by Worker Bee

Well, this series, as noted in the earlier article, is to be about stretching myself. Today was the Day of Silence at my school. This is an event put on by the school's Gay Straight Alliance. Anyone who wants to may buy a pin/button for 75 cents, and then for all day (today, Wednesday April 26th, though different dates for different years. Schools pick the day themselves) could be silent.

Well, most of us who do it, which is only a small proportion of the school, stay quiet for the entirety of the school day - about 8 in the morning till 3 in the afternoon.

Last year was the first year that I participated in the Day of Silence. I hadn't thought I could do it as I'm quite the hyperactive talker (And yes, I have an official diagnosis of ADHD). Being silent for prolonged periods of time is not a strong point of mine. Yet last year I managed. It helped, of course, that last year it was a fairly popular event so there were several people in each of my classes participating. That and the fact nearly my whole group of friends did it. So nobody was talking at lunch and such. (Well, we mimed to each other, and wrote notes). Anyways, it was still a surprise to me last year that I managed.

This year, I wasn't all that apprehensive going into it; after all, I had already done it once. But this year was not quite as popular. In my classes I was the only one doing it. If I hadn’t only one other person would be doing it. Its not that people are rude about it, it just tends to take them a bit longer to figure out that they are supposed to be reading peoples miming techniques when fewer people are doing it... (yes, even though I was wearing a pin that said something like "protest homophobia" it took some people who sat right next to me a solid 10 or 15 minutes to figure out why I wasn't speaking.) And well, I like participating in class discussions so it’s hard to just shut up and not say anything!

Lunch though... Lunch was still like last year. All but two of my lunch time friends were doing the day of silence, so we spent lunch miming to each other and, when that failed, finding scrap paper to write to each other on. At times, even the two that could still talk would get so caught up in our nonverbal cues that they'd gesture back to us forgetting that they could talk. We had an interesting time trying to mime playing Frisbee. Two of my friends were already playing Frisbee, and another one of my friends was trying to get us all to go over and join them. I understood what she was trying to mime, but the other three there didn't get it for awhile. One of them thought she was trying to say she wanted to fly, and they were like "no, you can't fly away!"

I still managed. It’s hard to be silent and hyperactive simultaneously, especially at the beginning of the day, before you catch on how to manage. By the end of the day (I have a free period the last period of the day, as do three of my other friends, we all hang out then, but only one of them was talking today!) I needed a way to release energy. So I did cartwheels for about half an hour. I was pretty dizzy by the end. But it really did help me keep quiet.

Having a day when you don't speak, even when not thinking of the metaphor for being "in the closet", is a powerful experience. It is a real reminder of how important we as humans find communication; and how, even when communication is still open, that without or vocal chords many communication attempts become difficult. It makes you really value communication, and talking, in a whole new way. And, it also really helps make you "think before you talk". Because if it’s something, for example, you try to write a note to somebody about, by the time you finish writing the note it suddenly seems irrelevant and unimportant. In other words, I ramble significantly less, because it’s hard to do a rambled conversation with one person writing by hand, and the other person talking.

I would really recommend, to anyone who is in a position to do so, to go a day (or well, several hours) without speaking. And, uh, sleeping doesn't count, nor does any other time when you are perfectly by yourself. For obvious reasons, this is not something that many people could do while working, nor could many of the other people here do so in many of their situations. But if you ever have a several hour block while hanging with friends try just not speaking. Still mime, still gesture, still laugh, still write make shift notes. Just no talking. And try to get your friends to do it too. Even if you can only do that for an hour or so, it should still leave somewhat of an impact.

So, go forth, and be silent!