be my new normal. Having come from a city townhouse that sat next to a busy highway, I was not accustomed to rural silence. Left with nothing to hear, my ears had invented their own noise.

It didn’t take long, though, for my brain and my ears to adjust to country life. One of the things I love best about what we’ve created here is the quiet. At night, a coyote calling from deep in nearby woods, or a tiny mouse scampering on the third floor above me are loud in comparison to the surrounding stillness. In silence, even the stars appear brighter.

I’m noticing silence more right now because I’ve started meditating again. There was a time in my life when I meditated for more than an hour each day, usually in two sessions. Now, as I begin the practice anew, it’s just fourteen minutes each morning. I sit either outside by the pond if the day is fine, or inside on a floor cushion, with my eyes closed and “watch” my breath as it comes in my nose and out my mouth. There’s a particularly fascinating moment in this process at the end of each exhale and before the next inhale, a kind of blank space—a clean slate, a point of profound emptiness.

Meditation is hard, which is funny, because it looks easy to sit and breathe. The benefits, though, are huge. I can tell you that the years when I meditated for long periods were the most generative writing years of my life. I became a poet then, or perhaps poetry entered me through those between-breath empty spaces. If you’re interested, the very best, most straightforward book on meditation, in my opinion, is Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Gunaratana. I highly recommend it.

Writer’s Life

Lately, I’ve been struggling to write an essay about being blindsided by betrayal. It’s especially hard because I’m still afraid to break my silence about this story. Even now, it’s difficult for me to write that the essay describes what happened when my husband’s sister tried to end our marriage. To be clear, this is NOT his eldest sister, and my favorite relative, Nancy, but another sister we no longer have contact with for obvious reasons.

Nearly all of us have, at some time, been utterly flattened by betrayal from a corner where we least expected it. We’ve encountered that person whose public-facing persona is super sweet while underneath they’re plotting against you. I’ve heard of this happening most often in the workplace. Afterward, we want to make sense of what happened, to “go to school” on the matter so that we might shield ourselves from such a thing ever happening again. My way of understanding the world is to write. Yet, for over a decade, I’ve not written this story.

Some would say that for me to write this truth about family is itself a betrayal. Others would say such an essay is nothing more than revenge, and therefore not to be taken seriously. I worry that writing the facts of this event will end any possibility of reconciliation with this family member, and that it’s quite likely that because the perpetrator’s persona is one of gentle sweetness, I will not be believed, and may even be maligned.

You would think my days of silencing myself or being silenced were behind me. I’ve spent the last four years writing a memoir about being born a secret and breaking free from the silencing about my origin story as an adoptee. But here I am in possession of interviews with psychology experts to bolster this new essay’s believability, and an understanding of the events taking shape in a way that could be helpful to readers who’ve experienced similar betrayal, and still the story stays stuck in me like a poison I must force myself either to regurgitate or succumb to.

As my wise teacher, the author, Jeannine Ouellette, says, “Your silence will not protect you.” In fact, perpetrators of personal trauma count on their victims’ silence. Being silenced—by loyalty, fear of not being believed, or threats of more harm—is an integral part of that kind of trauma.

The only way to mitigate the damage, to take back our agency, is to speak. I’m certain that more people, over time, have been harmed by secret-keeping than by truth-telling. And besides, this is my story, and I’ve decided I’m not keeping this secret any longer. So, back to the page I go, looking for a way into this narrative, a place of integrity to stand in, where once again, I reclaim my power and my voice.

Book of the Month

Though I didn’t read it this month, given the topic of silence, and the fact that I loved this book when I first read it and that it continues to inspire me, I’m recommending Everything I Have Is Yours, by Eleanor Henderson.

When I finished reading this memoir, my first thought was: How is this author a) still standing and b) still married? In it, Henderson tells the story of meeting and falling in love with her husband, and their subsequent marriage, marked by the wounds of depression, addiction, and childhood trauma. She then shares her husband’s slow unraveling, including symptoms that make treatment and understanding of his illness confounding for her and for his doctors. Henderson investigates how physical and mental illness are related and how to continue to be yourself alongside a partner who is suffering— a partner you barely recognize.

Prior to reading this book, I knew Eleanor Henderson as an excellent writer via her novel, Ten Thousand Saints, which was made into a movie starring Hailee Steinfeld and Ethan Hawke. But, for me, Everything I Have Is Yours, vies with one other, Blow Your House Down by Gina Frangello, for the most brutally honest memoir out there. It’s the gold standard for how to tell the hard truth with compassion for ourselves and for the people we write about.

I imagine Henderson, a loving mother and wife, had every reason you could think of not to write this story that exposes her marriage, her husband, and her own difficult feelings. She took a huge risk. But I’m sure I’m not alone in being grateful that her book is in the world as an example of what’s possible, both personally and on the page.

Bonus: Writing Prompt

 This prompt has two parts. You can pick the one that speaks to you, or try both.

Part one: Spend fifteen minutes sitting in silence. You can leave your eyes open, or close them if you wish. What do you notice? What sounds, smells, sensations, (and sights if you leave your eyes open) do you become aware of both in your environment and in your body? Try to notice with more attention than usual. When the fifteen minutes is up, write about what you experienced. Be as precise as possible, with concrete words that relay your experience to the reader.

Part two: (Of course, as always, if this process brings up feelings too difficult to navigate, stop and take care of yourself.) Is there an event you’ve stayed silent about? A secret you’ve kept? Write a scene about it. Remember, you don’t ever have to show it to anyone. Render the scene with as much detail and honesty as you can. Think of yourself as having a movie camera trained on the scene. What do you see through the lens? Where did this take place? Who was there? What was said? What was the body language? Now include how it felt in your body to be part of this scene. How does it feel to you now? Is there a difference? Why or why not?

Thanks for spending time here with me. I truly appreciate it. Feel free to recommend It Takes A Village to other readers and writers and to send along your suggestions, questions, and thoughts.

--Jillian