╔══════════════╗║
║
║
║
║
║
ღ
I’ve locked my mouth and hid the key;
xxxI’ve taken the oath of silence.
Which trapped my thoughts inside of me;
xxxmy ears are now my guidance.
xxxxxxxx- Carmen Gabriela
║
║
║
║
║╚══════════════╝ "I suppose we should address the elephant in the room..."
ღ
Carmen isn’t the usual chatter oriented girl. Shortly before earning the title of ‘teenager’, Carmen decided to be mute. It was a tough transition, especially around Aspen and her sibling. So, after a short while of no vocalization at all (which was of great frustration for all parties involved), Carmen gave in to speaking around her family. Over time, Aspen and Ceri learned more about Carmen Gabriela than ever before, from her two cents on pretty much everything to her hopes and hidden dreams. This period of time was probably the most crucial part of Carmen’s transition to muteness, allowing her to expose herself to those she loved before closing up again.
Since this time, Carmen has spoke less and less around her family, but will talk if absolutely necessary. She communicates using mostly hand motions (including, but not limited to, sign language) and facial expressions, but Ceri will speak for her in complicated situations. Ceri knows more about Carmen than anyone else (even Aspen!) and will gladly help her convey a message when needed. Carmen jokingly refers to Ceri in her stories and online chats as her “Voice”. If asked about her muteness, (which happens frequently, even though she tries to avoid it) Carmen motions to her ear, communicating that she prefers to listen rather than to talk. Although she steers away from the topic of her impenetrable silence, Carmen doesn’t think that her muteness is a bad thing. After all, you have two ears and only one mouth, so you ought to listen a good deal more than you talk!
After her transition to silence, Carmen grew more introverted, inevitably leading to her being less open around others. She prefers to keep to herself and/or be around family rather than meet new people. (in real life at least) The biggest reason for this is her inability to communicate her thoughts as effectively as she would like, but since her family understands her and the way she communicates, she particularly enjoys being around them.
Carmen discovered some internet forums shortly after beginning the homeschooling experience where she could share her writing and make friends she wouldn’t have been able to communicate with in real life. This opened a few new doors to share her thoughts with, and Carmen was shocked with how accepted she felt in the online community. Wanting her sibling to be in on the online fun, Carmen invited Ceri to the internet forum she had joined. Ceri didn’t enjoy the forums as much as Carmen did, but they played on them with their sister as they knew that it would mean a lot to her.
━ ━ ━╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮-
sᴇᴄʟᴜsɪᴏɴ -
I scribbled in my notebook, mindlessly, carelessly, not really paying much
attention to what thoughts were being translated onto the paper. I was angry,
furious, unhappy with the world; with myself. And perhaps I was even a little sad…
I had been hiding in my room for almost two months now, only coming out to eat and
use the restroom. I hadn’t even went to school… and Aspen seemed okay with it all.
I was beginning to wonder if he even cared anymore. Ceri was there for me, as much
as I would let them be. They knocked on my door every morning and asked me if I
was okay. Sometimes they would tell me stories about their day, and rarely, sing me
a song. But I never answered. All I ever did was sit in bed and cry.
When they left I would calm down enough to write or draw in my notebook.
My stories were dark in those days. Tales of death and depression, no character
lived to see a happy ending. Just when I thought things were at the lowest of
low, that I had surely hit rock bottom, an idea came to me.
The choice was mine all this time. I didn’t have to talk, I didn’t have to chatter
on endlessly about things I didn’t care about. I wasn’t being forced to speak.
I could be quiet, even silent if I wanted to.
The choice was mine.╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯━ ━ ━
“A penny for your thoughts?”
“I'll sell 'em for a dollar.”
