Accepting and amplifying

Your tour is about to begin

Several months ago, my speech pathologist suggested I contact campus disability services to try out some adaptive equipment for my voice. I was decidedly NOT ready to hear that. I didn’t want to need anything, which, as we all know, is decidedly NOT the same thing as not actually needing anything.

But every day, I grew more frustrated, isolated, and entrenched in my thinking.

“I can’t talk.”

(Not true, I can, it is just very quiet and rough.)

“I will never meet anyone new again.”

(This seemed the most possible and also the most impossible.)

“How will I maintain the connections I do have?”

(I underestimated the foundations.)

And the real kicker, “My kids are grown. How will I keep that relationship?”

(This turned my heart inside out in the most painful of unsaid fears.)

We would try to go to a dinner party, a bust, too many conversations at the same time. At the store, “Are you sick?” Even at home, if someone walked away while talking, my voice couldn’t follow. I was participating less and less. All of the unsaid things were choking me in an entirely different way.

I had signed up to attend HATCH in November, thinking I would be better a full year after the accident. But I wasn’t. I even begged my way into a surgery to inject my vocal cords to try to make them work better, but nope. I felt like I was aboard a pending train wreck. I know how much talking happens at events, and the entire premise of HATCH is to accelerate relationships. How could I even begin to help, add value, connect?

Dear friends/my doctor had us for a quiet dinner so that I could hang in the conversation. It was incredible. I felt less lonely than I had in ages. I was like a junkie and stayed too late because I was connecting.

I would do anything for this feeling.

Acceptance really is a beast. The amazing writer Anne Lamott wrote about acceptance as a stray cat, scratching at the door, yowling to come in, wearing her down until she eventually said, “Fuck it, come in.” My acceptance was the opposite, I was locked inside, yowling to be let out, until finally I said, “Fuck it, plug me in.”

I picked up a whistle for emergencies, a harmonica so I could cheer people on, and went to disability services on campus, where they rent adaptive equipment, and picked up a personal amplifier. I packed a small humidifier, a heating pad, and enough lozenges to survive a winter. Overpacked and nervous I headed to Mexico City.

On the flight, I introduced myself to the HATCH cohort on WhatsApp and explained that my voice wasn’t working properly, that it didn’t hurt, and that I wanted to connect. Please, please, please.

The first night I tried the amplifier. It is a black speaker and a headset mic. I looked like a tour guide, or like I was vogue-ing in Rhythm Nation. I felt so awkward and wired up. But I also was heard. I could joke, laugh, and participate.

I could talk.
I met so many new people.
Old friends were there and close, and I could hug them and be heard.

Eventually, everyone got used to it, except for the one person on the last day who admitted they had spent the entire week thinking I was the chillest stage manager in the world, headsetted up but totally unfazed by any of the technical difficulties on stage. Jokingly, I was referred to as the tour guide.

So follow me, the tour starts here: Pushback, breakdown, accept, amplify, connect. Find yourself here in this lovely, loving world. Welcome to the new wired, mic-ed up me.

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Thanks to everyone at HATCH MX25. Even if I had the words to say how much your connection meant to me, there is no amplifier loud enough.

Tour guide, at your service.