Brooklyn, represent

I called the assisted-living place to reserve the gazebo for a visit with my mom. “You sound just like her,” the staff member said.

I have long known that I sound just like my dad. Plumbers, when I would answer my dad’s business phone: “Oh, jeez, you sound just like your father.” But yesterday marks the first time anyone has told me that I sound just like my mother.

As the staff member went on to say, she meant my accent, or alleged accent. Students, too, used to tell me sometimes: “I love your accent.” Only people from elsewhere have accents, of course.

The Brooklyn lives loudly within me.

[That final sentence is meant to ring a bell.]