While living alone there’s not a lot of opportunity to speak out loud, or to hear yourself talk, so you create small practices. I call friends and family on the phone, or see a neighbor while out for a walk and stop long enough to carry on a conversation. Alone doesn’t mean you lose your voice.

In January I started recording myself reading a blogpost to be published and placing the audio at the bottom of the post. It was considered a practice for using my voice, but I had to set guidelines for myself to keep it light and enjoyable, otherwise perfectionism would ruin it. I promised myself to publish the recording after one reading, but if there was a noisy disturbance, to rerecord, but no more than 3 times. There had to be a limit and I’m happy to say that most were added after one try.

The main noise factor that can happen unexpectedly are the doggos. They are usually indoors during the recording and they’ve learned what I’m doing while looking at the screen and talking into my phone that I’m recording. There was one time when Winnie wouldn’t settle and kept walking around during the entire recording and you can hear the tap, tap, tap, of her nails hitting the floor. I used all three tries that day and wasn’t happy with any of them, but chose one to post anyway.

You see my darling, there’s always going to be interference with a practice, but we must keep practicing. After almost a year of recording my voice, I’m completely comfortable doing it now, but they’ll never sound perfect and I’m happy with that. The only requirement for these recordings is to show up for the practice and to know whatever the outcome it’s going to be good enough.

Feature Photo by Lucas Alexander on Unsplash