A Child Crying for Fishes
In her personal essay, Aline reflects on her struggle with a mysterious vocal condition that hinders her speech. Through a contemplative bike ride, she explores the emotional toll of losing her voice, touching on themes of identity, isolation, and the search for inner peace amidst physical and mental challenges.
On the Twentieth of July, I woke up to find that I had once again lost my ability to speak. It did not surprise me. I just sat there, on the edge of my bed, heavy, until I found the courage to go downstairs and straight into my mother’s garden. It’s one of the only places where I can be silent and listen to someone else’s child cry.
Two years ago, I gave myself a relatively unserious yet heavily frustrating physical malfunction. My words suddenly lost their familiar sound. Since it appeared, my voice still does not have the same effortlessness as before, and it costs me a lot of energy to speak. Treatments helped, but not much. My old voice became a past I cannot seem to return to, a nostalgic idea. My efforts? Doctors, specialists, craniosacral therapy, meditation, reading, and long bike rides through my mother’s hometown.
“The garden is small, but it has roses, a cabin, bumblebees and tranquility. It calms me down most of the time. Especially when the sun warms up the weed-covered tiles and I can walk on them barefoot.”
I eavesdropped on the fight between my neighbor’s young child and her patient parents. A blond girl, strong opinion. I heard them through the wooden fence that separates my territory from theirs. The garden is small, but it has roses, a cabin, bumblebees and tranquility. It calms me down most of the time. Especially when the sun warms up the weed-covered tiles and I can walk on them barefoot. It reminds me of what can be, and how time stands still in certain places. How some days can only shelter one wish. All the child wanted was to feed the fishes. They were fed plenty, and she cried uncontrollably, wishing to sleep. Both the girl and the fishes were laid to bed unfed. It set the tone, proved that today would be particularly challenging for the both of us. Her heart and mine.
Loaded with the immense tension in my chest and throat, I dragged my grandmother’s bike out of the cabin. I wanted to restore my sense of relativity, of words, hoping to unlock my chest by thinking of other things and clearing my mind through sunny views. I wanted to bike away my thoughts, hoping to speak normally when my mother came home in the evening. Many wishes. Many hours.
I discovered an undiscovered area nearby. It was filled with oak trees, stained glass windows, houses from the eighteenth century, a few horses and some beige designer cows. The crown jewel of today’s ride was a secret bee garden full of flowers and a quiz on the habits of bees. I passed.
I count more poetic people each time I leave the house. I saw a man with a dog I did not fear, neither the man nor the dog. How rare it is not to live in anguish, I thought, all is well and all is in harmony. I started to become distracted as the scenery stood still, as new houses were half-built, new roles were filled, a husband and wife cooking on a Saturday afternoon in July.
“Their decision not to know me well has nothing to do with the sound of my voice, but with the new string of reality it caused. We spoke, and we fell in love.”
The hours outside took me to another time in history when I did not feel everything so tightly, when I did not exist or was very small. I thought of my neighbor’s dramatic inquiry, and I remembered someone I love, who shares stories about her own loved ones in secrecy, while sitting on her pastel blue coach with her eyes wide open. I thought of her as a conduit for souls, since she connects unknown people through the tales they tell her, which she then tells me. Innocently, without harming any of the people involved or creating an uncomfortable space between us. She puts me in a state of constantly growing to be so well-acquainted with strangers, while I continue not to know them at all, as they do not speak to me often. Their decision not to know me well has nothing to do with the sound of my voice, but with the new string of reality it caused. We spoke, and we fell in love.
Shades of green and orange started to form, and I wondered who knows me, truly. I wondered who still does against their will, almost reluctantly. I wondered who I still know yet now have no idea about. Who I will remember longer than I will know them. Who wishes to understand me through my own mind rather than through the minds of others. As these unsolvable questions traveled with me through the fields, my chest slowly dared to unlock. I sporadically tested the waters before by speaking when there was no one around, but it blocked again by the act of remembering. As if by being caught outside, it has to return to its home – my body.
Months of trial and error taught me to not view myself as ill, something I often spend my wish of the day on. The malfunction in my voice first appeared at a time of severe distress and pressure, predominantly to blame on the power of my own mind and its strong work-ethic. Both of us want to work hard and create something from nothing. Words, music. Two colleagues confessed how they caught each other carefully overhearing a conversation I was having. They agreed on my voice and accent being beautiful and worthy to listen to. Another colleague told me I needed to speak on our podcast, the same sentence my doctor said when I visited him for a different reason, hearing loss. The joy I experienced from these compliments was overshadowed by grief. “Yes,” I said, “maybe one day.”
