So much that I could select here and hold up to the light, thank you Rebecca. As a quiet child-teenager-adult, I can relate. It now occurs to me that all that sitting back while others talk is why I am an observer. Even before I reached ‘It is writing where language comes easily.’ I knew that I would say to you that it is in writing that we find joy, comfort and occasional fluency. As you say, it is strange that we invest ourselves in something more public and permanent. Quiet words, written carefully, from the heart allow us to dally with an eloquence that eludes us in daily conversation.
Always I feel like I'm breathing the freshest resonant air imaginable when I read your essays Rebecca, I am fascinated by language, by how we, and every other living creature communicates, each has their own intricate way, most we can only guess at understanding but what beauty we find in trying. I believe the form it takes is not so important, timidity is not a crime, it renders me speechless often - still! What a noisy world this would be if there weren't those that preferred pen and paper to express themselves...
Thank you for this lovely comment, Susie! I am so glad my words resonate so deeply with you. What a noisy world it would be indeed without the quiet observers and writers and listeners x
I adore ravens and have had a few wonderful encounters with them on my travels. One lived near a field alongside the spot where I was parking my van. Of a morning and afternoon often, I’d delight in the gorgeous silky iridescent creature hopping across the field in dappled sunlight.
Love your list of writers. Ngozi Adiche would be on my top list as well.
I am reading this late in my evening, after a day spent wandering the coastline - beaches and stony headlands - watching the waves and listening to their stories, shared with the air and the sand, and marvelling at White Breasted Sea Eagles riding the wind waves above.
As a natural introvert myself, your story makes huge sense to me - even though I am less stressed by social settings. I was never mute as a child, but I do become so in large gatherings, parties, crowds - which is why I avoid them, and why living here by the river suits me so well, most days.
Like us (myself and Meg) I assume you have also found a partner who also has an affinity for quietness, and observation.
Your own observations are always fascinating for me. The Raven story is an example. A golf ball seems an odd thing for a bird to collect - but our Australian Bower Birds are famed for collecting interesting coloured objects, to present as a display to attract a mate. I have personally watched an octopus collecting shells and arranging them in a garden in font of her home.... I brought her a gift and watched her take it and arrange it....
Nice to see Australian author Kate Grenville in your favourite writers list!
Oh Dave I love bower birds!! They are so fascinating. And I love this description of an octopus carefully arranging a display! What a gift to experience that.
I'm glad you and Meg have found your happy place by the river just as my partner and I have found ours by the sea. Yes, he too is the introverted type - and the quiet life is most definitely the life for us 😊
Yes I love the settings of Kate's books almost as much as her writing - the way she brings Australia to life in the reader's mind is just brilliant!
This is so interesting Rebecca, and written so beautifully as always. I’m fairly sure I have never been mute but I cannot cope in a verbal argument, which I’ve always assumed was a reaction to the furious rows my parents had before they separated when I was 11. But I can argue very successfully in writing and I’m now linking this to another thing I find strange. No matter how well I understand a subject, perhaps something that I could talk about in a one on one conversation for hours, if I am required to speak about it in front of an audience, I become completely tongue tied and empty headed unless I have a script. Not notes, an actual script. It frustrates me no end as I love giving presentations of my photography but there is a mental block that prevents me from doing so in a relaxed and natural way. Your writing here has certainly got me thinking, thank you so much for sharing.
Oh I feel that too with the verbal arguments - only able to form a coherent response when I am out of the situation and by then kicking myself because it is too late! It is frustrating, but also - I am learning - so important to give ourselves grace.
Ahhhh, wonderful to read this just after our little DM conversation. It’s thrilling to experience your selectively-muted youth now taking flight through your mastery of words. I walk right alongside you in your love for both breaking the rules, and the precision—how is it that I’m unfamiliar with most of the authors you’ve mentioned!? I must add to your list, authors with true invention, play, precision and curiosity in their craft: Ocean Vuong, Ruth Ozeki, and Ingrid Rojas Contreras. ❤️🙏
Oh thank you for the recommendations, I haven't read any of them - excited to explore their work! Our DM conversation inspired talking about selective mutism here :) so excited to read your defence of wordlessness when it is ready ❤️
While I was never mute, selectively or otherwise, I was also a painfully shy child. I couldn’t bear the terror of speaking to strangers. I’m not exactly sure when or how I grew out of this, but I did. Sometimes, though, I still find myself slipping into the feeling that silence is more comforting than sound. It’s an interesting thing to think about, and you’ve got my mind turning.
As for your favorite writers, I agree that precision is such an attractive quality. I got my degree in journalism, and it taught me to be far more economical in my creative writing. I sometimes wish I’d done a creative writing degree instead, but I think I learned far more by being slightly outside of the writing I wanted to do.
I completely relate to that feeling of wishing you'd done a creative writing degree, Yardena. I too wonder what life would have looked like if I'd gone down that route, but similarly to journalism, academic writing does teach a economy and precision (and maybe there are other benefits to developing our writing styles outside of mainstream courses?).
