just returned from a weekend in Connecticut, a guest of my friend W at this 18th century farmhouse, amongst 9 other people. i don’t know why it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to find my voice. i can say that everyone speaks more than i do, but i always think they have more to say. and since I am trying to follow 5 simultaneous conversations occurring around me… something beyond my cognitive abilities… each conversation gets mushed together. the words have no spaces, no silences around them. they fly by too quickly for me follow. I get lost. and eventually i am somewhere else. there, but somewhere else.

this keeps happening more and more. and i wish it could not bother me. as I was leaving, W told me, “I don’t think I heard you utter more than 4 words last night.” i told W that actually i had uttered hundreds of thousands of words, a flurry, a flood of words, non-stop chatter. I just did not bother to speak any of them.

but this shyness thing… it’s really turning out to this huge inconvenience in my life. must figure out a new way to deal with it.