15: Revision

 The language of the heart.

“Perhaps only migrating birds know -
suspended between earth and sky -
the heartache of two homelands.”

Lea Godberg – Israel.

I always spoke Hebrew but for the past two years, while participating in various writing classes, I switched to English. I think about this a lot, when I struggle to find the right word, the most fitting idiom, an effective way to express an idea. I was not forced into this ambivalent relations it was me and only me who chose to turn my back on my own language. There is a certain measure of loneliness combined with a feeling of freedom that accompanies this choice. As if by distancing myself from my mother tongue I am allowing for more space and the leisure to experience something new, unconfined by the old rules.

Being there it is clear to me that when talking about mother tongue I am talking about more than a language. I am talking about myself at the deepest layers of my being and so I am curious how other writers, who write in a language other than their mother tongue, feel about this. Maybe through them I will gain a better understanding regarding the process of making the choice to write in a “foreign language” the relationship formed between the writer and his language of “choice”. And last but not least, the technical difficulties namely the use of grammar and words; the tools of the trade. 

Generally a very systematic person I start by looking for definitions for both mother tongue and language and identity (Wikipedia of course) many words later I surface up not only thoroughly tired but also very confused.

  So many definitions and observations and the only clear understanding I come out with is that there is truly not one simple characterization that can contain comfortably the wide spectrum of this somewhat fluid term. The definition of mother tongue is highly personal as are the reasons for which people adopt other languages. As varied as are the definitions so are the languages chosen by different writers and the special relationships that develop in the process both between the writer and his new language and the writer and the language left behind. Perhaps the best example of this ongoing conflict are those writers who keep writing in both languages going back and forth like Vladimir Nabokov, who translated many of his own early works into English and other works into Russian. Nabokov metaphorically described the transition from one language to another as a slow journey at night from one village to the next with only a candle for illumination. (Google)

I realize that scholarly definitions are not going to clarify it for me. If language indeed has such immense powers then the only way to try and weigh up the impact it might have on a person whose whole liveliness rotates around words is to listen. And so I continue my search by checking several web-sites and books written on the issue. I listen and re listen to the words expressing conflicts and wonderments and all the while I am searching for myself in other people journeys.

Reading what different writers say I feel how their words are touching me, addressing many of my thoughts and conflicts and make me feel reassured that I am walking on a trail others walked on before me. If it is a journey then language is only the path, the vehicle of transportation to where we really want to go.” and the place where we want to go is the place of our dreams, the place that everybody wants to go: a place of passion and truth and life and death”.  These are the words of Shan Sa (French author born in Beijing), who continue to say “When I started to write, I had to find my French, which was an invented language. No one could tell me, “That word is good” or “that word is bad,” because when I use a French word, I have my Chinese literariness and I have my Chinese judgment of this world."

 

 Words of one of my country’s most respected poets, an icon of the new revived Hebrew,surprise me. She that her stories and poems were a part of my childhood conveys so much frustrations and pain.

“The chime of the needles: Once upon a time –
I called the snow-space homeland,
and the green ice at the river's edge -
was the poem's grammar in a foreign place.

“Perhaps only migrating birds know -
suspended between earth and sky -
the heartache of two homelands.”

Lea Godberg – Israel.

A different angle I find in the words of Ian McEwan, “My mother was never like that. She never owned the language she spoke. Her displacement within the intricacies of English class, and the uncertainty that went with it, taught her to regard language as something that might go off in her face, like a letter bomb, a word bomb...”

My mother too did not own the language she spoke. Being torn from her mother tongue (German) at the age of fourteen she was never really comfortable with Hebrew and yet she never spoke to me in any other language. Her language while not officially banned was to remain her secret refuge. A hint of that I hear in the words of Luc Sante, “The screen language I employ in order to pass unmolested in the land where I have lived most of life without ever shedding my internal foreignness. French is my secret identity, inaccessible to my friends. Sometimes I feel as though I have it all to myself”

Will I ever feel completely comfortable writing in English I wonder as I read these words;

”English was still my very limited inner language, grammatically more or less correct, but idiomatic” Josef Skvorecky

Or Bill Bryson remarks; “The richness of the English vocabulary, and the wealth of available synonyms, means that English speakers can often draw shades of distinctions unavailable to non-English speakers” Mother Tongue Bill Bryson (1990)

I smile knowingly when I read Gary Shteyngart words “When I return to Russia, my birthplace, I cannot sleep for days, The Russian language swaddles me, the trilling r’s tickle the underside of my feet.”  I feel the same way when I go to Israel; the language rolls so easily, the words so accessible. No need to painfully search for them or work hard at making myself understood when one simple word carries a whole world of shared knowledge.

And what about the question of loyalty to heritage and culture, perhaps the deepest conflict associated with language cross over. Ironically my mother mothers’ tongue was not Hebrew, neither was my fathers’. Hebrew was their choice not only of a new language but also new life. So by using a language that does not belong to me I feel like betraying their trust and walking away from what was passed to me to keep and cherish; a legacy that goes deeper than words.

