Morning, friends!
OK, before diving in today I wanted to make sure you didn't miss my upcoming virtual yoga series, Retreat Within🌙. It's designed to help you gently maneuver any walls you might've recently hit, find relaxation and reclaim soothing evening rituals, and give you techniques to find rest even if sleep is elusive. Learn more and sign up here! We gather on the evening of the next new moon, Thursday 2/11. 🌑Enrollments close tomorrow at 5pm ET. |
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It's Sunday evening as I draft this letter, and there's a chorus of coyotes backing up the clicks of my keyboard. I wonder what they're yipping on about. Maybe they caught a bunny. Maybe they're scaring off a rival pack. Who can say? Well, other than other coyotes.
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Lately I've gotten into the habit of recording my dreams as audio files on my phone when I wake up. Dreams are hard to put into words. The physical effort of lifting a pen to translate them into sentences is tedious and always lacks nuance. It's never a practice I could sustain.
One day I was watching the second season of The OA, and there's a scene where they find a massive collection of audio dream recordings. Since then I've been recording about one per week on average. I find that there's a much more direct, 1-1 transfer of my dream memories with the cadence, intonation, pacing and emotional quality of my voice. Where I mumble. muffle and pause, my actual dreamscape got fuzzy, too.
I neither love nor hate the sound of my voice. To me that's like having an opinion about the appearance of my knees. Hard neutral. Do they bend? Fine. They serve a purpose higher than their looks. But occasionally, the world offers feedback. Past romantic interests have attested to the soothing nature of my voice. (Although I understand that to be an excuse for having fallen asleep during the course of our conversations requiring their emotional engagement. 👀)
Otherwise the only other feedback I've had is from teaching yoga. When I started early on students would sometimes express that they couldn't hear me, which — come to think — isn't really a comment on my voice but on the lack of it. But it was helpful nonetheless to know that I needed to speak up if I wanted to be heard. And that's really what we mean when we talk about having a "voice" isn't it? Because a voice doesn't really exist without an audience.
I suppose we could have felt the human voice renaissance period approaching back when this article came out, reminding us of the magic of voicemails. Or remember when Serial debuted, and everyone was like "Hm, what's a podcast?" These days, I would likely perish if not for the company of my podcast rotation on my daily walk to nowhere.
It took seven years to pass before an audio chat social media platform in the form of Clubhouse would make the scene amid a pandemic that left people bereft not only of human touch, but of the intimacy of the human voice. And I don't mean hearing it on Facetime or Zoom — but at the bar after work, at the coffee shop, around the office fridge, in school hallways, on our bus commute. The novelty of a stranger's voice, a voice you had just heard for the first time, has been limited lately. But now...we have this app.
Upon invitation from my friend Sarah, I gave it a whirl. I opened it a little sheepishly and slid into a room that said something about business with little idea of what to expect. As I entered, I conjured the familiar image of being at a conference in olden-times. The unpleasant feeling of walking into a hall built for 200 people only to realize I'd creaked open the door to about 20 butts in seats, half of them now turning from the stage to look back at me, as I averted my eyes to my phone as a buffer.
But with Clubhouse, you don't have to deal with the nakedness of being seen as an ear to someone's voice — you can simply "leave quietly ✌️" if the mood doesn't strike.
When I arrived, a woman was speaking. She seemed to have a great command of the topic and the flow of her delivery was strong (despite my lacking any context to the conversation). She was speaking about finding your passion and had come to a line about happiness, when someone let a man from the audience have a mic, and this man started to interrogate her: "But what does that even mean...happiness?" He went on asking what were clearly rhetorical questions meant to antagonize and disarm her. We all know the difference between legitimate, curious questions and those meant to embarrass or cause disruption. This is where tone is important. Rather than get defensive, she asked him to finish his thought. She paused and listened. He bumbled, seeming unsure of himself, the tension of this encounter hanging thick as oil in the air. It was clear this intruder wanted to hear the sound of his voice, but was taken aback when someone might actually listen to it. At times, being heard is more vulnerable than speaking.
