Voice From the Past . . . My Own

by

Nicki Leone

If you were to look over the archives of the past columns I’ve written for this space, (if your life were really so tedious and dull) then you would notice how often they begin “I was driving along . . .” I don’t spend a lot of time in my car, but when I do leave the house, it’s usually for a long, long trip. Accordingly, for years my car floor has been littered with an ever -changing selection of audio books, cassettes and CDs—all vying for space with the soda cans, paper coffee cups, packets of potato chips, greasy bags that once held drive-thru fast food, pens that no longer write . . . and I’m going to stop here because I’m probably grossing everyone out.

And as you might guess, eventually a sudden stop would cause the soda to spill over onto the CDs, the greasy bags to tip over and spill old salt onto the audio book cases. Audio books—which are often ten to twelve CDs to a case if you insist, as I do, on the unabridged editions—would come loose from their packages and slip under the passenger seat, stick to the tacky surface of the drink holder, rest under the ill-fitting ash tray filled with ashes that are not from cigarettes.

In other words, the car was a mess. And the CDs were starting to skip. And there is nothing more annoying than to be miles between exits on the highway and have the book you are listening to start skipping at a critical point. So, two months ago I became the last remaining citizen of the United States who had never owned an iPod to buy one.

Here’s what happens when you buy an iPod. As everyone but me probably knew, the first thing that occurs when you plug it in to your computer is that it starts a mysterious and somewhat alarmingly independent process of scanning your entire hard drive for anything that looks like a music file. It does this automatically and without prompting, cataloging and categorizing the bits and pieces of your computerized audio life and putting it into what it calls “your library” (a term that frankly I’ll always associate with books, not sound). I thought nothing of this process since at that point in my life my entire audio collection existed as a series of compact discs (for audio books) and vinyl albums (for music). I was embarrassingly, hopelessly analog for a geek.

So once the program was done poking its nose into the lesser-visited and all but forgotten corners of my C: drive, I began loading up my new iPod with a series of downloaded music (in a fit of nostalgia I found myself re-creating the record collection my parents had when I was a child—lots of late sixties and early seventies rock and a distressingly complete collection of Barbra Streisand albums) and every audio version of Shakespeare that I owned. Which, if you have been reading these columns, you know is quite a lot of Shakespeare. Then I hit the road.

The iPod was on “shuffle” and it took a bit of fiddling on my part to get used to navigating the thing while driving (it caused me to get a speeding ticket, but that’s another story). Eventually, I just let the thing run, allowing it to skip around among The Guess Who, Bob Dylan, Deep Purple, Simon and Garfunkel, and Santana albums that represented the sound track of my life when I was about ten. Then, suddenly and out of the blue, I heard my own voice:

“I was not looking forward to this commentary,” came the thin tones of my soft and rather high voice through the car stereo. “I had been asked by several people to give a suggestion . . .” I lunged for pause button, almost swerving the car, completely shocked.

Years ago I used to be the on air book commentator for my town’s public radio station. Every other week, I’d get four minutes (650 words in my slow, measured speaking pace) to talk about . . . well, whatever I wanted relating to literature. It was a fun project and the beginning of what eventually grew into these columns. Apparently, that little ferreting job the iPod had done as it rooted through my computer had found my old back-up archive of those pieces, and recognizing them as audio—if not precisely sure to what album or artist they should be assigned—had dutifully added them to my “playlist.” I hadn’t looked or listened to them in years. I had forgotten that they were even there.

And which of the hundred pieces did the “shuffle mode” elect to play first? The piece I wrote and recorded a few days after 9/11, when image of the falling towers of the World Trade Center were running in a horrid continuous loop in my mind.

The hair on the back of my neck literally stood on end. A clichéd phrase I know, but I’ve reached in vain for a better one. Of all the columns I’d written, all the recording sessions it could have chosen, how in the world had it picked that one?

I listened, of course. I am neither religious nor superstitious nor a believer in any kind of grand fate or design, but I pay attention when the universe is talking to me. So I took a deep breath and hit play, and listened to an earlier, younger and grieving version of myself attempt to say something relevant about books in the aftermath of such tragedy.

I don’t succeed. In being relevant, I mean. In fact, the entire commentary is pretty much an admission that nothing I could say would be relevant. Nothing would make anything “better.” I spoke a little about the kinds of books people were looking for in the aftermath of all the horror, and the kinds of books I was trying to read myself. But mostly I just sound depressed and overcome with a sense of the futility of it all. “The book hasn’t been written,” I said, “that will make sense of this.”

It was a long four minutes and three seconds, and when the last words faded, I had to hit pause again—completely unprepared to take in whatever might come up next thanks to the whimsical sense of humor the iPod’s shuffle mode apparently possesses. I just drove, and thought, and remembered.

It was incredible how this voice from my own past brought the whole, awful time back to me in full force. The fear and sadness and bewilderment. I did not lose anyone close to me in the 9/11 tragedy, but like all Americans I was indelibly marked. I had no idea that my memories had remained so clear, and that they could be brought back so vividly by just the sound of voice—my voice!—on a recording.

I still don’t have anything relevant to say. I still can’t hand people the reading list or book that will make sense of such a senseless, insane act. But hearing that commentary again after nearly a decade did have one effect on me—it has made me feel incredibly grateful for pretty much everything. It’s right before Christmas as I’m writing this. I’m rather broke this year, so there aren’t tons of presents under the tree. My family is scattered to the four corners of the earth (or, at least, of the interstate highway system) so I’ll be alone for Christmas Day. And yet, I find I am happy. That there is much to be joyful for, and that life—may I never forget this—is incredibly beautiful.


Nicki Leone showed her proclivities early when as a young child she asked her parents if she could exchange the jewelry a well-meaning relative had given her for Christmas for a dictionary instead. She supported her college career with a part-time job in a bookstore, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that her college career and attending scholarships and financial aid loans supported her predilection for working as a bookseller. She has been in the book business for over twenty years. Currently she works for the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, developing marketing and outreach programs for independent bookstores. Nicki has been a book reviewer for several magazines, her local public radio station and local television stations. She was one of the founders of The Cape Fear Crime Festival, currently serves as President of the Board of Trustees of the North Carolina Writers Network, and as Managing Editor of BiblioBuffet. Plus, she blogs at Will Read for Food. She manages all this by the grace of a very patient partner and the loving support of varying numbers of dogs and cats. Contact Nicki.