After a year of silence, I am finding some words again. It did not happen by looking deep inside myself. In fact, the deeper I looked the more lost I got in the quiet down there. I found words not by creating them, but by listening to them.
In the still moments that emerged through the chaos, I sought out womxn I admire. I came to them with questions like I once had with baked goods. A peace offering of space to share what occupied their minds. Then I listened. They filled that space with incredible stories I never heard before and stories I heard a million times over but never understood. They spoke of their pasts and futures and almost never of the present. They asked questions back.
The words came slowly. First in little knowing “mms” or uncertain “hms.” Noises became words then phrases until the thoughts came pouring out of me, playing with the prompts so generously offered to me by voices familiar and new . I forgot how to talk and rediscovered conversation in the process. For that, I have many womxn to thank.
