Expecting silence, I got the glories of Saint-Saens from Samson and Delilah. I was on my phone, holding for a technician to help me resolve a computer problem. The song went on with the rich, emotionally dark sounds of “my heart at the sound of your voice,” with even the harp and a wailing clarinet or oboe in the distance. And then the half-falsetto of the tenor’s response. Entranced I hoped the technician wouldn’t come on too soon. I wanted to hear the end of the aria.
So it finished. Then the technician came on, “how may I help you sir?” I was stopped in my tracks by her voice.
We interacted for probably thirty seconds, then I interrupted. “You have an absolutely gorgeous Black voice,” I said. I could hear her smiling over the phone as she said, “Why, thank you sir.” Without waiting, I asked that she send kudos to the choice of music. “I’d never heard Saint-Saens while waiting for a technician.”
Then she went on with her questions and directions. In the middle of it, she stopped and without any context, she asked, “how did you know?” “I used to be a singer,” I said. “And I first heard Leontyne Price in the early 1960’s. I’d never heard such gorgeous sounds. I learned that only Blacks can make that sound. And that it is present in their linguistic placement of sound.” To my surprise and delight, she confessed, “I wanted to do opera, but I wasn’t good enough.” She was oozing with warmth and intelligence. You could recognize it in the vocabulary she chose, the arrangement of her words, the way she framed her questions and answered with unusual clarity, quite capably moving the conversation along to achieve both our objectives. And so, she fixed my computer problems, then taught me how to do it for myself—and wished me happy holidays.
I leaned back—to a flood of emotions. I remembered sitting with my beloved in concert—now gone more than ten years. She squeezed my wrist, turned briefly to me with a slight smile and glistening tears, for the first time hearing the inescapability of desire from Delilah.
As is often the case, I needed to share my experiences. So, I called my old friend and classmate, a psychologist, in the early stages of dementia. Well aware that we could talk freely and that just our conversation—any conversation about most anything--would make his day—and mine.
“How did you know?” he asked. “I would never recognize a speaking sound that clearly.” “There was,” I responded, “a rounded, warm, empathic sound, built into her voice--not sharp or edgy. It’s a very distinguishing placement of sound. You can never hear it in another ethnicity. And of course, it’s not true of all Black females, but there it was in her voice. Many tenors,” I continued, “often come from Spanish, Italian or Latin background. It’s their bright and shining sound, the linguistics demanded by the original language resulting in a unique timbre. Say, Pavarotti, Domingo or Carreras. If you listen closely to Frank Sinatra, you can also hear it in his records. It really shows up in his falsetto.” So, my dear friend added, “You gave her a Christmas gift she will never forget. Perhaps the best Christmas gift.”
[For fun, track down “Nessun Dorma” on Youtube, with Jose Carreras (Spaniard) and Jonas Hoffman (German) and the different linguistic placements become clear—even to the untrained ear. Both create gorgeous sound. The Spaniard bright and shining. The German rich and full. Take your pick.]
And then my friend was off, reminding me of an experience we had had a few days before our seminary graduation in 1962. We had gone out for lunch. A very attractive waitress had taken our order and was walking back to another client with glasses of wine on her tray. He was eyeing her. “You can’t have that,” I said. He broke up in laughter, but I reminded him he was going to be teaching in a church school. A couple more sentences, and he thought that I was referring to the woman, but I was referring to drinking wine in his new church college position. It still brings a laugh to both of us. Today, we both enjoy a good glass of wine or a taste of bourbon together on a rare occasion. And today, I reminded him that we were listening to the Adagietto of the Mahler Fifth on the way to that restaurant. “I would never have remembered that,” he responded. “God, those were wonderful memories.”
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So, what’s really going on here? A lot more than just asking for help or sharing experiences with a dear friend. My friend and I are long time intimates. Intimacy is not at all just about sexuality. It’s about a unique quality of closeness that involves emotional disclosure. It’s a rich smile and sometimes the glistening of tears. People can make pragmatic or factual disclosures, but they will be met with pragmatic or problem-solving responsiveness. In In the absence of emotional empathy, attempts at intimate relations can miss the mark. Those making emotional disclosures usually want an emotional response. Those making pragmatic or factual disclosures often want just a factual response. We know that emotional disclosures lead to far greater intimacy than do factual disclosures. But regardless of kind, mismatched responses leave the discloser feeling misunderstood and devalued rather than affirmed and validated. Under these conditions, intimacy will suffer.
Real intimacy requires not only great conversational skills and emotional disclosure, but also a great deal of risk. Risk, well worth the taking. Though intimacy was far from my mind, risk ran instantly through my gray matter as I commented to the technician on her gorgeous Black voice. She was probably a Millennial. It could have been misinterpreted as racist or sexist. But there was a slight gamble that she knew I was complimenting her, a gamble which was represented by what my buddy calls my earthy, bass-baritone warmth. A studied vocal warmth for that gamble. The obvious warmth, even surprise in her response was rich and satisfying for me. I love giving gifts—and it’s rare they are rejected. But it took years to learn.
One of the saddest things I’ve learned recently about intimacy is that sometimes it can drive people apart, threaten, rather than pull them together. Often, it is the consequence of childhood abuse, and it seems to go with our crazily independent culture. And its loss is also widespread because of our digital world. We all want intimacy as much as ever. That desire doesn’t go away with generations. It’s evolutionarily and biologically inherent. It’s that feeling of being close and emotionally connected. It’s that feeling of deeply knowing someone while also being deeply known. And without it, we are less than human.