The Westering Hills

Here’s something most of you probably don’t know about me: I once had a lisp. It was an “s” lisp, one of the most common lisps. I do not have a lisp anymore.

The history of my lisp, according to my mom, originates with me imitating my older twin sisters. They both had lisps and I, the worshipful younger sister, imitated their speech patterns. Thing is, they went to speech therapy and/or grew out of it (don’t know which) but I kept on. My “s” lisp wasn’t your typical Cindy Brady-type lisp–it was my own unique brand in which I flattened my entire tongue over my bottom teeth and the roof of my mouth hit my tongue. It’s a very reptilian sound, come to think of it, and I’m amazed that I can still reproduce it after all these years.

After we moved to the city of Oakwood in 5th grade (and was thus uprooted from my BFF Anne), my mom enrolled me in the speech therapy program in the elementary school. I went rather reluctantly. I was embarrassed by my lisp but also protective of it at the same time; I know it sounds weird but as an increasingly-surly pre-teen, I didn’t welcome any interference by adults into the way I spoke.

I was in speech therapy for all of 6th grade. I remember vividly how I was taught to make the proper “s” sound and it is simple & ingenious: make the “t” sound–t, t, t, t, t–and slowly progress to an “s” sound–t, t, tch, tch, sch, sch, s, s, s. It worked. I could finally make a proper “s” sound and with relative ease. All I had to do now was actually use it in real life. That was the tough part. By making a different “s” sound, by actually TALKING DIFFERENTLY than I had my whole life? Scary. What if it didn’t work? What if, god forbid, it drew attention and singled me out. I wasn’t sure how and when to put the plan into place.

The day I chose to finally do it was the day that our friend Matt’s dog, Gus, escaped his house. Matt called our house and enlisted the three of us to come over and look for Gus, poor dopey Gus, who was not an outside dog and thrived on coddling. We sped over and spread out in the neighborhood. I was with one of my sisters and decided that this, THIS, was the perfect moment to unveil my new “s”:

“GU-U-U-U-S-S-S-S!” I yelled. One of my sisters (no, doesn’t matter which one it was, I am not upset now–we were all young and unthinking at times back in those days) looked at me and said, “That sounds weird.” I was devastated. I had almost no self-confidence then and that was my biggest fear, that I would sound odd. I shrunk back into myself and reverted to my lisp.

I don’t remember much after that except that a few months later, when I was in 7th grade, my lisp was gone. I must’ve worked at it all summer in order to be a different person by the time I entered junior high.

I have great empathy for those who have lisps or stammers. I know how hard it is to overcome such an obstacle and what work goes into it. I ask you, my friends, what great obstacles have you hurdled in your life, be it a lisp or acne or self-esteem or whatever you wish to share?