continuing silence

8/29/14

  When the elevator door opened, i startled the lone occupant. Her dog however, remained peacefully seated on the floor, completely undisturbed.
  "I thought you had that dog with you!", she said.
  I motioned that i don't speak and she seemed delighted at the opportunity. As we dropped downward, she began a litany of complaints against "John" (name changed to protect the innocent). John is a dog i walk that lives on her floor.
  John came from a shelter and you can tell he suffered some abuse before he was put up for adoption. He is a bit skittish and very defensive. He is also one of the warmest and most affectionate dogs i've ever taken care of.
  But my elevator companion didn't see him that way. She called him a "barker" and said he was "crazy". Her diatribe had just wound down as we reached the lobby.
  When the elevator door opened, she roused her subdued dog, smiled, and thanked me for listening before bustling off. I smiled back and proffered a small wave. I guess she just needed to vent and John was actually just a small part of a bigger problem.
  I have found that just smiling alleviates a lot of the unease many people experience due to my silence. Most of the time if you smile at a human being, they will smile back. It's a conditioned response we all have hardwired into ourselves since infancy.
  Just as a side note: You should never smile at a strange dog. Showing your teeth is a sign of aggression in the canine world.

continuing silence

8/25/14

  His shopping cart had more stuff loaded on it than i have in my entire apartment. As he pushed it down the street, he yelled continuously. He yelled at cars, he yelled at other people, and he yelled to himself.
  I was walking one of my dogs when we caught his eye. From across the road he yelled out, "What kind of dog is that?!!"
  I wasn't close enough to him that he would have been able to read my lips, so i just gave him my usual "i don't speak" gesture.
  He responded with a quiet nod and gave me a thumbs up. Then he placed his index finger to his lips in a librarian style, be quiet way and quietly continued to push his cart along the sidewalk.
  A few minutes later i could hear him yelling at some construction workers about a block away. He was yelling at them to "Shut the f*ck up!".

continuing silence

8/22/14

  I was riding my bike and suddenly a car door opened right in front of me. I missed getting completely knocked off my bicycle by a millimeter. The only sound i made was a quick, startled gasp of air. No yell, no angry expletive. The driver who had opened the door yelled out an apology as i just kept on riding.
  I think i was more surprised by my reaction than i was by the opening door. At last, my instinctual response is now silence.

continuing silence

8/21/14

  To some people silence implies mystery. There exists some deep, dark secret underneath a refusal to speak. They view self imposed silence as some kind of psychological wall that needs to be breached in order to set "right" a person or situation. Silence is an aberration to them.
  I'm afraid my silence isn't nearly that romantic. I'm not speaking as a kind of experiment. It is not to cover anything up.
  I feel noise is more of a cover up than silence anyway. Noise has a way of drowning out uncertainty, reason and truth. There are no walls in silence, no fortifications in peace. Bull horns are used in altercations and the construction of walls is always noisy work.

continuing silence

8/20/14

  When you are silent in social situations, it's like wearing sunglasses indoors. People think you are strange and can be very suspicious of you. But i can't think of a better way to cut down on the glare and see things with so much more clarity.
 

continuing silence

8/18/14

  No one was hurt. The other driver, her passenger and myself were all fine. But both of our cars had suffered some damage. The person who rear ended me was very agitated, and so was i at first... But i resolved to stay silent through what i was sure was going to be a long and drawn out ordeal.
  After we had both pulled over, the other driver got out of her car and approached me. She looked irritated, but anxiously said it had been all her fault. She seemed braced for a verbal assault to come from me. She kept on talking nonstop as if she was fending off my inevitable wrath with a barricade of talk.
  After a few minutes, i smiled and motioned that i do not speak. I then took out my cell phone and proceeded to report the accident to my insurance company via email. I mimed to her that she should do the same.
  I had finished filing my own report by the time she was finally taken off "hold" and had the opportunity to speak with a representative from her insurance company. She chain smoked while pacing back and forth, relaying the pertinent information with called out help from her passenger.
  I felt almost removed from the whole experience as it unfolded around me. I quietly watched as the other driver wrote out all the important information as it was being fed to her. She took my documents, presented hers, and occasionally gave me a thumbs up as her call progressed. She was a flurry of noisy activity and only paused occasionally to berate herself and her misfortune.
  After about 45 minutes, she was done with her call and presented me with the paperwork i needed to file a claim with her insurance company. She then gave me a hug (i'm not kidding), got back in her car and drove off.
  I paused a minute to process everything that had happened before getting back into my own car. The police cruiser she had called for an hour ago, finally appeared and i just waved them away. There was no need for them after all.

continuing silence

8/15/14

  She held her ear about an inch away from my mouth. I don't know what she hoped to hear. Maybe the sound of the ocean?