I’m a 69-year-old storyteller by profession but for decades couldn’t tell my own.
More than just tongue-tied, my uncomfortable relationship with words often led me to consider myself not only shy, but inarticulate when speaking. I spent a childhood with a deep rosy blush on my face not from playing in the fresh air but from the terror of being called on to speak.
Now I am truly speechless.
Honored that my story Perpetual the short film I made was an Official Selection in the upcoming New Bedford Film Festival, Short Documentary category, I also learned I was nominated for Best Voice-Over in a short documentary.
This honor is particularly poignant and speaks volumes to me.
To have my words not only heard but spoken by me was an essential element of the motivation for making the film.
Based on a personal essay published in Lilith Magazine this summer it is the story of my decades-old battle with depression and loss and how I found strength in my Jewish heritage, finding the perpetual care I was seeking as I visited my family cemetery.
A new form of storytelling for me I re-imagined the essay as a moving collage that depicts loss, despair, and trauma along with resilience, determination, and hope, melding personal images, haunting music, my words, and my distinctive voice.
A Voice in Reserve
Sally Edelstein
As a child, I kept my voice in reserve, like those special small decorative soaps my mother would bring out to leave in the bathroom when company came. They were for special occasions and used sparingly.
I was always awkward around words. They eluded me, or I them. A late bloomer, I was slow to crawl, slow to walk and didn’t utter a word until two and a half, long past the expiration date of normal expectations.
Once found, using my newly discovered voice didn’t last long though. A gag order would be set in place. Silenced by a sexually abusive father, my ability to verbally express myself was impaired. I silenced myself into a dissociative state to hold the horror for me so words receded into fragments, perceptions, and body sensations.
There would be no concrete memory of the multiple traumas, so there was no need for words to tell of it.
The feelings along with the words to express them went underground along with other troubling experiences. Shame stood guard, preventing them from escaping. Dormant for decades these words would be buried in a subterranean silo like a nuclear missile biding its time.
And when they would eventually be released it would be powerful.
The family mantra “If you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all,” dovetailed perfectly. Things weren’t so very nice, so I didn’t say anything.
Lost For Words
Sally Edelstein and her alter ego Pierre the French artist 1960
Because I was unable to give voice to my feelings verbally, it atrophied and the ability to express myself became insignificant. I was literally lost for words. Painfully shy, I remained a silent observer storing nuggets of information away for the future.
Turning to art at a very young age, I learned to bypass words to express myself through crayons, paint, and pencil.
My storytelling talents as an artist were honed early on. I was drawn to the exotic locale of Paris in which to be an artist as far from the split levels and shopping centers of my mid-century Long Island childhood. From the tender age of three until about seven, I was known as “Pierre, the Artist,” insisting that members of my family address me by that name only.
Donning a requisite woolen beret, a striped French sailor shirt, and a clip-on mustache to authenticate my Parisienne look, Pierre affected an accent that was a cross between Pepi Le Pew and Maurice Chevalier.
While neighborhood girls played house with their dainty toy tea sets tending to their Tiny Tears dolls, I fancied myself a struggling artist in Montparnasse holed up in a cold-water flat reeking of linseed oil and turpentine.
Once I started school I knew I would have to speak up. The unbearable self-consciousness and pounding fear I felt being called on in class by a teacher filled me with deep shame.
Websters Words
Because I struggled to articulate my thoughts with words, once I learned to read I devised a way to find just the right ones. I would peruse through a Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary as casually as one might read through an Archie Comic Book.
Discovering some discarded musty dictionaries in our suburban basement I would flip page by page, ripping out the random words and definitions that resonated for me. Carefully I re-arranged the torn tatters of paper on a large piece of grey cardboard saved from Ming’s Chinese Laundry who delivered my father’s shirts every week in brown Kraft paper and cardboard.
The printed phrases that seemed to have no rhyme or reason would as if by magic, move from place to place on the stiff board, arranged to form a coherent thought, as though it were a Quji Board and a mystery force-directed my fingers to assemble the words just so. Sitting hunched over on my bed for hours, the pink chenille bedspread would become littered with dozens and dozens of random snippets of paper.
Yet inevitably a story would emerge from these seemingly disparate words.
Dictionaries still remained important in my life even as an adult and my collection grew so that I have hundreds from different periods to choose from.
Torn Pieces
A word Dictionary story
Years later the only way I was finally able to tell the story I was stifled from voicing at such a young age, was to find the fragments of feelings and put them together piece by torn piece. The bits of paper ripped from the dictionary as fragmented as the shards of my internal self, when put together formed a complete picture and story.
Just as they had done for me as a child.
A dictionary full of words and meanings would tell the story I didn’t know I had. Put on paper they became my voice even when I couldn’t say them out loud.
Eventually, my skills as a visual storyteller fit perfectly in my career as an illustrator where I deftly expressed other people’s written words visually. In time the need to express my own stories as a woman in this culture brought me to a new phase. The aging, internal infrastructures that had kept my words down for so long began to erode.
I began to write, drawing on words as I had with my art to tell my own story
Now I try to speak for those who still can’t. Because for so long I couldn’t.
New Bedford Film Festival
The New Bedford Film Festival will be held from April 18-21, 2024 in New Bedford Mass.
It is not only a historic and charming coastal city but a vibrant cultural hub that offers a unique festival experience.
The screening for my film will be on Saturday, April 20, 20024 9:30- 11:30 am as part of the Empowered Women Showcase and I will be speaking after the screening
Groundwork Screening Room II
1213 Purchase Street New Bedford, MA 02740
Panel Discussion
I will also be speaking on a panel on Saturday, April 20th, 1:30 -2:30 “Women Empowered By Their Narratives: Panel Discussion” Groundwork Workshop Room, 1213 Purchase Street New Bedford Mass.
Join us in celebrating female-driven narratives with this inspiring panel of storytellers. Learn about the women behind these stories why they chose the topic of their filthier experience through the process and their vision of the project’s future. Q& A at the end
For anyone in the area, I would love to see you.
It is my hope that those who watch this will gain a deeper understanding of depression and mental health as a whole.