Words

Welcome to my words

Their music , their meaning and their flavor.

In books, I have found stories, knowlege and humanity. I remember receiving books as birthday gifts, opening the wrapping paper with anticipation, holding the book in my hands, feeling its weight – the heavier the book, the greater the expectation – a new world was opening to me, and I was eager to lose myself in it.

To the many authors that have nurtured, educated, comforted and inspired me – Thank you!

Later, as an expressive art therapist, language instructor, translator, or interpreter, I worked in French, Spanish, and English. I have kept journals for decades, gotten lost in bookstores, collected library cards from every place I have ever lived, and built multilingual libraries. I fancied myself as an amateur linguist. Yet, I never made writing a profession, and my efforts at the art have been irregular.

At one point, I realized I was being held back by my hesitation to write in French or in English. I needed to choose one language, and given my circumstances and fluency at the time, I chose to write in English, which isn’t my native tongue. I imagine joining the ranks of literary giants, considered exophonic writers such as Karen Blixen, Milan Kundera, Joseph Conrad and Kazuo Ishiguro.

The Girl Who Wanted To Learn Other People’s Languages

I was born in Europe and grew up in the 50s in post-war France.

When I was around 10, France began to look into the horrors of the holocaust. Black and white films were shown on television, with such effective soundtracks that it wasn’t hard to feel the anguish and terror of the people sent to the death camps. From my mother and grandmother, I heard family stories of life under German occupation. People began to talk of the collaboration of the Vichy regime leading to the extermination of the Jewish population of France. There were also stories of resistance With the end of the war came an epidemic of tuberculosis among the war prisoners lucky enough to come home and a sordid settling of scores. Ultimately, the end of the war, the joy of liberation and American cigarettes.

Stories of ordinary people in extraordinary times. How bravery and cowardice, kindness and meanness could coexist in every town and village across the land left me profoundly perturbed and confused.

I was a solitary girl who loved books and nature, but I knew enough to make a solemn promise to myself:

I would learn to speak the language of the peoples living across the borders of my country, I would speak to them, and we would understand each other. Thus, the wars and the killing would end on our old and tired continent.

To that end, I formally learned English, German, and Spanish while picking up Italian and Catalan. I spent three years in Spain, studying Castilian and Spanish literature. And became a proud European before spreading my wings to the Americas.

Wishing myself a scholar, I collected dictionaries and grammar manuals. I loved their potential riches and their alluring treasures; I wanted to master their content. But my apprenticeship often took a survival course turn when I arrived in a land without language skills. I would go to the market, pointing to the fruit and vegetables, indicate how many I wanted with my fingers, and then open my plan for the merchant to collect his due in local coins. I was learning with my entire being, following my inner compass, and it was thrilling.

That was before Duolingo and other applications that promise instant linguistic results and cross-cultural communication and I am not saying that it was better before. I am fairly confident that today’s language learners go through a similar process in spite of the highly efficient tools they use.

I also remember listening for hours to Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and other folk singers of the time, writing down the lyrics as I heard them and memorizing their songs. How glorious were my language studies, filled with travel, poetry and emotions.

My sense of self has been shaped by the joy of building bridges across people and cultures. I can think of no better way to live than with an open mind and heart and a desire to learn. I kept my promise to the girl who wanted to learn other people’s languages and who wanted peace.

I pursued higher education in New York and Connecticut, and English became my working language. I lived and worked in the US for 40 years and spent 3 years in Scotland. And when I decided to take writing more seriously, I began to write in English.