And yet when I listen to all these polished words of people who made writing their life and writing in a “foreign language” their professional choice I realize how each one of them had to go through the same kind of struggle as I do now. The words of  Joseph Conrad  hit home “All I can claim after all those years of devoted practice, with the accumulated anguish of its doubts, imperfections and faltering in my heart, is the right to be believed when I say that if I had not written in English I would not have written at all.”

These words do it, they cut to the chase and finally clear the fog created by so many conflicts and hesitations and frustrations. In the end it is very simple; if I had not written in English maybe I would not have written at all.

14:

 The language of the heart.

“The richness of the English vocabulary, and the wealth of available synonyms, means that English speakers can often draw shades of distinctions unavailable to non-English speakers”

Mother Tongue Bill Bryson (1990)

I always spoke Hebrew but for the past two years, while participating in various writing classes, I switched to English. I think about this a lot, when I struggle to find the right word, the most fitting idiom, the effective way to express an idea. I was not forced into this ambivalent relations it was me and only me who chose to turn my back on my own language. There is a certain measure of loneliness combined with a feeling of freedom that accompanies this choice. As if by distancing myself from my mother tongue I am allowing for more space and the leisure to experience something new, unconfined by the old rules.

Being there it is clear to me that when talking about mother tongue I am talking about more than a language. I am talking about myself at the deepest layers of my being and so I am curious how other writers, who write in a language other than their mother tongue, feel about this. Maybe through them I will gain a better understanding about the process of making the choice to write in a “foreign language” the relationship formed between the writer and his language of “choice”. And last but not least, the technical difficulties namely the use of grammar and words; the tools of the trade. 

Generally a very systematic person I start by looking for definitions for both mother tongue and language and identity (Wikipedia of course) many words later I surface up not only thoroughly tired but also very confused.

  So many definitions and observations and the only clear understanding I come out with is that there is truly not one simple characterization that can contain comfortably the wide spectrum of this somewhat fluid term. The definition of mother tongue is highly personal as are the reasons for which people adopt other languages. As varied as are the definitions of mother tongue so are the languages chosen by different writers as the ones to express themselves and the special relationships that develop in the process both between the writer and his new language and the writer and the language left behind. Perhaps the best example of this ongoing conflict are those writers who keep writing in both languages going back and forth, as can be seen from the rich literary of Vladimir Nabokov, who translated many of his own early works into English and other works into Russian. Nabokov metaphorically described the transition from one language to another as a slow journey at night from one village to the next with only a candle for illumination. (Google)

What effect does the process of changing languages has on the writer is my next big question. Taking into consideration the immense powers language has on us in general it is mind boggling to try and evaluate the impact it might have on a person whose whole liveliness rotates around words. And so I continued my search by checking several web-sites and books written on the issue; I keep looking for what other writers had to say on the matter searching for myself in their words.

***

“Writing in another language is just the path but not the place where we want to go, and the place where we want to go is the place of our dreams, the place that everybody wants to go: a place of passion and truth and life and death”. Shan Sa
***

“To cut to the chase, though: what in the world possessed me to write in a language other than my mother tongue? It is true that for many of us our relationship to our adopted language is not territorial. Mine is English that I cobbled together from the many places I have lived and the books I have read, a transnational quilt. It limits me in some respects, and opens avenues.”Dan Vyleta
***

“My mother was never like that. She never owned the language she spoke. Her displacement within the intricacies of English class, and the uncertainty that went with it, taught her to regard language as something that might go off in her face, like a letter bomb, a word bomb. I've inherited her wariness, or more accurately, I learned it as a child. I used to think I would have to spend a lifetime shaking it off. Now I know that's impossible, and unnecessary, and that you have to work with what you've got.” Ian McEwan

***

 “All I can claim after all those years of devoted practice, with the accumulated anguish of its doubts, imperfections and faltering in my heart, is the right to be believed when I say that if I had not written in English I would not have written at all.” Joseph Conrad

***

“Two selves exist within the language-adoptee, as with any adoptee-what might have been, what was lost, and the good fortune, the delivery from want and frustration. For a writer, the melting of another tongue is the madeleine, the way back and the way in, an early loss with the deepest memory, the mother of all plots.” Bharti Mukherjee

***

 “The screen language I employ in order to pass unmolested in the land where I have lived most of life without ever shedding my internal foreignness. French is my secret identity, inaccessible to my friends. Sometimes I feel as though I have it all to myself” Luc Sante

***

 “Americas are linguistically very tolerant, very nice. I was often congratulated on my very good or even excellent English. On each such occasion I grinned politely because I knew only too well that I was just American politeness. English was still my very limited inner language, grammatically more or less correct, but idiomatic” Josef Skvorecky

***

 “Even though I was told that my writing does not show signs of rigor mortis, it is a fact that I write slowly and laboriously, pausing after every word I set down. I change it countless times and repeat the process with each sentence and paragraph before I can move forward.” Louis Begley

***

I read all these polished words of people who made writing their life and writing in a “foreign language” their professional choice and realize how each one of them had to go through the same kind of struggle as I do now.  Still I am not content, in the back of my mind another persistent question would not let go. Maybe the biggest of them all, the question of loyalty to heritage and culture, perhaps the deepest conflict associated with language cross over. Not only using a language that does not belong to me but abandoning what was passed to me to keep and cherish, will it always be something I will have to reckon with?

