Watched by belladet
Coming from Kentucky, my accent has always been a thing of notice. During my freshman year, I sounded straight from the creek—barefooted redneck who doesn’t know how to do math. Only two of those things are true, by the way. I’ll let you decide which ones. Where I was from and how I spoke quickly became “my thing.” My accent isn’t a Georgian drawl that slips off the tongue like molasses, but a harsh mountain twang springs between my teeth like a banjo chord.
On one of the first days of acting class, our teacher had us sit in 2 circles. One facing in and one facing out; a speed dating exercise where we spat as many random facts about each other to try and remember them all at the very end. I sat criss-crossed, my dress tucked over my knees and dirty Converse thrown to the side of the room. In the theatre, none of us wear shoes. Back then, I was still blonde with bangs. They stuck to my forehead, sticky with the sweat of first-day college anxiety. (It's funny how that never really goes away, even if I’m a senior).
The first person I was talking to, Sam, I had already sort of, kinda, almost met through Snapchat. We’d been talking back and forth about how excited we were to come here and all the general awkward “hey, we’re going to be knowing so much of each other very soon, but not yet, so let’s not get too friendly too quickly” conversation. He sat across from me on his knees with shaky hands and a nervous smile.
“Hi, Sam.”
“Hey, Bella.”
We both said it like we had some kind of secret: we already knew each other, but everyone else didn’t know we knew each other. Que the Friends line, “They don’t know we know they know we know.”
The thing with Sam, he went to boarding school in England (okay richie rich) and had this funky british-american monstrosity of an accent where he wouldn’t say wah-er bah-le, but he would say fank you. There was Be, too, who was Australian, but he was a 20-year-old transfer student who didn’t really want to spend much time around fresh high school graduates.
As the circle continued, I got the sense that people weren’t really interested in what I was saying but how I was saying it. If no one remembered my favorite color, they’d at least remember I said Ah instead of eye. The class ended, and my accent felt phony in my mouth. I felt phony. Nothing’s right. I miss sweet tea and fried chicken (I know, how stereotypical), but I do. I missed my grandma’s shotgun house and her clothesline. I miss sitting under her willow tree on a checkered picnic blanket, waiting for the foxes to walk across the river bend and join me for lunch.
Reese Witherspoon, I see you, and I hear you. I sound like you now. I watch this movie and judge you for hating where you came from, for changing your accent, but now people are surprised when I say where I’m from. I break the stereotype, I’m the wave that destroys every thought sandcastle on their personal beach.
I call my dad on the phone in front of my friends, and someone says I sound “so hillbilly.” I watch a movie with my roommates where a character calls her grandmother meemaw, and one of them jokes, “Do people call their grandparents that? Wow,” with acidic judgment dripping from her tone, knowing I call my grandma “wee.” She’d also call a character’s accent “racist” at one point, freeze, turn to me, and fumble over herself trying to bury her slip-up under the rug.
There are days when I only listen to bluegrass music and hope to get stopped on the street by an influencer recording a “what are you listening to” video just so I can let everyone know where I’m from. My cowboy boots clack on linoleum floors. To a stranger, they sound like hate. To me, they sound like home.
My best friend Chris and I lay in bed, watching Sweet Home Alabama, drinking Trader Joe's apple pie wine, and giggling over Josh Lucas and Patrick Dempsey. Cuddled together with our heads lying on my giant Squishmellow, Reginald, the wine loosens my lips, allowing Kentucky to slip through. I revel in it.
I dream that night of my favorite hometown coffee shop. I order an ah-ced caramel latte, and as I step out into the early morning fog, cicadas hum outside.
