One day, as my girlfriend and I argued about something that I was sure that I had told her, I realized that I wasn't going senile and imagining our conversations, but
something worse had happened during the course of our relationship. She had gotten so tired of asking me to repeat myself, that she stopped asking and conceded
to me not always being intelligible. That argument made me realize that my mumbling wasn't just other people's problem, but it was mine, and something worth
exploring.

By the time I was fourteen I was fluent in three languages, Kreyol, English and Spanish. I would begin learning a fourth, French, while in college, and almost picked
up a fifth, Zulu, during a summer in Durban, South Africa. When I took the time to look back on this I was surprised to discover that French was the only language
that my parents ever really worked with me on. You see, by the time I started speaking they both had already left Haiti, where I was born, for the United States, so
it was up to my aunts and grandparents to teach me Kreyol. When I came to the states, I learned English and Spanish through school, friends and the various sitters
who'd watch me after school and help me with my homework.

During my sophomore year in college I finally started taking a French class and for the first time in my life I turned to my parents to help me with my homework.
What I envisioned as a bonding experience, ignited this peculiar sensation because at the moment when I was supposed to start asserting myself as an adult, I
initiated what is essentially an intimate parent/child relationship. It was probably because of how strange I felt having to rely on my parents for support that I never
committed myself to grasping French. I quickly learned the vocabulary and did not have any problems comprehending what I was reading, but I never felt excited
about it like I did the other languages that I studied and I definitely did not respond well to my parents new found interest in helping me with my homework.

Another thing that was frustrating about my parents helping me with my French is that after 20 years of constantly telling me to "shut-up," they were asking me to
speak, more significantly, they were asking that I speak clearly. For most folks this sounds like it should be an easy task, probably because it's so natural to them,
but for me it was not and I never understood why, until I started thinking about why I mumble so much.

I mumble because I grew up in a house where I was never really allowed to express myself aurally. My expressions of sound were continuously being suppressed.
My radio had to be played low, tv volume low, conversations with friends kept low, speaking to my mother when my dad was sleeping low, and even when
speaking to my dad (something that I never understood) my voice had to be kept low. In a sense for much of my childhood, I lived in a household with two adults
each of whom were fluent in three languages but the only language they taught me was suppressed sound.

You see if Kreyol is my native-tongue, then mumbling is my home language. Sure there is no orthography of mumbling, but I believe it arguably has something more
powerful, a psychology. Just like any other language, mumbling, for me, is the result of a combination of experiences that are learned and reinforced through
communicating with others. It has taken me a long time to figure out how I learned to speak mumble, and I am now engaged in the process of learning how to
unspeak it.

However, unspeaking mumbling is not simply a matter of language and sound, it's a matter of retraining all the senses. For example, since I have moved out of my
parent's home I have always felt uncomfortable in their kitchen when I returned home, particularly, when my mother is cooking. At first I thought it was just the heat,
but after giving it more thought, I figured out, that some of my strongest feelings associated with mumbling or the suppressed expression of sound originate in this
space. My mom would always rush our hushed conversations because she would always have to return to her cooking. The scent of burning food, always made me
feel as I did something wrong, after all, was I not the one who distracted mom from her cooking, thereby, burning the food. And until recently the scent of burned
fish signaled the most painful emotional experience of my life.

One day, when I came home from school I found some cash on the table with a note from my mom telling me to use it to buy some dinner that night. While I was
excited about the opportunity to buy some general tso's chicken that night, I was also angry at my mom for messing up dinner. Then about seven o'clock I got what
I thought was the usual call from my mom checking up on me from work, but this call was completely different because I could immediately tell that she had been
crying. I hit the lowest emotional point of my life when I found out that the reason the fish had burned was because my parents had gotten into a fist-fight while my
mom was cooking. As she relayed the story, I got mad at my dad for hitting her, and then I was mad at myself for having criticized her. And as she ended the call, I
said to her in our home-tongue, I love you mom.

I still mumble, but I am more attuned to it and work to stop it by doing some of the things that I never did as a child, I sing, loud and often. I also take the time to
have new conversations in the kitchen that are peppered by the sounds of generous laughter, and now when the fish burns, we laugh even louder.