There are few activities I enjoy as much as I enjoy talking. Sitting over dinner with friends and shooting the breeze. Discussing the state of the world, kids, movies, food. I’m open to any subject. A wide-ranging talkfest with friends makes the world seem like a pretty great place to be.  

But over the past year talking has become increasingly difficult for me, culminating in a recent diagnosis of ALS—bulbar onset, the kind that robs you of your ability to speak. I still have a voice, but it’s severely compromised; my speech is slow, slurred, monotone. I sound gruff, maybe imperious. It’s often hard for people to understand me, and I see strangers wondering: What’s wrong with her?

And yet—I can’t stop talking. With my husband. With my friends. And, now that the pandemic is losing its grip, increasingly with small groups. I don’t say everything that’s on my mind as I used to, because my interjections slow the pace of a conversation, but I’m still a frequent participant.

I’m surprised by the strength of this urge to speak, even at the risk of humiliation. When I’m sidelined in conversations these days, I notice the speech of those around me, marveling about what speech does for us, this unique human ability.

Like many women, I am the primary talker in my marriage (to a man). If you were to watch me and my husband on walks, in the car, in the kitchen, you would see that mine is the Energizer mouth, the one in constant motion. I am riffing, parsing, speculating, obsessing; in short, I am giving voice to my thoughts, the proverbial running commentary. But now that speech has become more tiring for me, I tell him to pick up the slack. Your turn, I say, goading him. He laughs, protests, says he has nothing to say. Say what you’re thinking. He claims his thoughts are too mundane and boring. We both know that his thoughts are no more mundane and boring than mine are, but we also understand how deeply engrained this habit has become, and how hard it is to change: for me, to shut myself up; for him, to learn to access the running commentary.  

Why did I never notice before that most conversations—especially during informal gatherings with friends—are characterized by frequent interruption? When I’m with my women friends we speed along with a shorthand born of our history and knowledge of each other. We cut each other off without shame for the purpose of moving the conversation along. Now, when I try to interrupt, it kills the conversational flow. People lean in to hear, to understand. They are painfully kind. What in the past might have been a throwaway line, now, delivered in my slow gruff monotone, has the aura of a pronouncement. I’ve stopped trying to do such quick interjections and, as I hold back, I’m struck by how often the things I said in the past weren’t really so necessary to say; they were things uttered mainly to keep the conversation alive.

One of the biggest challenges for a non-native speaker learning the tonal Chinese language is mastery of inflection that denotes meaning. Inflected one way a word means one thing, inflected another way it means something else entirely. Complicated for sure. But inflection in English is also complicated for the variety of connotations a tonal change can convey. Inflection conveys not the meaning of words and phrases, but the speaker’s attitude to what is being said: humor, anger, flirtation. The possibilities are endless and all rendered by slight shifts in emphasis. Is Yeah right said to mean acquiescence, or to convey irony? When does I hate you really mean I love you? All a matter of inflection and emphasis. The speaking of English is, in some ways, like playing a fretless guitar. Now that I’m stripped of the ability to control inflection, my speech has lost nuance. My husband was recently getting himself a glass of water.  You didn’t get water for me? I said, trying to be coquettish. He was annoyed (momentarily), hearing my words as demanding.  

Varied velocity of speech, a key element in joke-telling, is another linguistic element that is now beyond my control. I’ve observed that the exposition of a joke is often delivered slowly, a seductive come-on, then the punch line arrives in a quick cascade of words that prompt laughter. I have never considered myself a stellar joke teller—an old boyfriend of mine used to say, Cai, you’re a regular Milton Berle, which was to say, not—but I miss trying to make people laugh and sometimes succeeding.  

Another thing that wasn’t much on my radar before is how much people love to rail! Are my friends getting loquacious as they age, or has this always been their propensity? I, too, have loved railing over the last four years—is there anyone who didn’t find themselves aghast at the chaos of 2020?—but, unable to rail in my gruff monotone, I’m not unhappy to let go of this often annoying aspect of human speech.

Who speaks the most? Who speaks the loudest? Whose speech silences everyone else? Most women have had the experience of being ignored in meetings when men are present. Most men, too, have had the experience of other men speaking over them. Speech as a form of jousting and one-upmanship, a game to establish dominance. Who is the alpha in the room? Who is submissive? If I ever expect to win such a power play from now on, I will have to perfect the deployment of silence, which can also pack some power in conversation.

Another kneejerk habit most of us have: associating quick speech with high intelligence, slow speech with limited intelligence. Even when we know better, the drawl of the Southerner sometimes leads us to conclude she’s not very bright. The speedy speech of a New Yorker—well, we know she must be smart. These days I listen to my speech on two different planes. I hear the intended meaning of my words and sentences. Simultaneously, I hear the speech of someone with limited linguistic skill. An old person, or maybe a child. I watch clerks and receptionists concluding incorrect things about me, making judgements, responding to me as a simpleton. Still, maybe insanely, I persist in talking.

What I love most about talking is that it’s a bridge to another human being, friend or stranger. A bridge to what each of us is seeing and thinking and feeling about the world. The discovery of overlapping reactions—or radically different ones. The revelation—at least partial revelation—of another soul’s experience of being alive. My husband says if his speech were compromised, he would probably stop speaking entirely. But I doubt that. I think the urge to connect is too fundamental and resilient for that. I began writing this on the shores of Lopez Island; not far out was a rock where sea lions lounge. They vocalized all day and night. Why were they doing this so incessantly? It was past the mating season and they couldn’t have been announcing the arrival of food 24/7. It may be territorial, a way of keeping predators away. But I think it’s more like my own running commentary: The sea lions and I asserting we’re here. 

There will come a time when my exchanges will be mediated through a computer and my sister’s synthesized voice. People will have to slow down in order to interact with me, but if they’re willing, I’ll be there listening and offering what I can. I won’t be narrating every thought that passes through my mind, but less of a running commentary is probably a good thing. After all, something needs to be saved for the writing.