A Taste of Flava | I Have Always Had a Thing for Voices

Dear Friends,

This morning, I woke up to rain in Seattle.

It was 56 degrees, the air felt fresh, and the rain was falling without blowing in our direction. That meant I could actually open the television-room window and enjoy the cool morning air.

Musty and I were hanging out together. I was tucked beneath my fuzzy sunflower blanket, listening to an FBI suspense audiobook, knowing I would make myself a cup of coffee shortly.

It was the perfect rainy Saturday morning. 🌧️🌻☕

As I sat there listening, I started thinking about how much I have always loved stories—and especially voices.

When I was twelve years old, my parents allowed me to accompany my Grandma Matsu on a flight to Denver. We were going to visit my Uncle Masaru and Auntie Yuki.

While we were there, I stayed in a bedroom in the basement. The room had a radio, and somehow I discovered a station that played a Story Hour.

Oh, I was thrilled!

I would lie there and listen as someone’s voice carried me into an entirely different world. There was no television screen showing me what the characters or scenery looked like. My imagination created everything from the words and the voice telling the story.

Looking back, that experience explains a lot about me.

I have always had a thing for voices.

A voice can immediately draw me in—or make me turn something off.

I can be interested in the subject of a video, but if the person’s voice does not feel pleasing to my ears, I struggle to keep listening. The same is true with audiobooks. The story may sound wonderful, but if I cannot connect with the narrator’s voice, I will turn it off and find something else.

That may sound picky, but I know what reaches me.

I listen to more than words.

I hear the warmth, texture, rhythm, emotion, and sincerity in someone’s voice. Sometimes a person can say something very simple, but the way they say it stays with me.

I remember taking a call at work from someone whose voice was so wonderful that it caught my attention. I spend my days speaking with people, yet that particular voice stood out. There was simply something about it.

I believe my sensitivity to voices also followed me into my years working in the music industry.

I had opinions about singers’ voices because I was not only listening to whether they could sing or hit the correct notes. I listened for character. I wanted to hear something distinctive. I wanted to believe what they were singing and feel something from their voice.

A technically good voice does not always move you.

Then again, a voice that is not technically perfect can carry so much truth, personality, and emotion that you never forget it.

My love of voices also made radio feel natural to me. Years later, I would play artists’ music on my own radio shows, never thinking about that twelve-year-old girl lying in a basement bedroom in Denver, completely captivated by Story Hour.

But she was still there.

And she is still here today.

The radio has become an audiobook playing from my phone. The basement bedroom has become the television room in my tower. Grandma Matsu is now a precious memory. And that twelve-year-old girl grew up to become a storyteller herself.

Yet the feeling has never changed.

Give me a wonderful story told by a voice that feels good to my spirit, a fuzzy sunflower blanket, the sound of rain through an open window, Musty nearby, and a warm cup of coffee…

And I am perfectly content.

Some people need pictures to enter a story.

I only need the right voice.

From Flava in Her Tower 🌻