Finally, about five agonizing seconds too late, a moderator pulled the plug on his speaking privileges and apologized for the trolling. The woman veered the conversation seamlessly back, almost as though this interruption had never occurred. I wish I could remember more details about this small encounter, like speaker names or the room name, but I was so lost and overwhelmed by the newness of the platform that I didn't take note.
I had known it could be like this on Clubhouse: a cacophony; a place for both fascinating conversations and also trolls, just like any other corner of the Internet. Little did I know that we might also find gentle reminders of grace in these interactions, even the messy or uncomfortable ones. I'm struck less by novelty and more by universality. I remember my first years teaching yoga, quiet, timid and unsure of my abilities. We are at times both desperate for a chance at holding the microphone, and also a little terrified of being heard when we do.
As if learning them for the first time, I'm starting to flip back and listen to my dream voice memos from a few months ago. It's curious what was recounted then that now makes such perfect sense. I'm the only audience for the dreamscapes, and with each listen, I get a little closer to the truth.
💞
Kelly
PS - Thinking of starting to record these essays on a weekly basis. I guess that's called a podcast. Would you listen? Let me know.
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Community Question!
Who do you think has the best voice? Or, what makes a pleasant voice for you? Tell me about what strikes your fancy. Answer here. |
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New: Insight Timer Meditations
I got approved to join Insight Timer this morning. If you use the app, go ahead and follow me there. I'm planning to share more meditations soon! ✨ |
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From the Om Archives
When you write a newsletter for 7+ years, you reserve the right to build a section like this in it 😂. And you get to read it aloud in your best grandma voice. Back in my day.... Today's is from an email dated Oct. 21, 2014, " When an authentic voice just needs a little tweaking." I never did end up figuring out how to be an animated gif for Halloween. Sad. |
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Podcasts Superlatives: Voice Edition 📚
A short round-up here!
- Most intuitive voice goes to Anna Sale of Death Sex Money. She also asks great questions and is probably my favorite interviewer.
- Most dynamic and delightful duo of voices goes to Christina and Kamille of Unfriendly Black Hotties, whose voices are a lovely balance of soothing and strong (plus they're funny as hell).
- Best laugh goes to Alex Goldman and PJ Vogt of Reply All. I'm currently enthralled by their recent deep-dive on Bon Appetit.
- Most relaxing goes to Ennegram & Coffee. Sarajane has such such an ASMR voice, if that's a thing.
- Most curious and inquisitive goes to Chris Gethard and Beautiful Anonymous. He takes calls from random strangers and they end up talking about all kinds of stuff — both deep and shallow.
- Most insightful goes to Kai Wright of United States of Anxiety. (Take in their recent episode about the origin story of Black History Month).
- Class Clown goes to Beach Too Sandy, Water Too Wet, which appropriately for this edition features, "dramatic readings of one-star reviews written by people who just need to have their voice heard."
- Most beautiful voice for the year goes to poet laureate Amanda Gorman who you all know by now for her spoken word performance at the recent presidential inauguration. In this Ted Talks Daily episode, she casts light on how poetry is not the language of barrier but of bridges, making it both powerful and political. I admire her deeply.
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Voices & speech impediments
History has shown us again and again that not only are some voices not given a mic on purpose, but others don't take the mic because they have a disorder or disability.
- "When Our Stutter changes, our listening changes. We listen with more love." I found this reflection from Austin Kleon about he and his son's stutters to be gorgeous.
- In this episode of This American Life, Jerome Ellis takes the stage to reveal the issue around "temporal accessibility." He has a time limit, but he doesn't always know how long it may take to get the words out.
- What happens when you're a singer, and you lose your voice?
- Both the president and Amanda Gorman have speech impediments. More about Gorman's journey and how she found her voice.
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Tunes 🎶
Stream this playlist and ponder what makes a voice sound beautiful.
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