Losing My Accent

It's been years since I watched a DVD on a television screen; my player is one of those VCR dual purpose machines that is no longer even patch-able into any viable system.  But recently I figured out how to connect my computer to TV, and as a test, I used an old video someone converted to digital.  So there I was, 30 years ago, puttering around a former apartment which in itself brought up a major nostalgia wave.  I loved my 'bachelorette' pad-- the compact but cool bi-level loft with the brick wall and the balcony where I'd hosted rockstars and journalists, wild parties, intimate candlelit dinners, rehearsals, recording sessions, baby showers and toddler play-dates.  Where I'd gone from vinyl to tape to cd, from Smith-Corona to Microsoft, from art consultant to bassist, historian to songwriter, 20's to 30's, single to married (and repeat...)...

Suddenly this woman who coyly shielded herself from the cameraman and then with candor dropped the charade was devastatingly familiar... and yet so far away.   I suppose since I've ignored the whole phone-culture, the selfie-obsession, the instant i-Movie phenomenon... I'm missing a couple of generations of self-documentation.  But thanks to the thoughtfulness of a visiting friend with a video-camera, a few 'slices' of my life-as-a-mother were recorded, along with some footage of me at the age of 9 playing Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.  Where the little girl in the sailor dress seems like some random animated doll-puppet, the young mother at home with her baby-boy was this woman I wanted to know.  It was as though I suddenly understood what men found appealing all through those years-- this casual grace, an unstudied sense of style... black hair pulled back in a cheap barrette, strands of hair falling like a shadow across a face I recalled like an old actor in her prime movie.

I've never been a mirror-worshipper-- rather a mirror-avoider.  There is a time, however, in nearly every girl's life where she makes this leap from awkward adolescence to some kind of swan-hood-- a moment where her body makes sense-- whether it is in a dance-class, on a sports field, drawing a picture-- acting-- suddenly you are a coherent 'being'; your parts work, your brain works.  You cease to be a duckling and you are given a glimpse of your potential-- your power.  For some of us, the accident of physical beauty provides either a motivator or a hindrance.  For others, the confluence of emotion and intelligence and action just seem to synch up and suddenly we are 'real'.  A camera can either confirm or contradict this perception; of course now, there are so many digital manipulations available, one can't really trust a photo.  Sometimes it took that moment where we were chosen for a part-- a team-- a friendship.  That boy we crushed on suddenly looks at us as though he's seeing for the first time... or some amazing new girl in your class wants to be your BFF, with blood signatures and clothing exchanges and vows.  It feels good.  We are validated.

In the video I could feel that validation-- a confidence, a confirmation...  her smile, her speech-- the calmness... as though life was a slow river and we had all the time in the world in this lovely boat of love and relentless gifting.  Even the baby could feel it-- he was relaxed and easy, and the way mother and son touched one another was so lovely... with trust and a profound sense of family.  I was absolutely mesmerized; the idea this was my 'self' was both exhilarating and devastatingly poignant.

My friends and I have come so far.  So many have veered off the road-- passed away from illness or accident or suicide.  Many have dipped into the lowest emotional depths.  Aging is difficult. Personally, I do avoid mirrors but being a working musician, I see the photos-- the craggy shadows and lines I do not cover over.  I see myself as a tree in winter--- the same branch-arms that once were dressed in lush green are now craggy and stiffer.  They have yet to break off-- I find a kind of brittle strength in these years, but my old beauty is missing.

Looking at the video again, I remember I had two lovers at the time; one was tall and southern- -the other was young and slender and European-- a musician, like me.  The young musician moved in and for several years we maintained a kind of family... but this ended, and he returned to his home.  There were other lovers, other roommates... the southern man and I are still close friends although there have been distances between us.  I can remember his face-- he reminded me of a young Gregory Peck and it took my breath away.  Now he is nearly as craggy as I.  He often brings me lunch and we take trips together.  Today he mentioned how he hates his southern accent.  For me, it is part of what I love--what remains.  Every once in a while he slips up and says 'si-REEN' or 'GUItar' with the accent on the first syllable.

