Self Portrait Tuesday

This month's challenge is to catch yourself doing something silly, crazy, out of the box. I started today's project with this idea in mind, but I'm afraid I ended up with exactly the opposite effect. Seriousness is a pitfall for me.

I'm frustrated sometimes with the way I speak. I'm not articulate enough; I'm still afraid of making grammatical and pronunciation mistakes even though I've spoken English for more than ten years. More times than I can remember I fantasized, as I waited, so nervous my whole body shook, to give a presentation in a college class -- I fantasized about a world in which I could communicate telepathically.

I went back to this fantasy for today's self portrait. What if I were able to keep quiet for the rest of my life? What if I clamped my hand over my mouth in order not to let any words out? What if I never had to speak again? Unfortunately, I love words too much. They would come out in the end, slip through my fingers like a liquid. They would inscribe themselves on my hands. My body would become covered with the shapes of the words I'd be refusing to speak.

Now that is wild: a world full of people carrying their words on their skin. We would be more careful, I think, about words if they could become part of ourselves in this way. And we need to be more careful. We waste words too often. We abuse them. We take them for granted.