voice – hannah ananas

Improvemeh…

Well, the coughing proved to be a big problem last night. After hours of being in bed, I had barely slept a wink – I just couldn’t stop coughing, even when on the brink of exhaustion. My man came through for me and delivered some specific single-ingredient medicine – typically the only kind I want going into my system – to help stop the coughing. Well, not to stop the coughing, but to lessen it significantly. And it did just that. It took a bit to kick in, but I finally fell asleep around 3:30 or 4:00 this morning. And I actually slept. Thank you, God, for some real sleep, at last.

I had hoped only to take that medicine at night, but my coughing grew so terrible by late afternoon, I couldn’t even function. I’m still taking it easy as a whole, but I don’t like having to be on medicines like this. My body can’t truly tell where it is in recovery and what it may most need. Tomorrow is the last day of the antibiotics, and I hope I will be able to back off the rest by tomorrow night or the morning after, too.

Oh, and I hope I have a voice to use again soon, too. That would be helpful… though, I have very much appreciated this opportunity not to speak. It has been frustrating at times, but very good as a whole… a great lesson in patience for me and for my family. Makes me really want to get us into some ASL classes asap, though. You never know when you might need or want to use another language.

Prayers for healing, if you are willing and able, please, for me and for all the world.

Dear God, heal us all, please. In your name, we pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Space vs Person

Have you ever been attracted to the space of someone, yet found absolutely zero physical attraction to the person, and also no real attraction to all too many details of the person and his/her life?

It is one where you feel that, if you were to close your eyes, you could be content, even delighted, being with this person…

Because, just listening to his/her voice, you feel somehow entirely at ease and filled with… well, something satisfying, comforting, and just a tad exciting…

But, you know that, as soon as you open your eyes, that feeling will be gone…

And so, you enjoy the idea with a secret smile, and just move on in life, without the person as your partner…

Do you know that one?

Yeah… it’s a weird one, I dare say…, but I have definitely been there.

Post-a-day 2020

Musical date

I told a friend that I wished he would get back into playing violin again, after a several-year hiatus.

Since he is stuck at home, it feels like the perfect time for him to do it.

After hearing what I had to say, why I was saying my wish in the first place, he said he definitely would do it: Challenge accepted!

My mom said that you were working from home right now. I said, “I wish he would start playing violin again.” She replied, “You should tell him that. He’s probably still up.”

I just really, really loved the experience of you playing violin. I mean no uncomfortable pressure by the sharing. I just have missed that part of you these past several years – you have this really amazing part of you that shows up when you play, and I always have loved it. 😉

To which he replied:

OMGoodness. What a wonderful thing to say

And he then proceeded to tell of his recent considerations of playing, and his acceptance of the challenge!

And then, when I mentioned that I had somehow started writing songs, he said that he would get to work on violin, and then we could play/sing for one another one day in the near future.

!!!

So, basically, I have a music date with one of my dearest family friends at some point in the undetermined near future!!!

I can hardly wait(!).

And I will have to figure out what to sing and play for him for this…, which is actually really exciting and inspiring me.

Awesome. 😀

I am so ready for this fun (by which I mean to include the preparation as well as the actual music date)!

Post-a-day 2020

Thump-thump, to the beat

Once again, my heart is ablaze at the sound of the same man’s voice…

I first heard him sing just over a year ago, amidst a chorus-filled song, when his crystalline voice suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere, pierced through the rest, and took my heart with it as its reverberations dissipated through the room…

To me, it was the voice of a man delighted and in love, sharing his delight with the world.

Today, and this week, hearing it again, I cannot but feel my entire stomach convulse and my heart pause in awe, before thumping with intensity and fervor, longing to follow and to stay with such a voice, such an expression.

His voice has my heart forever, I declared… and I told it to him, too, even before hearing him sing again today… that’s how lovely it is, and how strongly it sticks in my memory.

It’s funny what I thought of while considering it all afterward… when I lived in Japan, there was a brief time, shortly after moving there, that I had two phone buddies who also had just moved there.

One of them and I had both procured guitars, and so, one night, while talking, instead of hanging up and having to call back after her shower, the friend just left the phone on speaker, and I practiced some guitar and singing.

We joked that I was serenading her during her shower (which led to the telling of another silly story from college of my doing something similar).

When I told later my other phone buddy, he jokingly yet in earnest asked where his serenading was.

And so, one night before bed, I sang him some music… naturally, with its being just before bed and his being who he is, he fell asleep while I sang to him.

Basically, as we say now, I sang him to sleep.

And so, today, after hearing this tantalizingly beautiful voice sing, I recalled my phone buddy’s demanding question, and I found myself saying (silently to myself, that is) that I want to have his voice sing me to sleep at night… oh, couldn’t I, please?

You can just call me every night before you go to bed, if I haven’t called you yet (because I tend to go to bed at all different hours, depending on the week), and you can just sing me a lovely little song, and then we’ll hang up and I’ll go directly to sleep.

Done.

Easy peasy.

Let’s do it.

Let me have your number – here’s mine.

Date whomever you want; just call me every night to sing to me.

😂

So, yeah… those were my thoughts all afternoon…

Post-a-day 2020

‘I am not a robot…’

You know those automated checkouts at grocery stores? Well, my mom and I had a giggle fest at one this afternoon.

Okay, so there’s a lady’s voice that says everything out loud for you at the self-checkout, right? Usually, she is somewhat bland and middle-of-the-road with her interest in your shopping spoils. “Please, enter your alternate ID on the keypad now,” she says with command and a certain ‘Hurry up, you idiot,’ edge to her voice.

This is how she usually talks. Her sentences are prerecorded as sentences. They are all somewhat monotonous and easily ignored. We still mute the sound whenever we use the self-checkout, nonetheless, because we don’t want to listen to the noise, since it isn’t pleasurable in and of itself.

Today, we discovered that, when she did the recordings for the individual names of the fruits and vegetables, she did them in a somewhat happy mood. Instead of plain old, regular “Bananas,” you have, “Bananas!” And we discovered this by overhearing someone else’s station, of course.

Our station is silent. My mom and I are scanning and placing the juices in our homemade bag without much conversation. In between the few comments we have been exchanging, slightly annoyed with one another, we suddenly here the self-checkout lady’s voice come from the checkout station next to us. An older man, grandpa style, is scanning his shopping selections. We hear the regular monotony of the lady’s voice at first, but then, mid-sentence, we are surprised with her joy before she finishes in the original monotony.

“Please, weight your… Bananas!… now.”

We catch one another’s eye and practically convulse with silent snorts of suppressed laughter. We aren’t at all sure why we find it so hilarious. We remain silent, and continue our checkout routine.

The cashier lady voice continues a few moments later, “Please place your… Bananas!… in the bagging area.”

We bite our lips, finish checking out, and walk out the door. By the time we are in the parking lot, we are almost falling down with deep, full laughter. Getting into the car, I attempt to repeat the voice’s phrases, and fall apart at “Bananas!” both times. “The fact that it was an old man…,” I manage to say, shaking my head, “…and she was just so… Happy… about the bananas…”

My mother agreed, and we continued our fits of laughter as we drove off from the store, feeling ridiculous for having laughed in the first place, but enjoying the incident nonetheless. At least, now we know that the fruit and vegetable names are happy recordings. I guess the lady likes fruits and vegetables. Or, rather… at least, she likes bananas.

P.S. Yes, I know that I am ridiculous. I am aware. 😛

Post-a-day 2018