no more laryngitis

Back in February I “broke” my blog. It has been down until now. It may seem like I lost my voice; In some ways I had, yet I also kept writing without opportunity for “public consumption”. I am slowly posting some of the thoughts and posts I wrote over the last 6 months. I will admit that I struggled occasionally when I could not see words I chewed on, orchestrated and shared, and that I felt “muffled”. It felt like being out in public with a mask on. I know that most of the world wears a mask these days to protect from coronavirus, but some have had face coverings for more than just that! Learning to be real and communicate without a voice is difficult at best, but I am glad to have this means back!

Hopefully my analogy makes sense. Since our earliest days, human beings have been incredibly attuned to reading the facial expressions of others. We process faces as a whole rather than focusing on individual features. When we cannot the whole face, the communication process is disrupted. Have you ever felt misunderstood while wearing a mask? I have. People can’t see me smile. Some cannot even understand me as they have hearing loss and the ability to read lips has been denied them by the mask. Have you noticed most people are more reserved when wearing a face covering? I have. Have noticed how dangerous texting can be without intonation and body language? At the same time I am not meaning to narrow our interactions with people to just facial expression. It is only part of the process, but with that missing it becomes even more imperative that we accentuate other senses that help us communicate.

Having a mask on also can sometimes feel like there is a physical barrier between the people trying to communicate! Zoom is not the same as being in the same room and it is more difficult to get interactive conversation. Well, all this is to say that not having my blog has been difficult and I didn’t do a good job at communicating!