I discovered an interesting thing about myself while I was away. Maybe I knew it along.
Have you ever worked in an old fashioned darkroom. With film, good old fashioned honest film. You expose your image with a light projector through the negative and onto the photo paper, then in your dark room you slide that blank paper into the developer, it is like water in a tray and gently you rock the developer tray up and down, up and down with the paper moving gently in the fluid until the image, like slow magic, begins to appear on the paper, it is distant and faded at first but soon it becomes clear and sharp. Soon you see exactly what you have and all the things you did not mean to have. Largely Un-edited. Complete.
Then you wash it through a tray full of water, working your way down your counter and then into another tray that holds the fixer. The fixer solution seals the image to the paper. Then you wash your finished photograph in water again, and dry it. Then you look at it and think about it.
Sometimes my thoughts are like this. I have to rock them for a while in the solution – letting the image slowly form then move these thoughts through all the steps until they are crystal clear and allowed out into the light to dry. And be considered.
I learnt that I am no longer afraid of being alone. In fact after days of normal family life this last week, I found myself floundering sightly. Unable to find the words. Resorting to the kitchen for my expression.
I almost always say the wrong thing. After years and years of saying the first thing that came into my head, I find myself choosing my words more carefully now that I live in a foreign country. Then slowly my words sigh back into the silence. I listen more. Wait. Nod. Watch.
I find I have lost the ability to join conversations. After the long hours of silence that accompanies my days I find that I need to search for a word. They will trip off my fingers but not my tongue.
I have become solitary. Or at least my ability to be solitary is clear now. It is something I am good at.
I find it easier to talk to animals. Though I seldom use actual language. Or even English for that matter.
I think many old fashioned farmers are like this. We move our cows, calling them through the gates, we walk about the sheep feeling their cool noses and watching them walk, we watch the pigs leaning on the fences saying good piggy, good fat piggy.
Except when the biggest fat piggie breaks into the chook-house. You forgot to put the barrier thingy back up, miss c. Hmm. Did you eat all the eggs Sheila? I ask. Never, says Sheila. Big, fat, liar piggie.
See you can’t talk to people like that – especially with an accent. But I can do it all day long with the animals because they don’t care what my words are they only listen to my tone. When they hear the laughter tone in the words – that is what they feel – laughter.
There is an etiquette for talking to people. I missed that page.I was absent that day. My gaze is just a little too direct. My answers just a little too considered. My articulation a little too precise as I feel about with my tongue for the word that would make sense. My silences just a little too telling. I take what people say at face value. My sense of smell is so precise that I have trouble controlling the flare of my nostrils and that little lift of my chin as I follow a scent. My hands are too busy. There is no delete button for my mouth. So I am careful with it.
This is why I am better out here on the prairies. This is why farmers like us have hair that sticks up all over, nothing but chapstick on our lips, we tie up our pants with baling twine, and wear odd socks and slop about in boots.. not fancy cowboy boots but mucky gumboots. Farm life is judgement free. Cows don’t care.
I have discovered that I have come a long way from my High Street life. And I am realising that I may never be able to go back. One thing I know for sure.. I eat well. But quietly. Lucky Our John is the Silent One. Lucky for me that I have you. When we write we can make sure our words are what we mean.
Left to myself.. would I become a recluse?
Would you?
Have a lovely day. I will. I do.
your friend on the farmy,
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
78 responses to “The lack of chatter in the box”
A beautifully written post Celia and one that I can relate to so easily. There are days when I crave solitutude – when I just want to cut and run from the conversation that’s not going anywhere, that’s pointless, becomes awkward, verging on painful… Reclusive potential in the future? Perhaps… Though my heart is always warmed by those free-flowing, relaxed and thoughtful conversations to be had from time to time with people/friends who more often than not are of a similar nature to myself. The words are not squandered and wasted on those days…
Very reassuring C that we’re all normal. I’ve just had a long conversation with an Eastern yellow robin; he just nodded sagely to my discourse while waiting for me to uncover a worm. E
While I am thinking about it, how is the soap coming along? Done the tongue zap test yet? lol
Never having been a team player, even as a child I gravitated towards the solitary type sports and activities. Archery, horseback riding, etc. As an only child I grew up being by myself mostly. Now I do solitary things like spinning and weaving. Soapmaking and stained glass windows and taking care of our assorted critters and pets. We live in what is considered to be remote rural and town is 10 miles away. No people or traffic to intrude on my solitude. When I wish to talk to somebody I just have to go to the store and there everybody knows everybody else. Takes about 2 hours to get just a couple of items. There…all caught up on what is going on. Back to my farmy and quietness from humans. Chatting with the animals is much more interesting. There is a difference between being a recluse and a hermit, eh?
