On Being Taciturn, a Brief Post

tac·i·turn

[tas-i-turn] adjective 1. inclined to silence; reserved in speech; reluctant to join in conversation.

We Mainers have long been known for our taciturnity, our terseness, our brevity with words. Ask a Mainer, "Have you lived here all your life?" and he may well answer, "Not yet." We are proud of saying much with little, of not wearing out a listener's ear by going on and on, of  showing what we mean with actions rather than words. I have never questioned that as a value until recently. 

Lately, though, I've been re-thinking it. How are the people in my life supposed to decode my silences without more clues? I might think that I'm communicating with my smile that my breakfast was great, I love how you look today, plan on fixing a dinner but might need to pick up some potatoes, and so on, but if all you get is that little smile and silence, you could be wondering if the toast was overdone, if your hair is out of kilter, if I might be considering going bowling instead of coming home after work. How are you supposed to know?

Don't get me wrong; I do think that silence is golden...up to a point. Stream-of-thought talk is wearing on everyone who has to listen to it, and eventually people just tune it out or avoid it, myself included. But I am going to try to add details and explanations to my usually brief declarations, and even to my smiles and other expressions. I will smile, and then say why.   

Even though we can accomplish a lot through non-verbal communication, smiles, shrugs, and nods, like e-mails and poetry, leave so much for the recipients to interpret that they may well see things that weren't intended. Or, more importantly not see things that were intended.

A Signpost without the words, while striking, is cryptic...