Well, it's happened. The stress, or perhaps the germs of the twenty-plus others I share a room with every night has caught up with me. I've lost my voice. Laryngitis? Strep throat? Just a bad cold? It really doesn't matter. I'm hoarse and sound like a frog trying to sing. It's really that bad.
Which then got me thinking of the irony of all this. I'm an interpreter. No voice? I don't work. It's that simple. It's on me to recover as quickly as possible and I have no doubt I'll bounce back. I'm not worried about that. Take this idea of an interpreter without a voice one step further. No interpreter (if I were the sole interpreter) means no words. No words means no communication (unless they revert to miming their words to get the point across).
This concept of "no words" has been something I've struggled with from day one here. I'm not someone who struggles with not finding the right words. Words make up my business and have for over twenty years. I know how to make myself clear. I know how to get my point across. Or, so I thought. Since being here, I have found myself with what I'll call "figurative laryngitis." I've lost the ability to find the right words. I have use the same words like "it's intense" or "catastrophic devastation" over and over again. Perhaps I need to start carrying a thesaurus with me? I feel stuck not being able to find the right words to properly describe what I'm seeing, feeling or hearing.
So, as I lay around taking all sorts of medication and hoping for a quick recovery, I'm going to spend the day looking for words to describe what I'm going through. I actually have time today. I can't speak and so I'm really not much good to anyone. Add to this, I'm probably a walking Petri dish of germs, contagious and all, so staying away from people would be a good thing today. This gives me time to reflect, so I will.
Oh. That walk I said I would be taking today? I won't be.
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