My ex-love’s father once yelled “xícara” until he was almost shouting. I didn’t understand the word but I understood him: I am blind, I do not speak English, you must learn the language of my home. I never forgot the word “xícara” after that.
To unlock a new language is to unlock a new world.
In Paris I buy a French book and read it out loud in bed, and the man next to me changes the rhythm of my voice until I sound like him. He tells me he wants to come to New York and swim in the streets with his French accent, and I tell him he will charm many women. But can I charm you, he asks in English. It turns out our shared language is desire.
My confidence rides like the tides, high and then low until I am quiet. In the lows, I forget all the words except hello, goodbye, thank you, love, and good night. I feel in exile of myself.
A friend once told me that to raise a child with two mother tongues, both parents must speak it in the house. I get a Portuguese teacher and study every day for two years. I wish to abandon my mother tongue so my Brazilian family can know me beyond my smile. My desk is stacked with flash cards so I can raise a Brazilian child; my dreams died when my husband left and now Portuguese smells like my tears. I no longer watch Brazilian songs on YouTube with the lyrics.
Writing in my native tongue I am my most exposed, as if I am naked with my thoughts. But to not know how to speak “other,” I feel shielded and shy. Wherever I go, there is a veil, a wall, of being who I truly am.
I choose Paris because I wanted to feel home. I didn’t have friends yet, but I didn’t feel alone. Four years of studying and five trips and I still cannot reach anything more than ordering cigarettes: “Je veux Vogue Bleu, svp.”
I think of women who moved abroad and lost their native tongues faster than I can write a poem. I want to swim in their minds, dive headfirst to understand how it’s possible to become known so quickly as a foreigner.
I buy a book in France at a store because there are few enough words in the page to work through alone. I am underlining words and looking them up until the pages are filled with my handwriting. I read them slowly over and over again. It is painful, but like finding treasure when I can finally understand a sentence. It turns out the story is about turning to God when love you wish to last forever turns to silence.
To unlock a new language is to speak the soul of the universe: love, grief, joy, pleasure, and heartbreak.
To unlock a new language would be the ultimate metamorphosis. A new life would stretch out in front of me.