Yelling out loud

The Scream Room

Photo by Vii Nguyenn on Unsplash

I have a running list in my head of business and opportunities bound to make me rich. Not so much a scheme, but these ideas that I am sure will take off and make my late-stage capitalism failures a success story. I have always been about the idea and not so much about the execution and the peri/meno conversations around adult-diagnosed ADHD and my own kiddo’s expansion into said diagnosis has shown me all the ways this is so and true.

When I see a problem or someone tells me one, I begin the elaborate obstacle course, game of mousetrap of a contraption to show just how it might work. And then sometimes there is a simple solution. I’ve been mulling with this one for a while. Much like the places where we can go and shoot our friends and neighbors with paintballs, or go smash things up wearing goggles and protective gear, this invention meets the existential needs of living in the modern times dystopia we find ourselves in, suburbia, overcrowded spaces, endless chatter, the sound of buzzing even when we are not plugged in, life lived too far from ourselves, outlet pulsing current and circuitry through the backs of our necks just under the skull, no voice of our own.

Scream studios. Right? Sound-proofed walls, tiny or large spaces, whatever is one’s preference, light or dark or strobe, white walls or black or colored. It doesn’t matter. Fifteen minutes? An hour? You want to get in there and scream your face off or just cry, it’s yours.

When I had a toddler and a newborn nursing my tits to soft water balloons that would never, ever recover, I remember feeling completely touched out. Someone’s hands were on me or near me at all times. I would flinch when the girls’ father just reached across me. Now, every sound uttered or imagined does the same thing to my brain. I am touched out. Some days, ok every day, I sit in the car in the driveway as I return from every and anywhere and just enjoy that sealed silence. If the neighbors were not looking out the window hoping to wave hello, or teenagers were not walking home from school or to the park or just up to general teenagery, I might scream my face off in the car. But then everyone would know what they already know and suspect.

All of this is too much. For all of us. I for one, would like to be able to yell and scream myself back to equilibrium, to be a baby, self-regulate, recharge. Maybe even a nap afterwards.

Artists sometimes give away their best ideas because they aren’t really their life’s work, just something that came on a whim. Here it is, the Scream Room. Please reference my and give me my flowers ($) if you are able to take this and run with it. I am going to get in the car and head to Stop n Shop to get the ingredients for a vanilla cake with butter creme frosting. It’s my baby’s birthday and she loves vanilla cake and I love her. I welcome the hugs these days and all the conversation, I know I won’t have them forever.

And yet…