Shut Up and Listen

I have moved a lot and every time I move I think, “This is the time I will be the quiet, mysterious one. The woman that leaves a lot unsaid. The woman who people wonder about because she said so little - but what she did say was so intriguing. The woman with the slightly foreign accent wrapped in a scent of sandal wood.”

It hasn’t worked yet because I talk too much. Only when I hit the age of 35 did it dawn on me that if you don’t tell people things, they don’t know. For some reason I have felt compelled to tell everybody, everything, all the time, whether they were interested or not.

Then we moved to the UK where it is socially unacceptable to divulge much of anything, ever. Unless you are drunk. You barely nod acknowledgement to people whom you do know as you walk down the street, let alone a stranger. Then there is the whole protocol when it comes to the morning school run that I had to learn as I would walk the mile to the Hampstead Garden Suburb Infant School to drop Simon for reception, the US equivalent of preschool. Women, mostly all women, whom I would walk next to everyday under the large arcade would not share a glace, god forbid a smile. After the first term there might be an acknowledging look, after the second term a half smile, towards the end of the year, a slight wave.

On my low self esteem days I would think, “These women with their posh British accents have all attended Oxford, grown up with Dickens and Shakespeare and are probably dropping their kids off before they return to their massive 17th century home libraries to translate Chaucer and just can’t be bothered with the unwashed masses such as myself.”

On my better self esteem days I would think, “This nation is so repressed and stuck in its ridiculous social classes that nobody can acknowledge anyone without a proper introduction. They are missing all the fun in life!”

And then I went out to lunch with an American woman whom a friend from the US had introduced me to. She had just moved to London and was in the market for friendship, information on the city, and the gossip about the local school. I had been living in London for a number of years and I could fill her in. Over the course of our one hour lunch she didn’t stop talking a second. By the time we asked for the bill I knew where she was born, went to college, her children’s learning issues, her professional life, her part relationships, her future travel plans, her relationship with her husband, her hopes, dreams and bowel movement patterns.

Profound observation of the absurdly obvious: The more someone else talks, the less you have to talk. And the more this woman talked the less I wanted to tell her anything about myself. When we said goodbye I felt as if I was walking away from a one night stand – bowled over, exhausted, used and making a promise to myself to never to be the chatter like her again.

Over the past three months since we have been on the road I am talking less and less. Given, I don’t have as many people to talk to and the three people I am with are mostly interested in the latest Hero’s episode, computer role play games, and bionicles. But I have also had more time by myself than I have ever had – by myself but not alone.

I am realizing it is ok to be quiet with others in the room. I don’t feel compelled to fill up the room with my chatter. And I realize that most of my chatter was about the adventures of the day and the people I had encountered. When you live with people 24/7 there are no adventures they don’t already know about. And since most of our adventures are of the remote variety – we don’t have as many encounters with other people in the course of the day.

I am learning to listen more. Snow shoeing for a couple of hours around Crater Lake we stopped to listen to the quiet. The silence was deafening. Not a bird. No wind. No airplanes. No cars. Just stillness.

When we finally land, maybe this will be the time I will start speaking with a slight accent, change my name to Elise, and dab myself with sandal wood perfume.