Sunday I was at a book talk/signing in Chester, Vt., and my voice started cracking mid-way through, it got scratchier and scratchier, I kept clearing my throat. I suspected I was getting sick and the next day I got walloped with a grade A cold, I lost my voice completely, I was just exhausted and moved around in a fogy and haze. I got to the nurse practitioner Wednesday and she listened to my froggy squeaking and ruled my illness a common cold. Just make sure and rest she said, and i thought, oh sure, I’ll rest a lot on a book tour. But I didn’t have much choice.

Maria had some fun with my voicelessness, we went off to our Inn and I couldn’t speak at all, it was funny for sure, but it also got to me in an interesting and peculiar way. My throat hurt so much I began to wonder what I would do if I didn’t recover, if I lost my voice for good, what it would be like to live in a world of listening. I don’t think I have ever lost my voice, even at my worst I always spoke up for myself – sometimes too loudly. I value silence now in meditation and I kept away from my technology all through the Thanksgiving holiday, the  break was refreshing.

But the experience of voicelessness was a powerful experience for me – I can’t quite speak yet, although it is better. I had to find other ways to communicate with Maria, I used hand signals and loud whispers, she understood almost all of what I was saying. I listened to conversations, I experienced a silence within my self that I came to like – our world is so noisy, so filled with messages and alerts. I like contributing silence.

I seemed to pay attention more, to hear more and notice more, without my words scouting the world in front of me.

The quiet felt melancholic to me after awhile, almost lonely, I began to think of the voiceless, literally and metaphorically, the people who can’t speak or are never heard, even if they have a voice. Speaking is our way of navigating the world, I felt some twinges of panic at not being able to express myself, I carried my camera with me everywhere, if I could not speak with words, Perhaps I could capture some images that would speak for me, photography can do that.

I couldn’t make phone calls, couldn’t engage in the small talk that occurs when one runs into other guests at an inn, did they think me rude for nodding at them and walking by? My voicelessness made Maria nervous at first, she said she was not used to a Jon Katz without a voice, neither was I. It is remarkable what we take for granted, we humans, I cannot remember ever losing my voice before, I will appreciate it when it returns, I will be grateful for this eerie and different (and spiritual perspective) in the meantime. I had a dream last night about monks in a silent order, I wondered if they didn’t learn to trade emotions by feel and smell, the way animals do.

My voice is not back yet, neither is my strength.