Sheila is a totally wonderful piggy. Great attitude! Missed the CUTENESS today, but Sheila made up for it.
Hear, hear.
I will echo everyone else, what a wonderful post. I too do well at being by myself. Having owned and operated a service type business for 20 some years I am well able to relate on a slightly superficial level with people but it’s a learned thing. There are some people I enjoy being with but after a certain amount of time I begin to feel claustrophobic and need to get away. I’ve often thought there might be something basically ‘wrong’ with me as I don’t have a group of girlfriends to whom I can bare my soul so I thank you for making me see there are many of us out there even though I heard for years that I was odd because I never desired children and it really didn’t matter to me if I married or not (from my mother no less). That said I did marry at 45, a widower who likes the tv on for background and talks to the dogs, to the tv, to himself!! Fortunately he is a hunter and fisher so goes off on his own allowing me to recharge in the quiet. At social events I often feel invisible and very often inaudible as well but I’m told I write wonderful letters (one every other week for 3-1/2 years to a step daughter in the Peace Corps) and the mental discourses I have are quite wonderful. So thank you for the validation that ‘still waters’ do indeed ‘run deep.’
Excellent post Celi! We can be our true selves with animals, they don’t judge us or care what we look like . . . they love us, warts n’ all!
My hubby can talk the hind legs off a donkey but not me – I’ve never been a talker, but I am a good listener and enjoy my own company.
The Fellowship of the Farmy seem to have a lot in common!
oh, absolutely! a recluse farmgirl. so am i. i find it easy to talk with “clients” on the job, but simple conversations amongst folks in general, so difficult. it is easier for me to talk to the animals or sing my fool head off whilst i am outdoors.
i love your posts.
i love your farm.
Wonderful post Celi… so validating for so many of us, I now find… I thought I was the odd one out. I need silence and solitude so badly that we now have ‘Tuesday’ – on Tuesday we have silence in the house, no talking, and often we have a Tuesday on a Wednesday or Thursday or a Sunday… whenever I feel I need it… my husband just accepts it now !
The silence becomes sacred, and I remind him that a black- American-native- American friend told me that she was brought up by her native American grandparents, and the house was silent, it being one of their beliefs that you did not speak unless you had something to say – no idle chatter. I hang in there with this piece of information… it saves my life.
You just sound like a very sane person to me, Celi. That could be because I talk to myself in tongues, rage against the inanity of our society and its workings and thankfully find myself, with Jenny, in a peaceful place.
I thought I was unusual – perhaps I’m not quite so. Having been brought up as an only child by my Dad and nanna in a quiet house, I was very used to amusing myself and now retired I can choose to be social or spend time doing what I love – working on the property – and arguing or singing along to the radio which I often have with me. These days I tend to forget what I want to say or I go blank in the middle of a conversation, which I just put down to getting older or early onset of something nasty. I suppose I’m saying its the conversation for the sake of making conversation that I dont do well. However, my golden retriever, Honey, talks a lot, especially when the food is late arriving. Joy
Best post ever Celi! I am the eldest of 7!!!!! LOL Lots of only one child in the family above. Interesting! 😉 We are who we are..and it’s okay!
I believe I would, Celi. I already spend a lot of time on my own, a lot of it outdoors on the new property, cleaning up the mess that was left behind by the former owners. I wish I could come spend a couple of days on your farmy and learn a thing or two about animals. I’ve got the space and a coop for chickens, have been thinking about guineafowl (to take care of the tick problem), but I’ve no idea what to do with them. I don’t learn well by reading. I have to read and follow it up with hands-on experience or at least someone showing me the way.
I do like to see and spend some time in company, but the older I get, the more I like to come home to my own space and think my own thoughts.
oh, i have the same feeling! since i am in israel i am a listener, a nodder, a loner. i started to need time for myself, all alone. and i am for sure talking to findus our cat, and now also the farm animals here… =) maybe it is an immigrants thing?
I find my ability to converse has decreased over the years and thought at first it might be an age thing but a couple of my friends actually have become more verbose with age. I used to be the center of attention which I enjoyed but now it just seems like too much trouble 🙂