When I handed in my first essay in undergrad, my tutor said "You're an alright writer, but your sentences are awfully flowery". I think the flowery-ness may have re-blossomed... but I suppose it's no matter now he's not grading me ;)
I had a fiction workshop professor once who, after reading my first story, asked if I was a journalism major. I said yes, how did you know. He said the journalism majors never had any grammatical errors in our stories 😂
"I think, in essence, language has always fascinated and frustrated me because I cannot reliably grasp it. It rivers and lakes, floods and droughts, slips and stops. It lets me enter other worlds, even create new ones, but it does not always let me share my own. The language of nonhumans fascinates me for the same reason. It is also both a window and a wall."
Love that last line (window/wall). A profound realization that we use words to both reveal and conceal ourselves from others AND from ourselves. Our narratives always have a strong element of wish fulfillment.
"I have always been fascinated by language. The possibilities of it; the precision, the abstraction, the solidity and ambiguity."
I can see/feel your fascination with language expressed in your very personal and creative word usage Rebecca. I share that fascination. I have a kind of synesthesia where I can almost taste different words, rolling them around on my mind's tongue before selecting the just right one. That's probably why you are one of my most favorite writers here.
What a wonderful thing to read, thank you Baird! I love that you can almost taste different words. I'm not sure I can do that but I do think of colours associated with words which I suppose is similar!
Another great post, Rebecca. Thank you for that. And thank you for listing your favorite writers. I compare that to having a good friend introducing me to their friends, knowing I will probably take a shine to them. I most always do. Thanks for the gift.
the way you masterfully shift from personal history to present-moment observation, tying threads of philosophy and biology throughout — just brilliant once again, my friend! 🙌🏽🩵🐦⬛
So much that I could select here and hold up to the light, thank you Rebecca. As a quiet child-teenager-adult, I can relate. It now occurs to me that all that sitting back while others talk is why I am an observer. Even before I reached ‘It is writing where language comes easily.’ I knew that I would say to you that it is in writing that we find joy, comfort and occasional fluency. As you say, it is strange that we invest ourselves in something more public and permanent. Quiet words, written carefully, from the heart allow us to dally with an eloquence that eludes us in daily conversation.
This is exactly how I feel, Michela! And I am always so thankful for your comments, written so eloquently from the heart 🤍
😊
Aha 😀
Always I feel like I'm breathing the freshest resonant air imaginable when I read your essays Rebecca, I am fascinated by language, by how we, and every other living creature communicates, each has their own intricate way, most we can only guess at understanding but what beauty we find in trying. I believe the form it takes is not so important, timidity is not a crime, it renders me speechless often - still! What a noisy world this would be if there weren't those that preferred pen and paper to express themselves...
Beautiful as always - Thank you xx
Thank you for this lovely comment, Susie! I am so glad my words resonate so deeply with you. What a noisy world it would be indeed without the quiet observers and writers and listeners x
"If I could not write, I am not even sure I would know what I think..." exactly right. Beautiful essay.
Thank you Mary Beth!
I adore ravens and have had a few wonderful encounters with them on my travels. One lived near a field alongside the spot where I was parking my van. Of a morning and afternoon often, I’d delight in the gorgeous silky iridescent creature hopping across the field in dappled sunlight.
Love your list of writers. Ngozi Adiche would be on my top list as well.
Another gorgeous piece, my friend.
Watching a raven in dappled sunlight is a dream! I'm sure that raven was watching you too 👁 thank you for the lovely comment 💚
Thank you for your beautiful writing. The ideas resonate with a piece I am developing so you have helped my thought process as well!
I am fascinated by the natural world and its myriad subworlds that exist beside us and which we can never fully understand.
That's so lovely to hear, thank you Kirsten! I'm so glad this piece connected with you.
So, so beautiful, once again. 💙
Thank you! 🩵
Hi friend Rebecca
I am reading this late in my evening, after a day spent wandering the coastline - beaches and stony headlands - watching the waves and listening to their stories, shared with the air and the sand, and marvelling at White Breasted Sea Eagles riding the wind waves above.
As a natural introvert myself, your story makes huge sense to me - even though I am less stressed by social settings. I was never mute as a child, but I do become so in large gatherings, parties, crowds - which is why I avoid them, and why living here by the river suits me so well, most days.
Like us (myself and Meg) I assume you have also found a partner who also has an affinity for quietness, and observation.
Your own observations are always fascinating for me. The Raven story is an example. A golf ball seems an odd thing for a bird to collect - but our Australian Bower Birds are famed for collecting interesting coloured objects, to present as a display to attract a mate. I have personally watched an octopus collecting shells and arranging them in a garden in font of her home.... I brought her a gift and watched her take it and arrange it....
Nice to see Australian author Kate Grenville in your favourite writers list!
Best wishes
Dave :)
Oh Dave I love bower birds!! They are so fascinating. And I love this description of an octopus carefully arranging a display! What a gift to experience that.