Recently I've been interviewing kids for my alma mater-- mostly young women and many of them recent immigrants.  They are altogether so anxious to 'lose' their accents and become fully integrated American girls.  I look back at the young woman I was 30 years ago and understand why my Mom nagged and nagged me to make better choices while I laughed and smiled and waved her warnings away... all these years later I see how she understood that the 'accent' of my womanhood was something I would eventually leave behind.  Time is on your side for oh-so-long... until it isn't.   Which is not all that bad, I will testify...  wishing a heartfelt 'carpe diem' to my readers.

Survival of the Outfittest

On the crosstown bus the other day I found myself not just thinking but actually mouthing the words ‘fucking bastard’. Like I am caught in this verbal crossfire/defensive pissed-off poor-schmuck-commuter mode and I am adapting. Do you ever find yourself talking to a black person and you start coming out with things like ‘ hey, brothah… ' and you say it with quotations around it, but it is coming out of your mouth.

Or my friend from Tennessee.. When I’m on the phone saying hi to his Mom, I can sense the slightest hint of extra diphthong coming out of my mouth. Now I am supposed to be an individual, a fairly well-baked New Yorker at this point, twice removed. But here I am, succumbing to the atmosphere, trying on another one of the zillion self-styled uniforms of my fellow MTA riders…like the evolutionary species to which I belong, doing what we humans do best…adapting.

Is this a form of ‘selling out’? A manifestation of my old Dad’s favorite proverb “Lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas”? I always thought it was an oblique warning to practice safe sex. But now I appreciate the resonance of this old proverb. Lie down with dogs long enough, you begin to develop a sort of bark. So is this my excuse for the ‘edge’ I find these days slipping off my tongue like liquid razor?

We New Yorkers are known for being pissed off. Also for being incredibly hardy, tough, yet neighborly and heroic when we want to. The fact is, we’re exposed so much variety in constant barrage, there’s ample space in any given day to tune into any number of wavelengths, to try on any one of a million fashion statements.

So maybe on the bus I was doing the construction guys who’ve been working in my courtyard, whose every single expletive is decibally equivalent to the music on my apartment stereo. Funny how every single club I play can’t seem to manage anything close to an adequate sound system, and right here, out my back windows, we have Carnegie Hall-worthy acoustics.
Anyway, their personal lives have begun to seep into my consciousness, and their verbal style is beginning to slip off my tongue. I pass them sometimes, coming from the subway or on their way home, talking that macho guy-talk with the ‘fucking’ punctuating nearly every word. They have no idea who I am, even though I know all about the bald one’s extra-marital sexlife and another guy’s debt and someone’s ‘fucking cunt’ of a mother-in-law. I recognize them by their voices. I gave up trying to drown them out, along with the incessant banging and sawing that has now exceeded the reasonable renovation time-frame of a 12-story building with no power tools from the ground up.

Their soundtrack, over Charlie Parker and Miles and the trendy bands I review, are bleeding into my life—slowly and consistently like an IV drip. In fact the whole city is in my veins by now. I even have the rotten wet cold of the OR nurse who sat next to me last Tuesday, generously sharing her inner virus with every sneeze and cough.

Maybe it is my musical ‘ear’ that picks up and plays back the audio with more finesse than I am able to cop a tough bassline these days. Maybe…but it’s also become kind of ‘second nature’. My way of ‘adapting’. Urban camouflage. Survival. It also feels good sometimes, to let loose these expletives like ammunition. Thank God most New Yorkers don’t read lips. Or aren’t looking anyway. I could dis a black man’s mother at 12 inches and he wouldn’t notice because his ipod is blasting and he is in his zone. And tell me, if insulting bad language comes like a Tourette’s impulse, and everyone in the room has their earbuds in, am I going to get my face kicked in?

Maybe I’d better spend the evening listening to Shakespeare on PBS. Or barking.
Sayonara.