Breaking Glass: From Vulnerability to Full Voice

“Breaking Glass” Felt tip on paper by Melanie Merle, 2018

By Melanie Merle
“All serious daring starts from within.” -- Eudora Welty, On Writing
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I read an article recently about how the throat opens, how singers train the apparatus of voice -- how singing properly feels completely different in the body than one might imagine. Like certain smells or flavors — or sex or giving birth — the act of open-throated singing is pretty much impossible to describe. Even the label “open throat” is inaccurate. The throat only widens a few millimeters, though it feels cavernous. The sensation of the opening, of the voice freed from the body, is an illusion.



By contrast, in the recent glut of headlines, arguments on social media, I am choked. Through the constant influx of disturbing information, I am witness to pain, grief, chaos. I feel trapped between seeking quiet and screaming urgency. The fact I have a choice between using my voice, in relative safety, and choosing silent observation, speaks to privilege. At worst, I face ostracization by/from friends and family who don’t share my opinions. At best, my words might offer solace to those who are like-minded and feeling alone. Vocalizing on social media or walking together in marches has proven a source of strength and community for people who feel powerless and isolated, particularly those living in places where they find themselves in the minority.



I see the use of voice equivalent to having or using power -- as in, my voice is a powerful tool, and I may or may not choose to use it.  When I am shouted down (say, on social media or at the Thanksgiving table), someone attempts to control my voice. My power (my ability) to speak is ever present, though I may stay quiet to conform to social niceties. We all face those moments. That's not the same as a true threat of violence, the loss of job, etc. -- real factors for many who fight inequities in our culture.



Rebecca Solnit makes an important distinction between our reasons for silence, stating “What is unsaid because serenity and introspection are sought and what is not said because the threats are high or the barriers are great are as different as swimming is from drowning.”
 


It’s easier to disappear into a book or the bubble of a yoga class than to pen this blog post. But I don’t want to drown.


So my mandate as a writer now becomes:  how to give power to the voice, and perhaps, in doing so, embolden others who remain silent to speak? Because I don’t believe I’m alone. I believe there’s a slow gathering of voices and a stubborn refusal to drown. Or, in the words of Anais Nin, "The day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom”



Creative writing teachers, especially in workshops, like to ask “what is at stake” in a piece, suggesting our writing finds its power, its center, in what’s at stake. I have come to see that concept extend beyond our writing, however, to ourselves. The act of writing -- being an act of performance, of informing community --  makes the writer vulnerable. The real "what's at stake" is the writer. We are what's at stake.

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The vulnerability is real. To press through the vulnerability -- to arrive in a place of full voice, of honesty, in the writing expresses power to the audience. So what is it to have sound caught in your throat? What is it to have words trapped in the body? And how do we train ourselves, as writers, to translate to paper the power of what we feel, but struggle to name? We practice.
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When I feel sound caught in my throat, I come to this writing practice which has often helped bring the sound to paper.  

​Create a word cache by making a list of words, free-associating with the concepts “open” and “close,” as in “open is _____” and “close is _____,” or “opened is _____” and “closed is _____.”

Write out as much as you can remember about a time when you felt most free.

Write out as much as you can remember about a time when you felt constricted. 

Write out as much as you can remember about a time you took a risk.

​Write a few paragraphs or 10-12 lines as a set of rules, drawing from your word cache and your memories. 

​Then, just as we might take up singing or baking or knitting, or yoga, we practice. One of my favorite yoga teachers is fond of saying, “It’s called ‘yoga practice,’ not ‘yoga -- got it!’” He snaps his fingers for emphasis, and chuckles at us as we sweat and groan and fight for another millimeter in a forward fold, drawing us away from the illusion that that millimeter is what matters. In that way, we practice writing. 

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As writers, I believe we begin with audacity. We accept that we were not designed for everyone to like what we have to say.  We dare to look inward and unhinge the thing locked in the throat, to then commit to outward expression and let ourselves become “what’s at stake”. We get good at saying what we want to say, open-throated and unafraid.