The Clang of a Mid-Western Woman.

An interesting series of events has made me do the necessary investigating and re-activate this blog. Why? I'm not entirely sure. Could it be that the view from "Mt.-Thirty-Something" is nearly over half way complete? Is it the goings on in my day-to-day life? I'm not entirely sure...I just know I was compelled today to re-open the wound, and allow it to fester for the ultimate good of humanity.

I have been spending quite a bit of my free time lately with a gentleman from West Virginia. An admitted "Redneck." (It is actually tattooed on his person, so that I might never forget this fact.) I had never really equated West Virginia with "The South," but apparently those from West Virginia do. I always thought of it as coal mines, and mountains, not so much cotillions and sweet tea. My bad. This must be much in the same way that the entire world equates Indiana with basketball.

So, the other night he and I were sitting and listening to music. Something we spend a decent amount of time doing. I find it interesting that in a society that is dialed in, wired, connected with the G3 network, and cosmically linked with the entire cyber universe, he and I choose to sit and listen to music. (It could be the lack of cable, but I prefer the more esoteric outlook.) Anyway, there we were, listening to the country-rock band Sugarland. Jennifer Nettles has this amazingly powerful voice, and I find her a challenge to emulate, so I listen to her quite often. My friend was waxing philosophic about the sound of a southern woman. How he missed the drawl of the south, and how "nothing sounds sexier." I was obviously a bit perplexed. What was so bad about the sound of my voice? I mean, hadn't people paid to hear it for over a decade? Was that all a farce? Then, in what I can only describe as the single most sarcastic tone I have ever heard, he said, "Yeah...nothing beats the 'clang' of a Mid-Western woman." I sat on it for a second. "The clang of a Mid-Western woman?"

I had never really thought of it in that way. Sure, I grew up scant hours from Chicago, and had probably developed some nasal habits that were not exactly the most relaxing of sounds, but a "clang?" Suddenly every word, every sound, is haunted by the twisting feel of abrasion placed upon the tongue by a nose I have never particularly cared for anyway. I had always been told that Northern Indiana was the model for the "American Accent." This always meant to me "you do not have one." Apparently I have been mislead by "The Powers That Dictate What Is and What Is Not." I have a "clang."

All this talk of the regional sound of humanity got me to thinking about the words I have heard in my life...especially from those whom I cared for the most at the time they were in my life. I can still hear the voices of the high school crushes, but they were from the same time and place as I, and therefore sounded (in my mind) just like me. There was Damian. He was from Phoenix. Not much of an accent there, but he had this laugh that seemed to take on an accent of his own. There was also a hint of Hispania that I would only learn years later was as much a part of the Phoenix vernacular as the Chicago "clang" is to myself. Chuckie. Ah, Chuckie. It is unfortunate for Chuck that since he passed away I have glorified him in ways that are probably over the top, but his voice was so distinct, I shall never hear another like it. It was the way he said the "o" sound, like in "open." It was almost like he lent every "o" an "n" to keep it company on its aural journey. "It's not n'open," he would say with this very strange slight bit of Wisconsin in there...I can only assume from his summers growing up in The Dells. Then there is the current one in my life. Being from West Virginia, there is this obvious southern thing, mixed with a hint of ebonics, and lined with this bass/baritone growl that can make it at times difficult for my ear (which is apparently keenly tuned to the frequency of "Mid-Western Clang") to decipher exactly what the message at the moment may be. It is this warm noise that resonates through him like an earthquake, yet stops short at the point of collapse. The Song of The South, I can only assume. That, or the tonal representation of generations of men that have been made to feel that the only way a man can truly survive is awash in a sea of machismo that can only be achieved when "their woman" is in the kitchen, and they have a cold beer in their over-worked Southern hand. (Apparently my childhood Nickelodeon obsession with watching "The Donna Reed" show has created a breach in the Women's Suffrage role to which I have become accustomed...I guess there is something to be said for being "the woman.")

What is it? Sound? This thing that can link you to a person, place, or situation at the drop of a hat? It can put you back in a place in the past, or with someone long gone, just with a few tones. Tones that are really tiny movements of a miniscule vibrating bone turned into a thing with tangible meaning. What is it that makes some of these sounds "home," and some of them as foreign as walking on the moon? What is it that gives sound the power to be sweet and kind, or tinny and clanging without prior knowledge of the orator of said frequency? Why is a New Yawk accent always going to be pseudo-arrogant and twitchy? What makes the Bah-ston sound so deliciously eastern? Why do the southern girls seem to be able to achieve a level of manipulation few others can touch with the simple twists and turns of some strategically mis-placed vowels? Why does the "clang" of the Mid-Western girl bring to mind images of corn-fields and basketball? I've always liked to think I was sandwiched quite nicely between the "hey yall"s and "there's a nyce myall outsyde of Paramus"s of the rest of this amazing continent. How much value really lies inside the passage that is travelled from our lips to another's ears. In other words; "What messages are we sending that we have no control over whatsoever? And...further more, how do we make those messages our own?"

Later in the night I was in bed attempting to doze off, and began to think about this whole "clang" situation. I was in the middle of rubbing the back of said West Virginia Redneck out of habit to put myself to sleep, and there was one of those inaudible sighs from his body that says "the last of the day has just left me." Spoken without saying a word. No vowels. No consonants. No twang. No clang. No accent. Just a message. At that point I realized; no matter how the message is transmitted...if it's a touch, a sound, a smell, a look, it matters not if sometime there is an extra vowel or nasal expression contained within...as long as the message is "you make me happy..." I think The Clang will suffice just fine. And, should it not, I guess "get back in the kitchen, bitch," will have to run a close second. That is, as long as the kitchen is where my clanging ass really wants to be, anyway...

Well, yall, apparently (for today at least) it is.