The voice

[garote]

There’s no net wide enough for me to cover all the ways my mother’s temperament and style of communication is woven into me and has elevated my life. She imbued me with her patience, her abundant curiosity, her constructiveness, her sense of humor. Likewise, my father added his own voice, especially when I was older. His work ethic, his self-possession, his sense of adventure, and most of all that stubborn ability to try different things, one after the other, implacably, until something works.

Every year, I meet more people, and realize that those things are more rare than I thought.

Adolescence and teenager-hood were difficult for me, as with practically everyone, but I came out of it with a priceless gift: An internal monologue free of cruelty and doubt.

In the decades since I’ve met so many people trapped with some terrible voice in their head, resigned to it, or laboring mightily against it every day. The voice I hear is at peace with itself. It is asking questions and busily chewing on answers, eagerly hunting words to tell stories, listening curiously, or making silly jokes at the world. It is my mother's voice. Or, it is patiently looking for the next thing to try, adding words of approval and encouragement, singing a song, reciting a poem, or doing a ridiculous dance. It is saying, "I can handle this -- or if I can't, I can change it." It is my father's voice.

The relief, to have an inner voice at peace with itself, as I find all over the world that people have one shouting at them or whispering abuse...

Today I sat in the back yard, in the sun, with the cat napping nearby and a million leaves and spring flowers around me; the branches of the avocado whispering overhead, the coastal air swirling gently across my face, and after 15 minutes of this idyll I opened a book and began reading about botany, because what the heck, I am curious about botany today. After a while the cat roused herself and padded over, and I poured my water slowly onto the patio stones so it made a tiny waterfall, and she stuck her cat tongue in it and had a drink. For another half hour I enjoyed the sun and the wind and the botany, then went back inside to do more work. The cat took my spot on the wicker chair.

I am grateful.

Comments

[juan_gandhi]

Oh. Such a nice text. Yes, it makes sense to figure out where that internal flow of speech is coming from. Mine is mostly from my grandfather.

[garote]

Curious! Can you describe its quality?

[juan_gandhi]

See, my grandfather was a funny guy, with a little bit of Alzheimer, but still funny. He sang me songs (as I did to my kids later on), he taught me to smoke and to swear. Since tobacco was kind of expensive, he smoked the hemp that was used to caulk the walls of our hut. That's what I smoked with him - until 5, when I learned that smoking is bad for you, and I quit.

Well, I know, I was lucky; my grandmother was great too. Never went to school, she learned reading, and read large books, like Tolstoy (when she had time). She taught me to read.

Now I think I grew in a paradise.

[garote]

That is an absolutely amazing description, delivered in an absolutely amazing way. If someone ever asks me what my childhood was like, I am going to tell them those exact words!!

[juan_gandhi]

Right. After years of socializing on the internets, I figured that it was a pretty rare case.