1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:13,720 My name is breana and this is breana Radio. 2 00:00:13,720 --> 00:00:24,920 These words are the first words that I've spoken in three days, except for a very faint 3 00:00:24,920 --> 00:00:33,280 Hi on day one. 4 00:00:33,280 --> 00:00:48,560 I started my silence nervous, sort of counting the minutes up until midnight. 5 00:00:48,560 --> 00:01:02,440 I felt this fear that I wasn't sure what this process was going to look like and feel like, 6 00:01:02,440 --> 00:01:09,080 how I would be able to care for myself and interact with the world. 7 00:01:09,080 --> 00:01:19,440 But by the time I made it to maybe the second day, somewhere within the second day, I wasn't 8 00:01:19,440 --> 00:01:21,520 sure if I was going to speak again. 9 00:01:21,520 --> 00:01:23,840 This feels good. 10 00:01:23,840 --> 00:01:26,240 I like this. 11 00:01:26,240 --> 00:01:28,400 This rest. 12 00:01:28,400 --> 00:01:34,280 I've been thinking a lot about rest. 13 00:01:34,280 --> 00:01:40,000 Rest for the body, for the mind. 14 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:53,080 But over the last 72 hours, I tried resting the voice. 15 00:01:53,080 --> 00:01:58,480 And not all of those moments were in solitude. 16 00:01:58,480 --> 00:02:00,320 I did different things. 17 00:02:00,320 --> 00:02:09,440 Like I got an oil change, I went to 10,000 Waves, which is splendid and also a sort of 18 00:02:09,440 --> 00:02:14,280 spa like Disneyland now. 19 00:02:14,280 --> 00:02:17,280 Got food. 20 00:02:17,280 --> 00:02:27,080 I was curious to watch the way that folks related to me in silence. 21 00:02:27,080 --> 00:02:36,000 Overall, there was a lot of kindness and sweetness that I received. 22 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:47,720 There are so many moments that I use language to interject. 23 00:02:47,720 --> 00:02:53,200 Verbal language, when body language is sufficient, eye contact. 24 00:02:53,200 --> 00:03:02,640 It was sweet to notice how these tools were available to me and how often folks were ready 25 00:03:02,640 --> 00:03:17,600 and available to help me, connect with me, even without conversation. 26 00:03:17,600 --> 00:03:25,520 I also noticed folks seeming kind of anxious. 27 00:03:25,520 --> 00:03:35,960 Like my not speaking affected their ability to be a person in some way. 28 00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:47,400 Good number of people that I connected with believed I was deaf and in relationship to 29 00:03:47,400 --> 00:03:52,600 that spoke louder or softer. 30 00:03:52,600 --> 00:03:57,240 Maybe stopped speaking altogether. 31 00:03:57,240 --> 00:04:06,760 And shout out to the homie Monica Watson who encouraged me to try this practice. 32 00:04:06,760 --> 00:04:18,040 Gave me some tools like touching one's throat to indicate that you aren't speaking. 33 00:04:18,040 --> 00:04:24,200 But she hit me well before I began this practice that people might whisper if you said that 34 00:04:24,200 --> 00:04:28,520 you weren't speaking or if you gestured to it. 35 00:04:28,520 --> 00:04:31,880 And that did happen. 36 00:04:31,880 --> 00:04:38,640 I found myself interested in being able to use gesture to communicate. 37 00:04:38,640 --> 00:04:53,520 I took ASL in high school but haven't used it in so long that it's not available to me. 38 00:04:53,520 --> 00:04:59,160 I want to recommit to that practice. 39 00:04:59,160 --> 00:05:17,960 Recommit to that form of communication in solidarity with our deaf comrades. 40 00:05:17,960 --> 00:05:25,080 I came to this decision as a way of saving energy. 41 00:05:25,080 --> 00:05:42,560 Throughout my life I've felt this requirement to fight to be heard, to be understood. 42 00:05:42,560 --> 00:05:59,840 And in this season of my life, I've been really falling back on that fight. 43 00:05:59,840 --> 00:06:04,520 I have a mentor, Susan Raffo. 44 00:06:04,520 --> 00:06:11,200 She authored the amazing text, Liberate to the Bone, and is currently walking across 45 00:06:11,200 --> 00:06:17,400 the United States if you want to track her progress. 46 00:06:17,400 --> 00:06:26,360 She said something to me multiple times that plays and replays in my mind that anything 47 00:06:26,360 --> 00:06:35,080 can be a tool or a weapon. 48 00:06:35,080 --> 00:06:44,760 So I've been considering how do I use my voice as a tool and when do I use it as a weapon, 49 00:06:44,760 --> 00:06:51,920 a weapon against myself and against others. 