Stories of Silence: First Impression

Hello Lovely People!

I’m finally getting my act together to blog about my experience with the week in silence, starting out small with my first interaction!

It wasn’t actually until 2 on Friday, April 4^th that I decided to do this endeavour. As stated in my first week in silence post, I decided to do this when I realized I had not talked to anyone all day while I was on my way to buy knitting supplies. Consequentially, the first interaction I had with anyone was at Baaad Anna’s Wool Store, a cutesy little hipster mecca style wool store on East Hastings.

The girl who was working was nice enough, about my age with cool orange and purple hair. She greeted me kindly; we had been in this situation before. I opened my mouth to say he-NO! NO I WILL NOT SPEAK!

 I froze for a millisecond, mouth open still. This was the moment to test my resolve, to see if I could actually do this. I steeled myself and, closing my mouth, nodded at her instead of my usual hello.

Yes! First test done! 39,492 to go!

I proceeded to browse through around the store, picking up the wool I wanted and staring longingly at the pretty alpaca wool I would have to sell my kidney to afford. I then stopped, mid alpaca wool caress. I realized I didn’t know what type of needle I needed for this project and had no idea how to ask the girl.

Crap! I did not think this through!

I looked around to see if there were any hipster leaflets I could write on, but none presented themselves. I smiled sheepishly at the girl who was watching me (I was the only one in the store). Quickly, I pulled out my phone and opened the notebook app, typing a quick “what needle do I need to sew wool with?” and passed it to her, complete with awkward smile/shrug. She looked at me a little strangely before taking it and reading it. She then smiled shyly and showed me where the needles were, before asking the inevitable “do you have laryngitis?”

I reaaaaaly didn't want to say yes. When I had thought my plan through in my head, I imagined miming out what I was doing, or at least having a notepad nearby to explain the personal challenged aspect. But this was kinda on the spot, and no planning had been made. I was feeling super nervous and doubting whether I could do this, so just for simplicity sake I nodded and took the needles from her. We then went to the counter, she checked my items out, I paid, she smiled good bye and I rushed out of the store.

Whew! Outta there! Thank God! In retrospect, it wasn’t actually all that awkward; as far as first interactions could go it was pretty tame. But I was still a bit disappointed with the laryngitis thing. If I was going to do this endeavour, I wanted to do it honestly, not use the cheap laryngitis escape route. This was not only about testing my resolve, but watching people’s reactions to something outside of the norm. It was a whole challenge to the way that we interact and communicate. So I couldn’t use excuses if I wanted the full effect!

I vowed to get the stuff I needed to communicate effectively without a voice what I was doing, so I wouldn't have to use that excuse again. I regret to say may have failed a couple more times on that aspect, but that’s for another story...

That’s all for now, tune in for others stories of the Week in Silence throughout the next couple of weeks!