‘This Door is Alarmed’ was nominated by Tishacutie16, who writes a journey of thoughtful and intriguing poetry. It is a wonderful place to enjoy with your afternoon tea. I recommend a visit!

Guidelines (I prefer the sound of ‘guidelines’; they are not as prescriptive. You must all be familiar with the full moon effect of placing rules in front of me by now. It is like dripping fresh blood into a piranha tank):

Thank the person who nominated you.
Post a quote for three consecutive days (1 quote for each day).
Nominate three bloggers each day.

This was actually a proverb from mid C19th England:

“Speech is silver, but silence is golden”

Three thoughts about this proverb:

This proverb is a grey matter vestige of past caregivers, which lingers somewhere in the eerie arachnid-covered depths of my childhood, coercing my spoken words to this day. Thankfully, as far as I am aware, my family never uttered these words, but it was a customary backstop used by primary school teachers and similar to quieten a child when the noise of their vocal chords became an inconvenience.

Today, to me, it seems an atrocious thing—to drum disapproval every time a child opens their mouth to express themselves, simply because the noise is not appreciated. I wonder how many new introverts that little proverb sewed? I believe the frequent repetition of this maxim caused me to internalise the thought, which I partially blame for causing my opinions to feel not as important as those of the people around me. The impact as an adult is that I back down to any, and all conflict, often when it is not in my interest to do so.

This reminds me of synaesthesia. Synaesthesia: is a condition that happens when a sense, such as sight, triggers another sense, like smell, at the same time. For someone with synaesthesia, each letter of the alphabet might have a different odour, or each day of the week may have a colour.

Is silence golden, or is it violet or onyx or does it smell like a freshly steaming chip butty? Do you suffer this phenomenon (or do you enjoy it!)—I would love to know what your associations are in the comments!

Finally, ‘silence is golden’ is something I recently realised I have in common with Ward Clever. We both like to allow ourselves to slink into the silent background in a café or at the train station and people watch. It is fascinating the things you observe about when you simply sit still, in ‘golden’ silence, and observe. People are enchanting creatures! It certainly is treasure to sit back, fall into the scenery, and perceive—and this totally doesn’t make me a crackpot, honest…