Early this week, I lost my voice. It didn’t hurt. For two days, when I forced air over my vocal cords, nothing came out but a faint wheeze. It may have been related to the mono or to the Cox-Sackie virus the boys now have (Minor’s case comes with the popular mouth-sores option!) or, who knows, it may be related to Dog’s gastroenteritis. Or none of the above. Whatever; for the first two days of my vacation, I couldn’t talk.

On Monday night, I went to yoga, and when I greeted the teacher with a croak and she realized I had laryngitis, she said, “Maybe you’re meant not to talk for a while.” I’m not a big proponent of the mode of thinking that assigns universal motives to random occurrences. If there is a God, I’m pretty sure he didn’t send a virus to attack my vocal cords just to teach me a Life Lesson. But as a good English major, I’m all for making meaning out of the text in front of you, so I thought, “Okay. Laryngitis. A good opportunity to listen instead of talk.”

After an hour of yoga we settled into savasana, the final meditation (otherwise known as “short nap”), and I had to admit I felt much better NOT trying to talk. The teacher advised us to take in a deep breath and then let it out in one quick exhale. We did so, and the person next to me burst into sobs.

BURST. Into. Sobs.

I didn’t know what to do. I was on my back with my eyes closed, of course, so it was easy enough to pretend that nothing was happening. I wasn’t sure if she would prefer anonymity or comfort. I thought the teacher would know what to do, so I stayed put. Everyone remained silent. After class, while I was rolling up my yoga mat, the crying woman slipped out the door. The rest of us made small talk about the weather while we packed up to go. Or, rather, they made small talk, and I wheezed along.

I felt terrible for this woman. I guess you never know what people are carrying around inside of them. Ironically, it’s easier to get sympathy for small pains than large ones. “How are you?” “Terrible, the kids are sick and I’m exhausted.” “Oh, poor thing, I hope you feel better!” As opposed to: “How are you?” “Terrible, I’ve been sunk in a severe, drug-resistant depression since my spouse was diagnosed with a wasting illness.” “[Crickets.]”

Since I quoted Erving Goffman’s theory of politeness in an earlier post, I’ve been re-reading Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. His description of an everyday conversation, with all participants going to great lengths to hide what they really think and feel, and preserve their own and others’ socially-acceptable “lines,” is exhausting. It makes me wonder how we have the strength to get through the day. I suppose some of us are better at this than others; in fact, when I was teaching, I once counted up the conversations with different people I had on a daily basis, and I determined that it was the 100+ quotidian social interactions that were the untenable part of my job. (Total social interactions as a work-at-home consultant = as few as one, which involves me asking Husband, “Where do you want to have lunch today?”)

Goffman says that when someone fails to maintain a socially-acceptable “line” in a conversation — for example, when someone says or does what they really feel, and it makes others uncomfortable — that qualifies as an incident. An incident is remarkable enough to be the topic of conversation. An incident is blog-worthy, which Goffman didn’t say, but I will. That’s pretty much half your blogosphere right there.