But then I stumble upon the words of a soul mate from far away land.  “I am Indian, very brown, born in Malabar, I speak three languages, write in two, dream in one. Don’t write in English, they said, English is not your mother tongue. Why not leave me alone…Why not let me speak in any language I like?”Kalma Das -1934

These words hit a chord in my heart. This complex issue of choosing a language to write in maybe is not complex at all. People move from country to country for various reasons that are either in their control or forced on them. Each move usually demands adjustments to different cultures, different landscapes and different languages. Some hold on to what was left behind while others embrace the newness as their own and take off. No one story is alike; each is unique just like we as human beings are unique and different. This is my story and it only just begun.

14: Mini research

The chosen

When Meir died after a brief and aggressive illness it was the middle of the winter. We took him home to be buried and spent almost a whole day trying to dig a shallow grave under the giant pine tree in the back yard. For the first time I understood why people in northern, snow covered lands sometimes have to wait till spring to bury their dead. We put a flat stone on the grave and wrote his name in English and Hebrew.

We were sad that he had to be buried in a foreign land and hoped the pine tree will be a reminder of our old home where Keren (my youngest daughter) found him almost sixteen years before, walking down our street just a ball of white fur with two mismatched eyes, one blue and one green. She decided he was lost or abandoned and took him home. Later it turned out he was not really abandoned and belonged to the little boy who lived down the street. He was convinced though, easily, by Keren that by letting his cat roam free on the sidewalk he lost all claims of ownership.

All this history was going through my mind watching his grave and thinking about his long and adventure full life but it was time to move on. For over fifty years I was chosen by different cats to make my home their own and had no say on the matter, now it was my turn to pick my new cat and I knew exactly what kind of cat I wanted.

***

I wanted a ragdoll.

***

For years I heard stories about them; how beautiful they were, how friendly, how their name came from the fact that when held in ones hands, unlike any other normal cat, they let go and become completely limp, hence the name. This was going to be my chosen cat, for once pure bread with known qualities and no surprises.

I turned to the internet to locate a qualified breeder and found few in Maine not too far away. As I read through their web sites I was reassured once more of the unique and exceptional characteristics of this special breed, a mix between a Birman cat with Siamese point coloration and a white Angora type Persian (mama Josephine the head of the dynasty) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragdoll

These absolutely angelic cats (pictures to prove that were supplied in profusion) had the best of both breeds, the stunning blue eyes of the Siamese cats (without their nasty character) and the soft silk like fur of the Persians.

I carefully checked again the lists of characteristics and marveled at each one, it was exactly what I wanted from my chosen cat:

-          Long hair cats with no shedding or matting so basically maintenance free.

-          A strictly house cat due to their natural shyness.

“We recommend that if you decide to get a ragdoll, that it should be an indoor pet. Ragdolls by nature do not have the aggressive instincts to fight other animals or the natural ability to defend themselves as well as other cat breeds.” (http://www.ragdollcatguide.com/)

-          Loving all humans disposition makes them act almost like dogs as they follow their human everywhere.

“The Ragdoll Cat is a large breed of feline, best known for an easygoing and mellow nature. Possibly the most loving and agreeable type of cat, the ragdoll would be an excellent choice as a pet” (http://www.ragdollcatguide.com/)

-          Fun loving and playful.

“Ragdolls display many characteristics traditionally attributed to dogs like retrieving toys.

While these wonderful cats are calm and sweet, they do like playing as well! Ragdolls are very energetic.”
(fanciers.com/breed-faqs/ragdoll-faq.html/)

These statements sounded almost too good to be true. As I was going over several breeders’ web-sites I almost chocked on the pouring sweetness and boundless love to these four legged normally selfish creatures. I called few of these breeders to find out only one had a new litter ready for adoption in few weeks. And so the choice was made and I purchased a flame point pure bread female ragdoll who in the future will answer to the name Sheleg (snow).

***

Finale

Sheleg has been with us for four years now and every once in awhile I pull out the above list present it to her and together we mull over the exceptional qualities of her breed.

Big and furry, check.

Big blue innocent eyes, check

White unmated coat, check

Friendly, check

And that is where the similarity ends.

Limp in my arms? Not on your life, she looks straight at me with those blue eyes; this is not going to happen. Retrieve toys? What am I a dog? The proof is in the assorted collection of stuffed mice lying all over the house that I end up picking. Follow you around? Why, I can just spend the day on my chair which is any chair I chose today. Timid and shy? Me? I have the best time devising clever attacks on my fellow cats or hunting for mice in the storage room. Maintenance free? Sure, don’t you just love those little white puffs of hair I decorate the living room with, or your chair, your clothes, your food.

I nod my head in quiet desperation wondering if I was better off when cats chose me and not vice versa.