Languishing In Language

Since nothing too exciting has happened in the last couple days (I did go visit an orphange of 45 girls, and was invited me to come every week to teach them english, but I´ll talk about that some other time), I´ve decided to dedicate this entry exclusively to language.

Now, when speaking and learning a foreign language, two things tend to happen during conversations in your inevitable struggle to master the language...

Option 1: The people who are speaking to you or near you are literally speaking so fast that it might as well be a colony of Chewbakkahs discussing foreign affairs. Sometimes when this happens, I convince myself that the native speakers can´t even understand at this speed, that they all got together and said, ´´hey, let´s trick this gringo into thinking we can actually understand each other.´´

Option 2: All the words you are hearing are words you know and understand, but they are like the gold coins in the game Mario, you can SEE all of them but there are only so many you can grab. So you hear a few words, all is going well, and then all of a sudden you hear a word like ´´entregar,´´ and you think, ´´ah yes, entregar, how excellent, i learned that word a month ago, while standing outside of the chocolateria gazing fondly at all the candies. how fantastic that i learned this word. to return or deliver, it means. and when you add the reflexive, it means to give in, let go.´´

and then you realize, that not only has the entire conversation ended while you were thinking about the word ´´entregar,´´ everyone has actually already left the building to go eat empanadas and sopaipillas.

So yes, there are so many ways one can think about learning a new language, speaking it all the time. Sometimes, when Im more discouraged, I think of it as a series of developing failures of varying magnitude...there are always words, meanings, connotations you miss in this subtle theme called language. Sometimes when I´m feeling optimistic, I think of it as a series of every improving successes, like someone dumped a ton of fish from the heavens and the net you use to catch them gets ever bigger and stronger every time you decide to step outside to catch fish, at the risk of getting smacked in the head by a chubby dolphin.

Language is one of the best metaphors I´ve found for life so far. Check it: I have this goal. I know what I want. I want to speak SPANISH, fluently. And sometimes it goes great, I have a conversation and understand everything, we joke about the difference between anticochi and choripan, I leave feeling like a regular Don Juan. And sometimes, it goes exactly how I dont want, I can´t understand anything, I leave feeling like a wretched failure.

Isn´t life like this? Don´t we know what we want, and if it goes that way, we´re happy, if not, we´re bummed? And won´t life always go like this...won´t there always be conversations we do and don´t understand, situations that go how we want and how we don´t want? I think so. So what do we do about it?

First, I think, is to not blame myself. I´m doing the best I can, I remind myself every single minute as I strain to understand every word, as I accumulate carpal tunnel syndrome from looking up all the words I don´t understand. I´m doing the best I can, and that´s all I can ask myself, all I can be asked. The best I can do is always enough because it´s all I can offer.

Second, I think, is a lesson in perspective. Every conversation is either how many words I failed to understand or how many new words I learned. I can assign a negative or positive value to every single thing in my life, or it can all be positive, because I learned something, because you learn a lot more from the failures than the successes.

Third, I think, is appreciate and be grateful. Just being aware. My God, I think sometimes, I´m speaking another language. I´m learning new words and phrases and concepts for every single thing I´ve ever known. Holy shit! This is crazy! And what´s more, I understand, more and more everyday, this new language.

Fourth, I think, is to think about who we are without all the things we´ve ever known. Who am I, away from my friends and family, my community who props me up when things are tough? Who am I, without the weekly selection of fresh vegetables that makes up the California diet? Without consistent bowel movements? And most especially, who am I without my language, my tool for identifying with people and defining my world?

When everything is stripped away, when you strip everything away, is when you start to really understand that question. Who am I? I don´t know, is the first thing I´ve learned here, the best lesson I´ve ever learned, perhaps. I thought I knew for 20.3 years. My friends told me, my society told me, my magic 8 ball told me. I told me. I was what I could see, what other people could see.

Then when we take the light fluffy cotton candy and SMASH it together, there´s suddenly a lot less of it there. And yet, that sweet flavor remains. What happens when we smash ourselves together, condense into the most solid dense form we are? We hit the powerful solid center. And from there, once you´ve contracted into the most tiny and powerful and real part of you, then you build, everything just an extension of that core.

And so, in the end, I think that´s why I´m really here. To finally see that I am more than I can see, than others can see. I am here to learn that not everything can be described with words, be it English, Spanish, or the Elven language of Rivendale. I am here to learn that the only language the heart has is called love, and it´s something we´re already fluent in. It´s a language we don´t need to learn, because we already know it, deep down in that cotton candy center.

Much love, peeps,
Ryan

´´My message is my life.´´ -Gandhi