A quick word to say I’ll be at your place in a little more than 24 hours. I have the plane ticket, preparing my bag this evening. So much work to do tomorrow, I might not have time and could forget some of the stuff I promised you.
I’ll be arriving in central China early in the afternoon, just in time to fetch you at the kindergarten with your mother. Truly sorry I’ll miss the show though. I love to hear you sing folk songs in Mandarin. Even Chinese versions of Walt Disney themes.
I must admit I’m particularly sensitive to your voices. I can reproduce them in my mind almost as if you were next to me. Of course, I recall your faces with precision, and easily remember how you move, the way you walk or sit, drink from a glass, or smile. But vocal timber has a special hold over me. Much more eloquent than a mnemonic picture. Reading/hearing voices. Not so much what they say, but what the pitch, volume, tone often unknowingly manage to disclose. That's what gets me first, not the words, but how they penetrate the ear and contort the realm of inner frequencies. A slight quiver. How breathing occurs in the midst of syllables, then echoes against the tympanic membrane, oscillations for moods and secrets like notes on a staff. How sound gets articulated. Its extent, how far it carries itself, and then rests, a time signature revealing how many beats per measure of understanding there needs to be.
Do people blurt out their story as if shamefully caught red-handed, or do they publicize themselves, blaring, tonic prominence put on self-serving vowels? Perhaps hiding under the pretense of shyness, sentences barely whispered, caught by the magnet of stillness. Other times, munching words like sticky candies activating the jaws, a biodegradable speech meant to be swallowed, not offered to the world.
Voices I like never seem to come from the larynx. They have an abdominal quality. Originating in the warm fullness of the body. No need to raise the volume to be heard, even from far away. Perspicuous waves, not so much clarity, but the lucid behavior of phonemes a noisy crowd wouldn’t bury. I don’t mean a deep, low voice either. Certainly not a loud one. More the property of transparency, a cleanness of the sound, a traveling strength, direct, honorable, and sovereign.
When I hear your voices, with all my subjectivity and bias, this is what I perceive. Every time surprised that children can possess that musical quality, like a perfect pitch, an instrument that can solo, distinguishable from its background, voices so tiny and yet, autonomous in their expressivity. Cutting through urban clamor without a shout, the stress of effort, unmindful of effects.
Is it because you have been exposed since birth to the guttural French ‘r’? The fast forward teamwork of teeth and tongue needed for the English ‘th…”? And the frolic four tones of Putonghua? Allophone plurality flexing parlance. Your throats undulating without attachment, indifferent to linguistic fixity, capable of independence, with an audible self-assurance surpassing the juvenile limits of your vocabulary. For this is what I always hear, attentive to your baby talk. A wide assertiveness as the foundation of your voice. A rare type of vibration oblivious to distances, penetrating with natural ease the thickness of clatter.
Do you see me at times shutting my eyes to better appreciate your voices? Taking them in, recording a melodic memory of our encounters. Never tired of listening to your vocalizations. Profoundly impressed by their caliber and range. Yes, I’ll say it again. I love your voices. Manifest circles gliding on water, unbounded.
At night, before I fall asleep, I recall the clarity of your giggles. Onomatopoeic splashes. The neat undulation of your babbling speech. In the darkness of my bedroom, I listen. How crisp and straightforward you sound. And I feel all is well. In good order. You'll grow into fine adults. It’s already inscribed in the neat way you pronounce. Hearable headlights brightening with a tuneful impression the long twisted path we follow on our way to sometimes saying something.
Laolao
I’ll be arriving in central China early in the afternoon, just in time to fetch you at the kindergarten with your mother. Truly sorry I’ll miss the show though. I love to hear you sing folk songs in Mandarin. Even Chinese versions of Walt Disney themes.
I must admit I’m particularly sensitive to your voices. I can reproduce them in my mind almost as if you were next to me. Of course, I recall your faces with precision, and easily remember how you move, the way you walk or sit, drink from a glass, or smile. But vocal timber has a special hold over me. Much more eloquent than a mnemonic picture. Reading/hearing voices. Not so much what they say, but what the pitch, volume, tone often unknowingly manage to disclose. That's what gets me first, not the words, but how they penetrate the ear and contort the realm of inner frequencies. A slight quiver. How breathing occurs in the midst of syllables, then echoes against the tympanic membrane, oscillations for moods and secrets like notes on a staff. How sound gets articulated. Its extent, how far it carries itself, and then rests, a time signature revealing how many beats per measure of understanding there needs to be.
Do people blurt out their story as if shamefully caught red-handed, or do they publicize themselves, blaring, tonic prominence put on self-serving vowels? Perhaps hiding under the pretense of shyness, sentences barely whispered, caught by the magnet of stillness. Other times, munching words like sticky candies activating the jaws, a biodegradable speech meant to be swallowed, not offered to the world.
Voices I like never seem to come from the larynx. They have an abdominal quality. Originating in the warm fullness of the body. No need to raise the volume to be heard, even from far away. Perspicuous waves, not so much clarity, but the lucid behavior of phonemes a noisy crowd wouldn’t bury. I don’t mean a deep, low voice either. Certainly not a loud one. More the property of transparency, a cleanness of the sound, a traveling strength, direct, honorable, and sovereign.
When I hear your voices, with all my subjectivity and bias, this is what I perceive. Every time surprised that children can possess that musical quality, like a perfect pitch, an instrument that can solo, distinguishable from its background, voices so tiny and yet, autonomous in their expressivity. Cutting through urban clamor without a shout, the stress of effort, unmindful of effects.
Is it because you have been exposed since birth to the guttural French ‘r’? The fast forward teamwork of teeth and tongue needed for the English ‘th…”? And the frolic four tones of Putonghua? Allophone plurality flexing parlance. Your throats undulating without attachment, indifferent to linguistic fixity, capable of independence, with an audible self-assurance surpassing the juvenile limits of your vocabulary. For this is what I always hear, attentive to your baby talk. A wide assertiveness as the foundation of your voice. A rare type of vibration oblivious to distances, penetrating with natural ease the thickness of clatter.
Do you see me at times shutting my eyes to better appreciate your voices? Taking them in, recording a melodic memory of our encounters. Never tired of listening to your vocalizations. Profoundly impressed by their caliber and range. Yes, I’ll say it again. I love your voices. Manifest circles gliding on water, unbounded.
At night, before I fall asleep, I recall the clarity of your giggles. Onomatopoeic splashes. The neat undulation of your babbling speech. In the darkness of my bedroom, I listen. How crisp and straightforward you sound. And I feel all is well. In good order. You'll grow into fine adults. It’s already inscribed in the neat way you pronounce. Hearable headlights brightening with a tuneful impression the long twisted path we follow on our way to sometimes saying something.
Laolao
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