Finding One's Voice

 By Marilyn Moore

"I am Ana.  I was the wife of Jesus of Nazareth.  I am a voice."  These are the closing sentences of Sue Mond Kidd's recent novel, The Book of Longings.  You may have stopped for a moment at Ana's identification of herself as the wife of Jesus of Nazareth, as that's a picture that most of us don't have.  That's what novelists get to do.  But the book is much more about Ana as a young woman, and then a maturing woman who persists in developing her voice, and who resists all societal and governmental and religious efforts to quiet her voice.  At the end, she asserts that she is a voice.

That's a powerful statement for a woman of any age or station in life to have made in the Greek and Roman and Egyptian empires some 2000 years ago...and frankly, it's a powerful statement for women to make today.  I've been thinking a lot about voice, finding ones' voice, speaking once's voice, in the past several months, and especially this first month of 2021.  I read Ana's story as my first book of this year, and her story and those words have lived with me since then.

It's one of those things that once lodged in my brain just jumps out at me everywhere.  Subsequent books in January were about voice - or at least, that's the lens through which I read them.  One Person No Vote by Carol Anderson is about voter suppression, the very real action of denying citizens' voices in this country's governance.  Anxious People by Fredrik Backman is a story of many layers and complications....I read it as the bank robber's search for voice, and the banker's search for voice, and the psychologist and the widow and the police officer, and, well, you get it.  The Home Place by Drew Lanham is the narrative of an African American naturalist and birder, uncommon roles for African Americans, and his efforts to find and speak his voice, bringing together race and identity in the outdoors.  And That's the Way It Always Is, by Laurie Frankel....the story of Claude, who becomes Poppy, finding his voice and becoming her voice, while yet a child.  For courage when speaking my voice, I'm reminded of this advice from Ruth Bader Ginsberg, "Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes."  I think all the characters in the books that I've cited experienced shaking voices, but they spoke, anyway.  And in so doing, they claimed their voice, and their story.

The whole nation, and much of the world, heard the voice of Amanda Gorman, speaking truth and power on Inauguration Day in "The Hill We Climb."  Those wonderful closing lines, "For there is always light...If only we are brave enough to be it."  That is voice, found and spoken.  As we heard her words, then learned more about her, we knew of her persistence in finding her voice and speaking her voice...and the world is richer for it.  I remembered the story of Maya Angelou, finding her voice after silencing herself at an early age in the aftermath of trauma.  I think of others who may have also silenced themselves, or who were silenced by the times or circumstances in which they lived, and who were never able to speak their own voice.

I frequently hear leaders and writers talk about speaking for those who have no voice.  I have said that, when speaking for care and support for young children or for education for immigrant and refugee students, for food and shelter for those who are hungry and homeless.  My intention was noble, I believe, trying to use a platform or a microphone or a situation to advocate for persons who are often not heard.  Perhaps more noble, however, would be to work for changes in systems so that all voices are heard directly, so no one has to depend on others to speak for them, so that all, like Ana, may say with confidence and conviction, "I am a voice."

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