My Monster and My Muse: Re-Writing the Colonial Hangover

Abstract

Silence. For me, not the absence of sound, but a point of entry into deep listening. What I hear and feel in silence is precisely what renders it complex. I have been conditioned to think of silence as alone. Lonely. Vulnerable to the companions that sometimes accompany silence who want blood, seek vengeance, and wreak havoc on my insides. I draw my breath in. As I listen to silence, silence in the ways the editors of this project engage it—as a space of possibility, resistance—my mind drifts to the weight of imposed silences. The kind of silence one leverages against another, uses as violence, that withholds or suffocates voice. Abject, ugly, lack—these are the places I am quick to turn as I contemplate (in) silence. The world and my place in it, I anticipate and imagine. In this space I tune into familiar narratives: I don’t want to (go). They won’t like me. I don’t know/where/to whom do I belong. Something/someone isn’t right, shouldn’t be trusted. Don’t move, stay home, stay still, go. Go now. Run. Something deep inside, something old, something I learned early, leads me first to what might do harm. To remain silent/ly watching, waiting. Locked in a posture of suspicion of people, places, movements. My learned life-body posture looks like this: hands stretched out in front of me, muscles tense, eyes aware. I want to maintain focus on the multiple expressions of silence as a communicative phenomenon and practice, as simultaneously occurring as well as interdependent with voice and the conditions that give rise to silence