sing it for the world

Sooo I thought this entry got published last week, and then I see it sitting in my drafts folder….this was intended to go up on March 15th, and should clarify some of the risks I mention in RETREAT AND ATTACK.

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i've been thinking a lot lately about the ways we speak.

this is, in many ways, nothing new to me.  as a writer i spend an inordinate amount of time considering the ideology of expression.  how does word choice effect perception?  how does rhythm change the way we hear a thought?  how do things translate across languages, across subcultures, across genres?

i guess, at the crux of it all, how do we, as human beings, connect?

my voice is inexplicably tied up in water.  a fine misting rain makes me feel like i'm connected to everyone the world over, like i can touch my friends in scotland because droplet to droplet, the mist makes the world, the air, tangible.  like a thread drawn across the atlantic.  when i feel misunderstood and unheard and angry, i feel like i'm pounding on the wrong side of a frozen pond, trapped underneath the ice, while everyone i'm trying to talk to is above the water, mesmerized by the quietude.

and in the loneliest times of being a teen, i felt like i was lying in my backyard in the dead quiet of night as snow drifted down, blanketing me and freezing me and slowly stealing my voice away.

see? water.  I don't know what the deal with that is.  like i said, i can't explain it.

as i've grown up (a bit), I've always been confronted with the ways i can't speak.  the arguments with friends and roommates where i bit my tongue, the disagreements with coworkers or family, even the easy moments with the best of friends when you feel like there's something you want to say but you just don't know how to form the words.

yes, maybe as a writer i'm more concerned with it than most.

but now i get the chance to see it in a more proactive way.  working on IGNITE Change has been intense, in good ways and bad, and we're coming to a close for the 2011 contest.  the awards banquet is just about a month away, all the preparations have been made and set in motion for it, and i'm working on things for next year.  things to hear more voices, to let more voices speak up.

and i think this is what the story i'm writing is about too.  it's about staying silent, speaking up, hurting.  to be honest, it might be too close to home.  what i'm writing about is, in someways, not foreign at all from my own experience.  some of it is my experience.  some of it is the hardest things i've ever had to deal with.

i realize i'm being vague, but understand–this is a new voice for me.  i'll talk more about the project later, when its fully formed, but for now, i