50 00:06:51,920 --> 00:07:06,080 One of my comrades and long-time friends, Mara is a speech pathologist in San Francisco 51 00:07:06,080 --> 00:07:22,720 and I remember her sharing with me that the larynx and the trachea anatomically look very 52 00:07:22,720 --> 00:07:31,880 similar to the vagina and the uterus, that our throat and the facets of our throat that 53 00:07:31,880 --> 00:07:42,400 offer us speech are so interconnected in form and shape to our reproductive organs or some 54 00:07:42,400 --> 00:07:47,160 of our reproductive organs. 55 00:07:47,160 --> 00:07:52,960 This thought around the vocal cords and the pelvic floor and her work to support folks 56 00:07:52,960 --> 00:08:08,000 with speech and noticing how prevalent sexual assault, sexual violence has been for these 57 00:08:08,000 --> 00:08:18,080 humans that are trying to find their way back to speech. 58 00:08:18,080 --> 00:08:32,280 Having this connection between loss of voice, loss of agency makes me think about when it 59 00:08:32,280 --> 00:08:48,200 is no longer safe to inhabit our body, to use our voice. 60 00:08:48,200 --> 00:08:57,640 About ten years ago, I was prepping for an interview and an elder shared this book with 61 00:08:57,640 --> 00:09:01,440 me mailing the interview. 62 00:09:01,440 --> 00:09:07,160 It was an hour-long audio book. 63 00:09:07,160 --> 00:09:15,560 In listening to it, they speak about voice in the interview process. 64 00:09:15,560 --> 00:09:25,960 I remember them saying to take pauses, to drink water, that if you enter an interview 65 00:09:25,960 --> 00:09:33,240 space and they offer you water, say yes. 66 00:09:33,240 --> 00:09:38,720 Finding your way to the breath. 67 00:09:38,720 --> 00:09:53,280 They also share how in our society, folks who are conditioned as girls or as women frequently 68 00:09:53,280 --> 00:10:02,560 are taught to end their statements in a very specific way. 69 00:10:02,560 --> 00:10:12,080 At the end of every sentence, maybe we lift the voice and as we lift the voice, we come 70 00:10:12,080 --> 00:10:15,120 on a little less strong. 71 00:10:15,120 --> 00:10:22,560 Like everything is a question. 72 00:10:22,560 --> 00:10:28,960 I have been noticing this more and more in conversation. 73 00:10:28,960 --> 00:10:43,920 Femmes and thems who at the end of sentences leave a little bit of their power to be taken. 74 00:10:43,920 --> 00:10:47,640 I have done this a lot. 75 00:10:47,640 --> 00:10:56,320 There is a California girl deep within here. 76 00:10:56,320 --> 00:11:08,840 It's sweet to use my voice, this instrument, in a different way. 77 00:11:08,840 --> 00:11:15,760 Thinking about the rate of speech and how it connects to my nervous system. 78 00:11:15,760 --> 00:11:31,800 How speaking quickly, speaking without ceasing affects my internal world. 79 00:11:31,800 --> 00:11:40,920 Versus a measured speech. 80 00:11:40,920 --> 00:11:49,840 I grew up listening to vocal gods and goddesses. 81 00:11:49,840 --> 00:11:52,880 James Baldwin comes to mind. 82 00:11:52,880 --> 00:11:59,600 A timber that will live in me forever. 83 00:11:59,600 --> 00:12:17,200 Dr. Maya Angelou, orators who understood the use of voice in such a powerful way. 84 00:12:17,200 --> 00:12:24,320 Dr. Angela Davis. 85 00:12:24,320 --> 00:12:27,320 Such sweetness. 86 00:12:27,320 --> 00:12:46,160 My father has my favorite voice. 87 00:12:46,160 --> 00:12:59,320 I remember one of his former partners talking to me about going to a concert with my dad. 88 00:12:59,320 --> 00:13:07,480 They are at this concert and they are at a table with all these women. 89 00:13:07,480 --> 00:13:14,640 The microphone is going around for folks to sing a little bit of this song. 90 00:13:14,640 --> 00:13:18,840 And the microphone makes its way to my dad. 91 00:13:18,840 --> 00:13:27,240 And in this deep timber that he holds, she said all the women turned and looked like 92 00:13:27,240 --> 00:13:32,320 who is he? 93 00:13:32,320 --> 00:13:35,440 That's my dad. 94 00:13:35,440 --> 00:13:46,760 That's that voice. 95 00:13:46,760 --> 00:13:53,200 That story is probably 30 years old. 96 00:13:53,200 --> 00:14:01,040 If you call my dad's phone now, the voicemail is dejected. 97 00:14:01,040 --> 00:14:02,040 Sad. 98 00:14:02,040 --> 00:14:14,200 It sounds like he recorded his voice memo after like four days of doubles or something 99 00:14:14,200 --> 00:14:16,240 like that. 100 00:14:16,240 --> 00:14:21,360 But that voice is still in there. 101 00:14:21,360 --> 00:14:26,720 That sweet depth. 102 00:14:26,720 --> 00:14:29,240 I can hear him in my mind calling me breezy. 103 00:14:29,240 --> 00:14:39,440 It's one of the things my family calls me. 104 00:14:39,440 --> 00:14:49,520 So I ask you, how do you use your voice as a tool? 105 00:14:49,520 --> 00:14:58,440 A tool for yourself, your relationships, community. 106 00:14:58,440 --> 00:15:03,840 How do you use your voice as a weapon? 107 00:15:03,840 --> 00:15:31,840 Again, against yourself, against others.