ღ
Although she doesn’t say them, Carmen has a lot of deep, meaningful thoughts, inspiring ideas and secret desires. These thoughts are always circling around in her head, and sometimes she has to fight the urge to scream and tell the world. Thankfully, Ceri is always there to listen when Carmen has something on her mind that just has to be let out of the cage that is her brain. The same is true for the other way around, as Ceri often exchanges their own thoughts and feelings with Carmen, who is a willing listener. The two siblings have an intimate relationship that stems from the two sharing these internal emotions. This close friendship allows the two to let things off their chest that they would usually not share with others. Don’t get me wrong, the two still fight, (they are siblings, what do you expect?) but it is more uncommon.
Carmen is a very caring bean, and she tries to comfort anyone who seems down or sad, as that is what she would have wanted herself. She is mostly secluded and only around her family most of the time, but even around strangers, Carmen will care for their needs before her own. Carmen caters to emotions and usually offers psychological help in situations, as she has a hard time problem solving. In this way, Carmen helps to lessen or bring the focus away from the problem, but she has a hard time actually fixing it.
Carmen is extremely observant, partially because of her listening skills and sharp ears. (which she has almost trained to listen to specific things) Over the years, Carmen has gotten better at listening to several conversations at once, (a sort of multitasking, although she is just switching between single conversions very fast) or at least zoning out of the overall noise to listen to a specific conversation or sound. She takes in the small details of things very easily, but has trouble seeing the big picture. An interesting side effect to her vigilance is her extraordinary memory. Carmen doesn’t have photographic memory or anything, but she can remember things from past or even obscure events with ease. This ability is a blessing and a curse, as it is hard for Carmen to block out traumatic experiences.
━ ━ ━╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮-
ᴛʜɪɴᴋɪɴɢ -
- an excerpt from Personal Prompts and Questions -Ideas and feelings, thoughts and images.
I love thinking, it’s such a personal act.
No one knows what goes on inside your head except you.
I have ideas that come out of the blue, inspired only by someone I am watching--A lady feeding the birds
and humming a sweet tune, a man dancing down the street, a child laughing with friends. I love to
imagine what might be going on inside their brains, and make stories out of them.
Feelings, a blessing and a curse. Though some try to hide them, they are always there. Free them.
Feelings are what distinguish us most. Without them, what are we? Who are we?
Thoughts are our inner beings. Some are spoken, let out for the world to hear. Some are written,
hidden in a book, like these. Some are kept only in our heads, so that we may be the only ones
that know of their existence.
Images, whether photographed by mind or by camera. These very well may be the most powerful of
them all, simply because of the influences they have on everything else in our heads. Images spark ideas,
induce feelings and feed thoughts. Sometimes I wonder what images blind people see...╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯━ ━ ━
"Everyone has those little... quirks--and hobbies--that make them special, individual."
ღ
Carmen has a love for writing and painting pictures with the stories her written words tell, which is interesting enough considering that she won’t speak verbally. Perhaps it is her love for reading and listening to what others have to say that sparks her imagination. Her adoptive father, Aspen, also has a hand in her creativity by encouraging this hobby of her’s more than any other.
Several of Carmen’s short stories are based off the moods of classical music and even EDM. (electronic dance music) She particularly enjoys these genres of music because of their lack of lyrics, but incredible ability to portray scenes and even tell stories. In her free time, (when not writing) Carmen loves to study classical composers and their lives. (Here is a playlist of some of her favorite songs. I recommend you listen to at least a little bit of each song, but it's not required)
Carmen loves to collect little knick-knacks and cute, cuddly animals, and has a large (and still expanding) collection of plushies. Her favorite plushie is a little purple and blue owl that Aspen gave her for her birthday one year. She sleeps with the little stuffed owl every night, so it’s fairly worn, but she loves it all the same. Her other collections include river glass (glass shards from bottles and other things that have fallen into a river and have been smoothed out by the water running over them) and fake flowers, one of which she wears frequently. (a grey rose Ceri gave her as a peace offering after a small dispute)
Carmen often finds herself cleaning randomly in the middle of the night because she thinks of something that needs to be done and cannot fall asleep until said task is completed. This phenomenon is also called nesting. Carmen thinks of it as an odd form of procrastination that has become habit or instinct.
