Being quiet in a world that’s too loud
All my life people have told me to speak up — to enunciate. “You mumble” are two words I hear in meetings and during phone calls. Being loud has never been easy for me. There are already too many loud people in the world.
Still, society expects us all to have certain norms. Stand up straight. Shake a hand firmly. Look people in the eyes. Speak up and loudly. We are all soldiers in somebody’s army. Life would be too boring if it was filled with those who speak up all the time.
We all know those people who whisper a little too loudly. They try to not interrupt those around them, but their whispers make noise and blow a lot of air. Those kinds of people always make me giggle.
And then there are those people that don’t know they are too loud. I once had a roommate who was excited about everything. He had a certain joie de vivre from sunup to sundown. There was no off switch. Some days, I needed an off switch.
At the nursing home last week, during the arts and crafts time, I met an old man whom I had trouble hearing. The music was blasting. His table was packed with plastic Easter eggs filled with chocolates. He was making an Easter bag for someone special, stuffing it with neon-colored grass and covering it with glittery stickers in the shapes of bunnies and crosses.