I'm glad you and Meg have found your happy place by the river just as my partner and I have found ours by the sea. Yes, he too is the introverted type - and the quiet life is most definitely the life for us 😊
Yes I love the settings of Kate's books almost as much as her writing - the way she brings Australia to life in the reader's mind is just brilliant!
"This, I think, is one of the reasons the wild has always felt like home to me."
Yes! Even though we don't speak the same language, the wild ones often make so much more sense than humans!
Yes! I couldn't agree more, Sarah!
This is so interesting Rebecca, and written so beautifully as always. I’m fairly sure I have never been mute but I cannot cope in a verbal argument, which I’ve always assumed was a reaction to the furious rows my parents had before they separated when I was 11. But I can argue very successfully in writing and I’m now linking this to another thing I find strange. No matter how well I understand a subject, perhaps something that I could talk about in a one on one conversation for hours, if I am required to speak about it in front of an audience, I become completely tongue tied and empty headed unless I have a script. Not notes, an actual script. It frustrates me no end as I love giving presentations of my photography but there is a mental block that prevents me from doing so in a relaxed and natural way. Your writing here has certainly got me thinking, thank you so much for sharing.
Oh I feel that too with the verbal arguments - only able to form a coherent response when I am out of the situation and by then kicking myself because it is too late! It is frustrating, but also - I am learning - so important to give ourselves grace.
I'm glad you enjoyed the piece, Dave!
Ahhhh, wonderful to read this just after our little DM conversation. It’s thrilling to experience your selectively-muted youth now taking flight through your mastery of words. I walk right alongside you in your love for both breaking the rules, and the precision—how is it that I’m unfamiliar with most of the authors you’ve mentioned!? I must add to your list, authors with true invention, play, precision and curiosity in their craft: Ocean Vuong, Ruth Ozeki, and Ingrid Rojas Contreras. ❤️🙏
Oh thank you for the recommendations, I haven't read any of them - excited to explore their work! Our DM conversation inspired talking about selective mutism here :) so excited to read your defence of wordlessness when it is ready ❤️
While I was never mute, selectively or otherwise, I was also a painfully shy child. I couldn’t bear the terror of speaking to strangers. I’m not exactly sure when or how I grew out of this, but I did. Sometimes, though, I still find myself slipping into the feeling that silence is more comforting than sound. It’s an interesting thing to think about, and you’ve got my mind turning.
As for your favorite writers, I agree that precision is such an attractive quality. I got my degree in journalism, and it taught me to be far more economical in my creative writing. I sometimes wish I’d done a creative writing degree instead, but I think I learned far more by being slightly outside of the writing I wanted to do.
I completely relate to that feeling of wishing you'd done a creative writing degree, Yardena. I too wonder what life would have looked like if I'd gone down that route, but similarly to journalism, academic writing does teach a economy and precision (and maybe there are other benefits to developing our writing styles outside of mainstream courses?).
When I handed in my first essay in undergrad, my tutor said "You're an alright writer, but your sentences are awfully flowery". I think the flowery-ness may have re-blossomed... but I suppose it's no matter now he's not grading me ;)
I had a fiction workshop professor once who, after reading my first story, asked if I was a journalism major. I said yes, how did you know. He said the journalism majors never had any grammatical errors in our stories 😂
😂 this does not surprise me!!
When you get 5 points off for every misplaced comma, you learn how to use commas properly!
Beautiful as always, Rebecca. Thank you!
Thank you, Kelly!
"I think, in essence, language has always fascinated and frustrated me because I cannot reliably grasp it. It rivers and lakes, floods and droughts, slips and stops. It lets me enter other worlds, even create new ones, but it does not always let me share my own. The language of nonhumans fascinates me for the same reason. It is also both a window and a wall."
Love that last line (window/wall). A profound realization that we use words to both reveal and conceal ourselves from others AND from ourselves. Our narratives always have a strong element of wish fulfillment.
"I have always been fascinated by language. The possibilities of it; the precision, the abstraction, the solidity and ambiguity."
I can see/feel your fascination with language expressed in your very personal and creative word usage Rebecca. I share that fascination. I have a kind of synesthesia where I can almost taste different words, rolling them around on my mind's tongue before selecting the just right one. That's probably why you are one of my most favorite writers here.
What a wonderful thing to read, thank you Baird! I love that you can almost taste different words. I'm not sure I can do that but I do think of colours associated with words which I suppose is similar!
Another great post, Rebecca. Thank you for that. And thank you for listing your favorite writers. I compare that to having a good friend introducing me to their friends, knowing I will probably take a shine to them. I most always do. Thanks for the gift.
Oh I so hope you enjoy them, Brian!
the way you masterfully shift from personal history to present-moment observation, tying threads of philosophy and biology throughout — just brilliant once again, my friend! 🙌🏽🩵🐦⬛
🩵🩵🩵 thank you Jared!