Inarticulate

It probably all started because I am a dreamer and haven't always enjoyed living in the cold world of facts and actual surroundings all the time.
"Barbara! Get your head out of the clouds." It was Mother's annoyed tone of voice that told me I'd missed a vital query. "What did I tell you about doing this again?"
And right there, I'd freeze up and white out. I could neither remember her directive, nor did I have an interest in it--unless, as now, it meant that I'd be punished. So I'd go blank and not have an answer. Or my mind would cloud over with ideas and possibilities rather than the factual answers that were warranted at a time like that, and I'd flounder verbally until I was in a corner. Couldn't think on the spot because there was no way I could ever come out a winner.

This is probably not an unusual scene from many a child's life. But for some reason, it left me feeling utterly inarticulate, incapable of thinking on the spot, and as dumb as a doornail when asked a question. Especially when there is an edge of demand in the questioner's tone of voice.
It is a malady that I and all of my siblings suffer--inability to come back with a response when it is clear that a wrong answer will have negative consequences. We begin to babble or we shut down. Each of us has a way that we respond to beligerent questioning.

I worked on this long and hard with my therapist. As a therapist who often works with angry clients, I must be able to stay present whilst the client rages and circles me--and I know that it's usually not about me--it's about them. So that is a bit easier to manage. But if I'm a professor and students are firing questions at me, it behooves me to be able to hold the floor and respond without feeling like I'm under attack. Even though students often attack, in their desire to find Truth. Or defend their own ideas that may suddenly appear pallid and insufficient in the light of what we are discussing in class. I guess I'm getting a lot better with this and many students have told me that I always know what to say and how to respond to their hard questions. Inside I laugh.

When I graduated from my Master's program, the pastor at my very large church asked me to give a sermon on--of all things--intimacy. I was single, without children, and I really doubted that I had any credibility whatever on this topic. Beside this obvious problem, I had never gotten over floundering for words. What on earth does one stand in front of a 4,000 member congregation in a televised service and say about intimacy? I didn't know, but I moaned about my terror of this experience to one of my professors.

"I'm so inarticulate, Michelle. I have no idea what will come out of my mouth, and the more anxious I am, the worse the verbal corners I get into."

"I've never known you to be inarticulate, Barbara, so that is not a fear that I would have for you" she responded.

"But when I get anxious, my words ball up and I stumble around searching for the right word. If I can't find it, I stop stock still." I felt shaky just telling her about it. "I think I'd die if I got in front of church and whited out!"

"Well, if you're convinced that you're inarticulate, why don't you just accept that fact and go with it?"

Her comment almost didn't register with me. I must have looked very unconvinced.

"Just realize that you will stumble and that nothing bad will happen. Speakers search for the right word all the time and nothing bad happens. You just stop and give yourself a minute, then start in again."

"You mean, just stop?"

"Yes. No one will die. Just take a breath, look down at your notes, and get your place again. No one will think anything wrong. But if you try to convince yourself that you're perfectly articulate, when and if you stumble, you'll be so shocked that you'll shut down."

It made sense. And there was such relief in accepting the fact that I couldn't always get the right word or say the right thing. No one expected me to--except me, and perhaps, Mother. But those days were long ago!

My talk went off without a hitch. Last week, one of the residents in Mother's apartment building told her that she never forgot one of the stories I told in that talk. She had been so impressed. I just associate a feeling relief with that experience.

I've come to peace with the fact that while teaching I sometimes go blank and forget the sterling point I was about to make. I gaze around the room and say aloud, "Well, I just had a wonderful fact for you and it's gone." Everyone chuckles and looks expectantly at me. My eyes roam the room as if someone's face will give me a clue about what it was that I was just going to say. "What was I just saying?" I ask.
Someone in the front row says, "...that...it's something about CPS policies..."
There it is! "Oh! Right...." and off I go into another verbal foray, now on track.
There are bemused smiles all around. They treat me like an endeared, befuddled professor.
It happens all the time. No one seems to think ill of me. Best of all, neither to I think ill of myself any more--it happens so often.

I was thinking about this whole idea of being inarticulate the other day as I sat in a meeting with three other colleagues. We were discussing our curriculum and how we want our students to look when they finish our program. John, a lovely and intelligent man with over 30 years of administrative and faculty experience, started to weigh in on something Colleen had just said. He threw his hands in the air, furrowed his brow, and began making a series of nondescript glottal noises that indicated that he was lost for words. Looking up at the ceiling through his eyebrows, his mouth agape, his hands held in front of him looking as though he was kneading a ball of dough, he mouthed words that didn't come out for several seconds. "I....I....I just can't....it doesn't make sense....how these students can even think that.....what will....uh....?" and he continued looking at the ceiling, then around the table at each of us, with a most distressed expression on his face.
"Yes, I know!" Colleen said. "I just think...." and she looked up at the righthand corner of the room, rolling her eyes back and forth, as if scrutinizing the crown molding, her hands out in front of her, palms up. "If we are going to help these students, then maybe we need...or should we have a...well, I was thinking that maybe it would be good to..."
Mary jumped in. "I'm thinking the same thing." (I still had no idea of what was being said here). "If we hit this hard at orientation, then there will be no way the students can say they've never heard this before." She looked down at her notes on the table and continued, muttering under her breath: "bhwro merg I think bwor schwalp."
"I didn't get that, Mary" I said.
"Well it doesn't matter," she said. "We all know what we need to do now and that's what we need to focus on."
John looked like he was ready to explode with a tirade and held out his arms as if something was going to fall from the ceiling into them, his mouth making words we could not yet hear. "I mean..." he closed his eyes as if in pain. "What are these kids thinking?" There it was--the coup de etat.

I was the most junior faculty member in the room. Two of these faculty have written books. One is the president of a prestigious state organization and associate editor of a top tier journal in our field. Even though we've all published and presented, these three can all run academic circles around me. But none of them are what I'd call articulate! Watching John agonize over what he is trying to convey makes me chuckle every time his eyes start searching the ceiling and his hands fly out in front of him. Hearing Colleen go round and round with her starts and stops, and hearing Mary talk into her beard--this is all very rich. We are all idea people. There's not a one of us in the room who thinks there is a right answer--most things need to be discussed and have multiple angles explored to get an answer that works in any given situation.

So I'm in with the best of them--me and my halting, inarticulate speech--and I'm probably much more articulate than any of them are --at these meetings, at least. The fact that most of us in this field are dreamers and visionaries makes this kind of communication pretty acceptable in the long run. Because it is proof that as we talk, many perspectives, ideas, and thoughts interrupt our speech. It is often hard to filter through all the thoughts and come out with one cogent statement because of the way my mind works. Make a comment, ask a question, and it's as if my hard drive is searching through all the files, tagging associated ideas to find just the right response. This is what it looks like when Colleen or John are weighing in on something, waiting for the mental dust to clear.
Perhaps it is the sign of a busy, clever mind.
I'd like to think so.