Tired

I'm beginning to feel all written out – and we're not even halfway through the semester. I suppose, mostly, it's because I feel like my voice has been overused of late. When I'm not speaking, my blog posts are speaking for me. When I'm staying silent in class, I'm still, somehow, making a statement. I feel as though I'm never truly silent. Sommer talks a lot about silence as a way "ethnic" writers draw a line and mark where they need to be respected. Rigoberta says, "I'm still keeping secret what I think no-one should know," and reminds us who really has the power in her novel. But I feel we're not doing enough of that in our classroom. Last week, HSBurke said she thought it was ironic that in a class about silence we were "ALL SO LOUD." I agree. As I work on becoming a better listener, I want to also work on being a better person of silence. During our lunch meeting on Friday, when icouldntthinkofanoriginalname mentioned that she felt we shouldn't feel pressured to speak about personal topics, but that there is value in sharing, I wondered the opposite. Isn't there also value in not sharing?

I'd like to follow the lead of Jesusa Palancares, quoted in Sommer's introduction, "Advertencia/Warning" and simply say, "Fuck off, now. Go away and let me sleep."