PlogP
Number 398
How I Learned to Code Switch
Hello Ploggers. How are you? I hope all is well. I am currently recuperating from foot surgery.My foot feels better and better each day. Soon I will be walking. running, yoga-ing, line dancing etc. I am looking forward to wearing cute shoes, being foot pain free and putting this behind me. I looked at my X-ray report and it said things like "Osseous changes related to age". 👀 Blink👀 Blink! Talk about a smack of reality. Then I remember my mother shaving the corns off her toes while sitting on her bed at night. I have been doing the same. Only it doesn't help, hence the surgery. Then I see all the Dr. Scholl’s products in my medicine closet. Young people don't have Dr. Scholl's in their medicine chest. They have Band Aids and Bactine and lotion in there. Having Osseous changes related to age is an aging thing. But I have been thinking about my younger years a lot lately. Let’s get into it.
I was talking with my HEART Bestie the other day. We talked about what it was like being a black child and living in white, rural America. It was a conversation I had never had out loud with another living being. But I knew all the answers, because I had done the "Code Change" all my life. I had just never talked about it before, because most of it took place in my head. It was autonomic response like when your lungs breathe faster because your body needs more💨 oxygen. So while I was living my life, I was busy having whole conversations in my head. Playing them out mentally to see which would better serve me. Talk about multi-tasking. Talk about exhausting. Talk about Mental Gymnastics.
Here I was in Rural Ohio at age 13. Everybody absolutely loved Aerosmith. “Dream On”🎶 until your dreams come true was huge. So were the Eagles and “Take it Easy”. We were teenagers and music was important to us. We all went to Hills and bought James Taylor albums and lived a white culture kind of life. Until…. I went to college. I was thrilled to be around more black people my same age. I had my Black family where we ate soul food, listened to our music and danced like the Jacksons in the living room. We had soul! We had the 1970’s Black experience with Jet Magazine, Chaka Khan, and Sly and the Family Stone inside the four walls of our rural, white area 🚜farm house. Quite a Paradox, wouldn’t you say?
When I got into College, I quickly learned to put away the Aerosmith, Eagles and Carpenters music. I still loved it but I only admitted to liking “Let it Whip” by the Dazz Band, “If This World were Mine” by Luther and “Got to Be Real’ by Cheryl Lynn. I danced in the KSU Rathskeller on beat and with soul. It is where I heard my first line dance “Trans Europe Express”. I still line dance to this day, many years later. I think it was from this point I became an expert Code changer.
I can morph into any situation. I learned early to try to meet the expectations of my audience. I learned to make others feel at ease with me. I didn’t understand why they needed to be eased into me, but I knew that they did. I don’t do this anymore. I eat everybody’s soul food. I listen to everyone’s music. I speak Pam-ese to anyone who will listen. No special intonations to fit the situation. I am business savvy and I speak full Lawyer-ese and Nurse-Lingo. I can talk to anybody at any time. I use my Rural, black and white influenced voice with the same tone for everybody. From what I can tell, people love my unique speech. I have been told I sound English, Jamaican, and just plain old Foreign. It is kind of funny that people can’t "peg" me into any particular box. Am I Black enough? Hell yeah! I am a Code Changing, Humanitarian, Masterful Ball of Mystery! RECLAIM!
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