my weird accent
when i came back to live in australia, people kept asking me where i was from. it confused me no end.
i remember the first time - taking a surf lesson, an english guy asked me where i was from.
baffled, i told him i’m australian. he looked equally baffled and said, ‘you don’t have any kind of accent - just neutral.’
it wasn’t until a few months later that i noticed the pattern. only non-australian anglophones asked. or foreigners who spoke english well.
everyone else just thought i sounded australian. maybe a little stuck up, but still australian.
i eventually traced it back to mongolia - i’d had to make myself understood. i softened my accent, spent time with people from all parts of the world, and used american words - the kinds everyone seems to understand.
i don’t grieve for my old accent. and i don’t think i’m special for having a new one. but it’s part of me now.
so today, when a frenchman asked me where i was from, i just said i lived overseas for a long time.
‘that’s why my accent’s a little weird.’
i guess i am too.