(An audio clip of this post is available, here.)
I carry their voices with me, the ones who have gone, the auricular memory of their once-alive presence brushing over my acoustic meatus like a physical touch, somatosensory fibers vibrating with remembrance of intonations murmured long ago.
My great-grandmother’s voice, once an affection-filled instructor, quietly powerful, permeates my being the way lilac infuses damp spring-sun mornings. Sublte. Vibrant. Soft. Strong. Her voice was both fortification and fragility, an equal-parts ovoid reflection of life’s harsh burdens borne and the toll taken by persevering onward.
The memory of her, seated across from me at the farm table, teaching — always teaching; sounding out words, how to pit cherries, why glass breaks, the difference between a jack and a king — talking with me (with me), not as though I was a child but as though I was a person – a person with feelings and ideas and curiosity and creativity – is one I cherish.
It is her forever-young age-cracked voice I hear, reminding me of the way her patience shaped my humanness, when I want to distance myself, to extricate or ‘other’-ise, to shout down or condescend. And it is her voice you hear, through the gentle force of the words I speak, when I choose instead to engage, to hear for the purpose of understanding, to respond without injunction.
I carry their voices with me, the ones who have left, the echoes of their bell-toll reverberations vibrating through my being, reminding me that amplitude does not equate to omneity, that volume wanes with maturity, that mallet and steel need sometimes only be struck once to sustain the note, but that the music eventually fades.
The joy-filled baritone of my ex’s laughter, once a tympani rumble of thunder that tickled my ear, has fused with the memory of crashing storms that came to electrify the air between us. I hear his whiskey-poured-over-cracked-ice voice in the retrospective small hours of sweltering summer heat, the recall of his cadence pitched parallel to the rolling quake of lightning-disturbed air.
Timbre.
Tension.
Battles waged in stentorian forcefulness, topics moot, all words forgotten but two. “I’m sorry,” he said. And all I had left in me, in the aftermath of damage sustained, was “I know.”
He had walked away long before I decided to leave. But the fight was gone from my soldier when, as I drove away, the vestiges of pride stitched his tattered words with goodbye.
I give them my voice, those who are here now, to hear and to heed, to carry forward, to remind and educe, to recognize and recollect. The sharp-tang citrus-sweet kiss-bite of laughter, shared. The quiet-shush alto-hum of lulling somnifacient song, soothed.
Whispers of once-was threading the future, I speak. I teach, I try. I rumble and relearn, quarrel and countervail, laugh and live aloud in love.
The voices I have heard in love, I carry with me.
And the words I voice in love…
pragmatisms and overtures, admissions and admonishments, nonsensical murmurs and affectionate “isms,” tempting teases and direct questions, simple truths and teary confessions
…will carry on.
Ah.. the special timbre of a lover’s voice….
permanently secured in a special place of memory.
Lovely write, Feve.
I’ve heard that sound (see what I just did there? 😉 ) memories are typically difficult to conjure. I am particularly sensory in my ability to interpret the world around me though, and as such, I am highly attuned to sound. So the memories of past lovers – both bitter and sweet – are spiced with the unique flavor of their voices. 🙂
🙂 Your sensual sensitivity never surprises me. 🙂
Beautifully aired. It reminds me of so many voices from my past. My gran never talked at me either – maybe it was more common in those days – when talking with someone really meant something.
My man is a musician and he says all voices are just song/music – that’s how he hears them. Different tones and rise and fall.
I think it may have been the times, though I think with my own experience it may also have been a family trait. My mother, my mother’s parents, and my mother’s grandparents all conversed with me like a person – if not like an ‘adult’ then most definitely like a fully-formed, intelligent person – from the time I was very small. I think I benefited greatly from that.
I agree with the musical assessment. I am a musician too (as is my spouse 🙂 ), and I am highly attuned to sound. Pitch, timbre, cadence, tone, force, melody, stacatto, dynamics… All those things are incorporated in spoken voice as well as music. Perhaps it is my ear for those things that, when coupled with an emotional connection, makes a person’s voice so memorable for me.
I really liked this post ! You truly have an exquisite ‘way with words’ that drew me in to feel what you felt, as much as as a random stranger can. I loved the telling of your relationship with your dear grandmother and its lasting effect on you, to make you the lovely person you are today !
Thank you! 🙂
I was really lucky to have known my great-grandmother. She died when I was in third grade; from the time I was born until then, she was very much a part of my life.
A couple years ago, my mother gifted me with the letters my great-grandma had sent her during the first year after I was born. I treasure them.
I love this post! I don’t think any of my exes stay with me and my memory but I think part of that is because I am still in touch with most of them and I can call them anytime. I lost my father very suddenly in 2015 and I have a recording of his voice that was taken less than 12 hours before he passed away, I tried to listen to it last year and broke down and I haven’t listened to it ever cents. Recently when I was walking to my apartment complex one of my neighbors was talking to another neighbor and he sounded exactly like my father. It was scary how much his voice brought me back to bittersweet memories. I’m glad my partner was with me because I had this urge to run up to this stranger and start hugging him because that’s how much he sounded like my father. It wasn’t just the tone of his voice, but it was the way he said the things he was saying.
It’s always hard to lose the ones we love, especially when it is sudden or unexpected. I’m sorry.
Sensory memory is a powerful thing. I can only imagine how startling it must have been to hear a voice so similar to your father’s after he was gone.
Thank you for sharing.
Oh Feve, this is beautiful… carrying the voices of those who are gone with you. Such a beautiful thought.
Rebel xox
Marie Rebelle recently posted…Whipping Torture
I am intensely sensitive to sound.
Vocalizations – not specific words, necessarily, but pitch and intonation – are very much a part of how I understand emotions. So when the emotion one shows or inspires is love, the memory of that feeling is implicitly tied to sensory perception.
Voices stay with me.
I would love to hear this as a spoken word piece. It’s amazing how many years can go by and continue to leave us with these indelible aural memories… how we can still hear the voices of people we haven’t seen in years, as though they’re ghosts. This is an achingly beautiful piece of writing – any chance you would consider attaching an audio version of it?
Jo recently posted…Beat the Heat
It’s an interesting idea, voicing a written piece about voice. I’m not particularly tech savvy at that sort of thing, but I definitely appreciate the suggestion. Perhaps I’ll look into how to do that.
I’ve posted audio, if you’re interested: https://mrsfever.com/2018/06/01/voices-audio/
This made me think about voices from my past and there is one stand out one…. my best friend. A Southern gentleman whose voice was both powerful and gentle at the same time and he had the best deep chuckle I ever heard in my life. I miss him and that sound so much
Mollyx
Molly recently posted…Rhinocerouserous
Laughs are like audio fingerprints, I think. No two are ever quite the same.
I’m sorry for your loss. x
The sounds of those we’ve lost, they’re so beautiful and yet tinged with sadness. Beautiful post.
Bee recently posted…Under my skin
The remembrance of those voices – when the memories are good ones – creates a very specific kind of nostalgia, I think.