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Published: November 26th 2010
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A letter to England.
Word boundaries.
You’d think that we use language but that's not always true, sometimes the words are lightly touched and caressed in to the wrong order and the language uses us to express the feeling. We are the vessels of language. There is no right order, I find.
I’ve seen it. I’ve heard it:
‘I bring you the post, it is hanging out’
‘I went pregnant’
It’s so beautiful that I write it down. The baby teaches me Slovenian with a French accent from a Slovenian mother and Belgian father. Whilst she potters around, she learns English and other words from lands she doesn’t yet know exist and I could kiss the baby.
Zoga.
Ball.
Her sentences have three languages and they fall from her and she is but 18months old. Someone once told me your weakest student is your teacher. The baby is teaching me. As I learned from my own children. But children are not weak and they are teachers.
In the office now, we have word of the day. These are words I use freely but they aren’t used here regularly, if at all. They’re ordinary words
but they get written down in a book as word of the day. Reticent, random, till, salacious. Their thirst for language is not mechanical and neither is mine. There are no boundaries or time restraints, the words grow as seeds. I listen to all the words and sometimes we pick their meanings to pieces in four or five different languages.
“Tracey, would you like a real cup of Italian coffee made by an Italian?” “I don’t like coffee but yes please, can I have milche? Is your husband Italian?”
How did you meet an Italian man? How did an Italian man meet you? When I was seventeen and traveling in Rome, we met in St. Peter’s square. What? Does that really happen?
I spoke to Odile, Sabine owns my apartment. Speila talks to the baby. And Margit married an Italian. Maya married an Irish musician and Zoltan brings in the post whilst Talis figures out how to mend the tap. Manuella tells me of the Brazilian student living in her apartment who was playing classical violin when it started to snow and for the first time ever in his life, he saw snow. He played the violin
hand made goats cheese with fresh ginger
made by the old man in the mountains like Heidi's grandpa in awe and wonder serenading the beautiful falling flakes whilst all the time, his face a picture of perfect beauty itself. I would like a letter head, I ask Beate, she is too busy, I pay with a word. Plead.
I come to the conclusion that on the defense of the English, England is an Island which is why we don’t have so much fluidity with other languages flowing in but fluidity in language is a way of life here. Countries border other countries and people cross about taking their words with them dropping them off and picking up new ones; stuffing them in sentence purses. But actually, the English are lazy with language and, worse still, even reject other languages.
Lazy bones’s.
Man, you’re missing out. And, I know it’s more difficult to learn languages because they do not cross your path but that is not reason enough. If the language does not cross your path, then you must cross the path of the language.
It’s in our hands. I’m liking the people here more and more. I could get used to this place but it is nearly time to go.
And there’s this
warmth at work around dance and music and words.
There are notes on the mirrors,
notes on the doors and it’s okay to make mistakes and to plan something and it not exactly turn out like that.
They dance ballet to Bruce Springstien and mexican music and do contemporary to Underworld. I hear it through the walls.
For Christmas secret santa this year, there are no physical gifts. Everyone, has a secret santa, that person everyday for 5 days will write a beautiful thing that they have seen their recipient do. And over the 5 days they do three nice gesture for this person, either hold the door, read something, help with something – it’s up to them.
On the weekend before the secret santas are revealed they write a letter to their person with the 5 things of beauty that they noticed about them during the week and the three gestures that santa did for them. This letter goes in an envelope and gets delivered to the recipient. When they read the letter, they have to guess who their secret santa is from the gestures and words, but also there are 5 things of beauty written about
them. A gift of time, gestures and words.
It’s really warm in here and the snow is falling. I am now used to it. But it’s time to go again.
small Regret.
In all my life, I thought I only ever regretted one thing but in the end, I didn’t even regret that. However, last week I regretted something. On the train back from Munich, a man sat opposite me on the other side of the aisle. I didn’t take much notice of him. I’m out of the habit of noticing men. I was writing then occasionally looked at his coat lying on the table. A black wool coat with a beautiful brown striped silk lining to the inside pockets. When we neared Salzburg, I politely asked if the next stop was Salzburg and he said, no, not yet, it is the one after - about 5 minutes away.
And then I became aware of only this man and his charismatic presence. I could tell that he wanted to talk so I waited and lowered my eyes – looked at his coat lining and felt the rising need to know him. Where are you from? he
asked me. We spoke in swift words, touching on topics; English, London, Dachau, gas chambers, unthinkable, friend in Sheffield, China, Buddhism, freedom - briefly spoken snatched small five-worded half-sentences saying all the wrong things whilst all the time there was an increasing need. I never talked so little and meant to say so much. And then I asked him ‘what do you do?’ ‘I’m a psychoanalyst and hypnotherapist in Vienna’.
Great.
You look like one of those.
I meet them all the time.
I’m the daughter of a cleaner and a lorry driver though I have learned enough to talk for a lifetime with you and I know we would get on. I know of strange places and interesting people and I can find these life changing things or they find me.
But I said nothing - the train pulled into Salzburg, he charmingly rose to maybe walk with me but I left him there. I looked back on the road to see him in his perfect beautiful black wool coat with the beautiful lining, dark black clothes, neat black boots, a black beret and a scarlet woolen scarf. When I looked back, he raised his hand to
me and my regret is this: I didn’t get his name and didn’t offer mine.
What a shame, what a pity because searching for a nameless, charismatic, psychoanalyst in Vienna is like swimming up stream in a raging flood. Vienna is the home of psychoanalysis. So, if you know this man, tell him, he is my one regret and there is no need to analyse that fact.
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David Fossey - grey haired nomads
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silk lining
Beautifully written. So rare in blogs these days. David