I usually mention my speech condition before anyone notices first, to avoid a sudden wave of shame. “It’s a physical manifestation of mental dysfunction”, I explain, staying as cryptic as possible.
“Their conclusion and the lightness in their messaging made me feel lonely, isolated, and alienated. I felt like the first of a new species, with no one to share its new-born developments with.”
The exact cause and therefore the correct treatment is a mystery to both healthcare professionals and myself. During my first visits to a regular doctor, who referred me to a specialist, who referred me to a speech therapist, each of them told me that they had never encountered anything like this. Usually, that’s not hopeful. Their conclusion and the lightness in their messaging made me feel lonely, isolated, and alienated. I felt like the first of a new species, with no one to share its new-born developments with. I considered my voice an untamable animal. Left and right it tightens up, disappears, and suffocates at its own will. It bears the strength and determination I lack.
As months passed, many rides behind me, I wondered what it meant to me spiritually; what it came to teach me in this life. What the metaphor is. And as years passed, I grew angrier. The chronic misunderstandings and the many frustrations I had towards my medical journey started to weigh me down, together with the bizarre sensations I experienced constantly. It hurt, both physically and mentally. I was angry at how it influenced my confidence and my body language, blaming myself for overreacting and possibly making my symptoms worse. I rarely took the time to look inward, even when there were cameras sliding down from my mouth towards my vocal chords. In the hospital room, there was a big screen in front of me, and I was forced to watch the freak show of my own anatomy. Bizarre movie.
The finale? There is nothing wrong with me or my vocal chords. Anatomically, at least.
This constant conclusion slowly grew into a mantra. “There is nothing wrong with me, physically” I repeated to myself, sometimes thirty times a day, to soothe my mind from blame and torture, which I figured would only result in sturdier complaints. Untamable.
“Doctors can only achieve insight through medical devices such as throat-cameras and microscopes. And when they can’t find anything, test after test, you have to do it yourself.”
Managing seemingly unsolvable, undetectable ailments is hard. Really hard. Doctors can only achieve insight through medical devices such as throat-cameras and microscopes. And when they can’t find anything, test after test, you have to do it yourself. Conventional Western healthcare professionals offer help for what they are trained to understand. I don’t harbour resentment towards them. However, I know my body better than they do. And I live in my mind, more than I wish to. I understand both. Most of the time.
To this day, despite the mantra, despite the journeys, and despite the treatments, my voice still does not work as it should – especially in moments of intense emotion. Positive or negative, realized or unrealized. No difference. New people are challenging. I am unable to speak normally until I am calm, everywhere. I struggle to process exhaustion, both physically and mentally. Speculatively, the origin is a mix of stress, excitement, lack of rest, hormones, thoughts, creative blocks, and overthinking. I wish to derail my usual thought processes and replace them with the search for an answer to why I am experiencing this. I wish to see the message.
But answers come slowly. A handful of people calm my nervous system tremendously. I surround myself with them, and within minutes, all is well. A mystery.
I headed home. The end was near and I was tired enough to feel a normal burn in my throat and chest. It made me feel normal. Even if I could speak, I now lacked the energy or desire to do so. It is comforting, not wanting to when you can’t. The roads filled up with aristocratic couples who passed me by. Their expensive, nauseating scents followed behind with the wind, itching my nose and skin. I wondered if they would make it home before the dark. I wondered what thoughts occupied their minds, what they were trying to forget.
The sun was slowly setting, hours of exploration lay behind me. Candles were lit, bike stored, jeans caught in it.
All in vain, since the soft sounds of a guitar stroked with paint brushes in various sizes calmed me down eventually, together with the sound of my mother’s key in the lock. I lay down, wishing to sleep,
as a child crying for fishes.
Aline Janssen (she/her) is a literary scholar, writer, model and musician who enjoys sounds, listening to others speak and various types of sunlight. In recent years, she graduated in both Linguistics and Literature and Film- and Theatre Studies. She is currently working on her novel and album, both debuts, while writing for the Groene Amsterdammer and investigating side-quests such as visual arts, craniosacral therapy, solitude and possibly beekeeping.