When a word cannot be heard

I have a lot to say about not saying a lot

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. Not my jam. But I always choose a word of the year—one word to snap me back when I drift, one word to keep my choices aligned with a larger intention. A couple of years ago, it was MAKE.

This year, I wasn’t sure I had it in me to care—between the car crash, the nerve damage, the healing, the election—I felt knocked off track, smacked out of my vibrant life and into something smaller, stiller, sepia. A north star doesn’t matter on a cloudy, foggy night.

I usually make a list of possibilities and thoughtfully mull them over, chewing on them, seeing how far they stretch into different meanings to find the one I want. So many words to choose from. This year, I couldn’t even make a list. I felt bitter because I miss people. My normal life. I miss words. As tempting as it was, I didn’t want my 2025 word to be BITTER. That is not the compass heading I need. And it is changing every week as I slowly recover.

I can now have a conversation if the room is quiet. I can Zoom and talk on the phone again, which reopens my world to my friends far away (I missed you). I am basically useless in a restaurant or if music is playing. Loud fans are the worst. I have learned a lot about being quiet. A lot about listening—and especially listeners. Fun fact: the best listeners all happen to wear hearing aids. They understand the effort, the focus. They know how precious words are. They understand what is lost when a word cannot be heard.

Now that I don’t have the vocal budget to spend frivolously, I realize how much I used to talk. Now, I let so many questions, responses, anecdotes just float through me, unsaid, because they just don’t matter. Just noise. The world and the news are even noisier. Where to start? How to be loud enough to even matter?

In college, my favorite classes were all about India. I had no personal connection to the subject—in fact, growing up in Alaska and Montana was about as far away from India as I could be. But the teacher was one of those teachers you love and follow from class to class, and Indian Civilization, History, and Humanities were his specialty, so I took them all. One highlight was reading Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. It was an incredible accompaniment to studying the history of postcolonial India (and just a fantastic standalone read). One of the characters’ noses continues to drip, grow, and overtake his face, mirroring the expansion of corruption and power. Since reading that book, I wonder about everything as an allegory for the world.

So what does this accident mean? These slow-healing nerves? This patience I have to cultivate? I now spend a lot of time with speech therapists and voice specialists. This injury is one giant metaphor. Amplify. Project. Resonance. Vibration.

Without making a list at all, my word was clear: VOICE.

My own physical voice. Sitting close to those I love so they can hear me. Closer, right in their ear. Making sure I have eye contact so we can gesture. Intentionally turning down the other noise.

Amplification. My writing. This newsletter. Other voices.

My new love, listening. Whose voices do I hear? Who’s voice is missing? Who is loudest? Who isn’t being heard despite trying? How much of that is our lack of listening? How much of that is our own projection?

Do I feel the vibration? The many, many other ways to express ourselves, to resonate.

Art. Dance. Protest. Song. Silence. VOICE.