I’ve taken many solo journeys over the years; most of my travel has been in the US, and some has been in Canada and Europe. When I leave North Carolina, my homeland in the South, I’ve become aware that sometimes my accent isn’t easy for others to understand. Once I went home to Ohio with my friend, Paula for her cousin’s wedding. Everyone was friendly and tried to make me feel welcomed. When we were in a small group talking at the rehearsal, suddenly everyone stopped talking and looked at me. I thought maybe I’d said something wrong–since I’d never been to that area and didn’t know anyone but Paula.

I looked at her to explain what was happening.

“Keep going,” she said. “They just like hearing you talk.”

There was polite laughter and I felt relieved, and at the same time, put on the spot.

That wouldn’t be the first time I felt that reaction. Years later, in 2014 when I took a road trip to Michigan, there was another memorable incident. I was browsing in an art gallery in Petoskey. I’d gotten in the habit of wearing my UNC Tarheels baseball cap–to protect me from the sun and give a ‘locator’ for my accent. I was wearing my hat that day and took a piece of mixed media art to the counter.

“Hello,” I said to the woman at the register. “Is this artist from Petoskey?” my way of saying, “Let’s talk about this work of art.”

The woman looked at me, then said, “Sounds like you’re a visitor. I hear a little twang.”

I bristled at the word twang, because to my ears, that was a put down. I felt irritated with her for not being friendly and just answering my question. I managed to curb my response and say, “Yes, that’s right. I’m from North Carolina.”

I left the store with my purchase. The irony of the saying of the girl in the fabric art rang in my ears:

“May all beings awaken to their true nature.”

Given my strong response, I knew that in time, I had to accept my true nature and get over myself 🙂

I mostly improved whenever anyone mentioned my accent and sometimes I’d come back with, “And where’s your accent from?” since many seemed to think they had no accent. In 2017 when I traveled to Scotland to Iona for a week of a spiritual retreat, I had varying responses to my accent from the 39 other participants from different countries.

But one response caught me off guard.

It was the first night of our week together. After each evening worship service, we had tea and cookies in the refectory. I arrived early and found only one other person there. His name was Aldo and he was from the Netherlands. He was a big, ruby-player looking guy with a broad smile. He started telling me about his experience thus far. I told him about my decision to attend that week which was entitled “The Pilgrimage of Life.” He listened attentively and when I stopped he responded.

“Your voice,” he said, and added with lots of expression, “It’s so WEIRD!”

I felt startled, shocked at his strong reaction. At first, my defensive knee-jerk kicked inside and felt like saying, How can you say that when your name is Aldo and you speak a combination of English, Dutch, German–I’m not sure what! But instead, I held back and deferred to my Southern politeness 🙂

“It’s called a Southern Accent. I’m from North Carolina in the southern part of the States.”

He apologized profusely, afraid he’d offended me. We went on to have a great conversation and talked about the things that mattered, our search for answers during the retreat. Throughout that week, we talked while doing our group chores and hiking across the island. I was impressed by the honesty with which he shared his struggles. I’d never met anyone who was so forthcoming. It didn’t matter that he was sixteen years younger than me and European; we seemed to be on the same wavelength with the things that mattered.

We continued to keep in touch by email and Facebook. Five years later, when he was leading a retreat in Florida, I visited him. I marveled at how easily we communicated. I observed how he liked to use the word “weird” even when it didn’t apply to my accent. He confessed that he sometimes used that word too freely–even when he was at home in Rotterdam.

A few years ago, I found a book that spoke to the issue of accents. It was John Steinbeck’s, Travels with Charley: In Search of America, published in 1961. In Steinbeck’s travels across the U.S. in his camper truck, Rocinante, with his French poodle, Charley– one of his goals was to “hear the speech of the real America.” Steinbeck said that regional speech was disappearing “not gone but going.” He attributed that to forty years of radio and television and said that “radio and television speech becomes standardized, perhaps better English than we’ve ever used.” He said this saddened him because “with local accent will disappear local tempo. The idioms, the figures of speech that make language rich and full of the poetry of place and time must go. And in their place will be a national speech, wrapped and package, standard and tasteless.” (p 106- 107)

When I walked the Portuguese Coastal Camino path through Portugal and Spain, I couldn’t speak but a few words in either of those languages. Most of the time, there wasn’t a problem because many of the college-age restaurant and hotel staff spoke English. One night, when I was especially tired, I sat at an outside restaurant and enjoyed my first meal of octopus. The waiter who’d been assigned to my table, was on his summer break from a university near Madrid. It was a slow night so he’d had time for conversation. But then, he was assigned to another area and an older man was given my table.

He came over to ask if I needed anything and I said just my check.

With his grouch-frozen face, he handed me my bill and said, “You from the States?”

“Yes, I am.”

He looked at me and then said, “You talk different.”

Oh my gosh, you too? I thought, and felt that knee-jerk start to kick out from under that white-cloth table.

“I’m from the South. From North Carolina. It’s a Southern Accent.”

He made no comment, his facial expression didn’t budge, and he walked away to the register.

When I returned home, I told someone about my experience with the Spanish waiter. He advised me to “Just Lean Into It.” Like the people I’d met in Ohio, he liked a Southern accent. I considered what he was saying, letting go of my resistance. Maybe leaning into it was really the same as the wisdom of that piece of Petoskey art, that encouragement for seeing your true nature. All that ultimately mattered was valuing myself and every other person–just as they were.

Best to you all—no matter your accent, no matter your true nature.

Connie

Chapel at Iona, Scotland