Most people don’t like how they sound in a recording. I read somewhere years ago that the voice you hear when you speak isn’t the voice other people hear, because the sound is somehow not traveling through the air when you hear it, but it is when other people do. Or something. Don’t hold me to that unscientific explanation. (Actually, Popular Science tells me that I’m right, sort of. Go, me.) The point is that when we hear our own voices on tape, it always sounds different – twangier, more nasal, whatever – than we thought it did, because the air acts as a kind of filter. I hate listening to the outgoing message on my voice mail, for instance. I sound like a dork who’s trying too hard not to sound like a dork. I long for the day when I can win a contest on NPR’s Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me, and have Karl Kassel’s voice on my answering machine.
So, this week, I’ve been calling home more than usual. I’m on trial and working crazy stupid hours. I leave the house with Boy (to get him to the bus, because some things just NEED to get done trial or no trial), and coming home right at or after bedtime. So haven’t seen Doodle or Scooby for more than a hot minute for a couple of days. Yesterday, being the bad mother I am, I stopped off at a fast food joint to pick up dinner because, once again, I hadn’t had time or ingredients to pull anything together before I’d left that morning.
I dialed the house phone and this stranger picked up. The voice wasn’t quite feminine, and I didn’t recognize it. “Helloooo,” it said (which should have tipped me off, but didn’t), “who is this?”
“This is danablue,” I said, “who's this?”
“Doodle. Hi, mom.”
I was speechless. I stopped in my tracks, cell phone pressed to my ear. When did my little Doodle get a grown up voice (and impeccable phone manners)? When did he stop sounding like a baby? When did he stop being a baby? How can it be that he is old enough to answer a phone and have an intelligent conversation without constant prompting to say things? When did that happen?
This evening, I called home to say that I was on my way. Scooby answered, with a gruff, very corner office-ready, “Yes?” Her phone voice is a soft mix of Elmo the muppet and Marilyn Monroe. (Sure, I’ll wait while you put those two together.) I would never have expected my tomboyish, dress-negotiating seven year old to sound so in command of a telephone conversation.
I’m only just getting used to my six foot one teenager and his down-in-the-canyon voice. Seriously, put that kid on stage and girls will be throwing themselves at him. (Um. Okay, excuse me while I go clean my gun.)
So, I was just thinking about voices, and how, in my head, I still hear my kids as they were – those tiny, tinny little sounds that pierced through the hubbub of any crowd. But, in reality, I guess, my seven year old and ten year old aren’t little kids anymore, and they don’t have little kid voices. The other day, I was home for dinner and we had an impromptu joke-telling contest, where we had to actually make up a joke of our own. I learned that Doodle has almost mastered the art of deadpan sarcasm and Scooby is a gifted – and deadly accurate – mimic. I was completely diverted by the full throated guffaw the Boy let loose at one point, in the unguarded moment when he forgot that being silly with his family wasn’t cool.
I wonder how many other things I’ve been perceiving through kid-filters instead of hearing or seeing as they are. Maybe, for example, it’s time to have conversations with them, instead of always being in let me explain the world to you mode. Maybe I should ask their opinions every once in a while. One thing’s for certain: I aim to close my mouth, open my ears, and listen to hear their real voices.
No comments:
Post a Comment