A Little Straight Talk About Not Talking Straight

Okay, this is one I’ve been putting off for a while, but last night while attending one of my “speech groups,” I let slip that I have a blog, and I think a few people from that group might be checking in soon. It’s important to note that this was the “feelings” group, not the “fluency” group, and as the members of the feelings group are all about “advertising,” I now feel obligated to peel away yet another layer of the onion that comprises the personality of yours truly. I promise to be brief — and in the process explain what I just said.

I speak with a stutter. In terms of severity, it’s a rather mild one. On average, I probably have trouble with one word occurring in one out of every five sentences. Usually the episodes are brief and often times unobserved by the listener, but the stutter is always right there where I can see it and I am ever-conscious of its presence. I have stuttered all my life, as far back as I can remember. In the fifth grade, my school had a speech therapist come to see me once a week and we played card games mostly (I don’t believe the stutter was ever addressed for some odd reason). Aside from that one instance, I never sought speech therapy until I was 43.

Naturally, I grew up self-conscious of my speech and I allowed it to hinder me. This “stepping back” took many forms: not contributing to some conversations even when I could furnish the crucial point, playing dumb in class when called upon to answer a question, refusing to ask girls out whose names were too difficult to say, and so on. Here’s a good one: at a self-serve gas station I used while in college, I avoided pump numbers seven and eleven, as at this one station you had to announce what your pump number was when it came time to pay! My career choice may have been affected by my speech, because I anticipated not having to do a lot of talking as a graphic designer.

At 43, I joined a year-long program where I learned the “airflow technique.” The airflow technique is a method of speaking developed by Dr. Martin Schwartz, who one day came up with an original theory on the cause of stuttering while watching someone’s larynx through an ultrasound device. He believes that stuttering has a physical cause, in stark contrast to all the other experts who think it’s psychological. I attended his weekend workshop in Boston, and then for one year I practiced different assignments every week. At the end of every week, I recorded samples of my speech with a special microphone that could detect subtleties in my breathing, and mailed the audiotapes off to a clinician who reviewed and critiqued them for me. I also joined a group of other “airflow-ers” who met twice each month and practiced with them.

My speech is much the better for it, and I no longer shrink from many of the situations that used to intimidate me. I joined a Toastmasters club for a time and I have made more than a few business presentations. At parties, I think some people, having met me for the first time, have come away thinking me glib. My biggest challenge seems to be the telephone, but even there I’ve had my share of successes. Many people who know I stutter claim not to even notice it. It does seem I can communicate well enough.

As mentioned at the beginning of this post, I attend two groups. One is a chapter of the National Stuttering Association, which I attended last night. I call this the “feelings” group, because improving one’s fluency of speech is not the primary focus there. It’s more about sorting through the baggage accumulated from living with a disability (hate to use that word, but there it is). They believe we should declare to the world that we stutter and not be ashamed of the fact — “advertising,” in other words. From time to time, we have special meetings where we each stand up and give five minute prepared speeches. That’s what happened last night, and for the occasion I read Name That Moon.

The other group is what I call the “fluency” group. In this one, feelings are not even discussed. For two hours we practice the airflow technique, doing drills and fining each other 25 cents for every misstep when caught not strictly employing the technique (nobody ever stutters during these sessions). It’s hard work sometimes, but a lot of good comes of it.

Well, as Forrest Gump says, “That’s all I have to say about that.”

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Here’s what Peter O’Toole has to say about method actors. I just read this in one of last month’s TIME magazines and thought it was really funny:

“When you’re playing Hamlet, and you and Horatio are up on the battlements, Horatio says, ‘But look, the morn in russet mantle clad/Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.’ Well, it isn’t! You’re looking at Charlie the prop man with a fag in his gob. It’s pretend, for God’s sake!”