Carmen has a small notebook in which she catalogs and organizes her many thoughts and feelings. Personal Prompts and Questions is almost like a diary to her, but it focuses more on her opinions of things and a more informative/essay writing style. The book includes several thought provoking questions answered only after searching her mind for her own answer and countless hours of researching.
━ ━ ━ 
xxxxxxxxxx- ʀɪᴠᴇʀ ɢʟᴀss ᴀɴᴅ ɢʀᴇʏ ʀᴏsᴇs -
She went down to the river
to search for trinkets
what would the river give her
today?
As she waded through the waters
she searched for a shimmer,
a glimmer
that would give the treasure away. xxx
She went down to the river
to search for broken glass
what would the river give her
today?
She emerged with a handful
of water glazed glass
which she laid on the grass
to dry in the heat of the day.
She returned to the river
to search for more treasure
what else would the river give her
today?
Nearby sat a friend, a sibling.
with grey cloth in their hand
it was really quite bland
but with it, they’d make something marvelous.
She came out of the river
at last; finished searching
She emerged with a shiver
and laid out on the grass.
Her sibling drew near
and laid something on her chest
but told her to stay;
to stay and to rest.
When she awoke
what did she find?
A grey rose on her chest
simple, yet divine.
She then left the stream
with all of her treasure
she smiled, as if in a dream
and placed the rose behind her ear.
━ ━ ━
Ｔｈｒｏｕｇｈ - ｔｈｅ - Ｙｅａｒｓ
- ᴀ sʜᴏʀᴛ sᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ ᴏғ Cᴀʀᴍᴇɴ Gᴀʙʀɪᴇʟᴀ's ʟɪғᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ʜᴏᴡ ɪᴛ ʜᴀs ᴄʜᴀɴɢᴇᴅ ʜᴇʀ -
ღ
ᴀs ᴀ ᴄʜɪʟᴅ...
Carmen was much more talkative and social when she was younger, but around age 10 she realized that she was revealing too much, and letting words slip out before she thought about them. This made others not really like her, as she would immediately speak her mind, whether the comment be good or bad. After this realization, she started being more quiet and introverted, causing several of her so called “friends” to abandon her. Aspen tried his very best to comfort her when she was not invited to a sleepover with some of her previously closest friends. He said several times that ‘Friends aren’t true friends if they abandon you when you change’, but Carmen could not be comforted that easily. She withdrew herself from all friends, and even family, for a period of about two months, emerging having decided to be mute except when words were absolutely necessary. Although she was usually completely silent at school, Carmen spoke some (and fairly frequently in the first few months after her decision because it was a harsh transition) around her family.
(Most people called this selective muteness, although actual diagnosed selective muteness usually has to do (most often) with a genetic disorder. Carmen has no mental or genetic disorders, and she chose to not speak in a completely sane state of mind. I am only referring to her having selective muteness because she chose to be mute in social situations but will talk occasionally around family or people she is comfortable around.)
ᴀs ᴀ ᴛᴇᴇɴ...
Carmen was lonely as a teenager, as most of her old “friends” and acquaintances had completely ignored or forgotten about her. During this time in her life, her sibling, Ceri, was her biggest supporter, and she started to develop an interest in writing and online studies. She started high-school online, Aspen thinking it would be the best option for her. She grew to love some of her classmates, even though they hadn’t met face to face, and often talked (well, typed) to them about her struggles. She really cared for the people she had never personally met for the simple reason of them listening and understanding her and respecting her personal choices.
ᴀs ᴀɴ ᴀᴅᴜʟᴛ...
Carmen as an adult is more sure of herself, but still has problems in social situations due to her muteness. She still talks occasionally (and more than she did when she was younger) but things may be awkward if others do not know how she communicates. She has learned that observation and listening are key to figuring out situations without asking questions, and this has helped her become a sort of therapist for people, as she almost always seems to know what’s going on. After taking several English and Creative Writing classes online, Carmen decided to become a professional author, with a job as a news journalist as her backup.
