Underwater -- Ticino, Switzerland

I'm staring this post from Pasucci bar. My shameful cappuccino (it's well after noon, and one does not drink cappuccino after noon in this part of the world) sits in front of me, fly flitting around the crust of foam and sugar glued to the sides of the cup. A Chinese family (I know they're Chinese because I overheard the waiter ask them. He was just sure they were either Chinese or Japanese) sits across from me and scarf down (with noisy gusto) plates of prosciutto di Parma.

I didn't know it was possible to eat prosciutto so loudly. It's not soup. It's not potato chips. How is it possible to make it slurp and crunch simultaneously? How? 

It's been ages since I've written. It's been so long that I've nearly lost the urge to write, which scares me. It's unsettling to observe something that used to be so integral to my identity gradually fading into the shadows. I feel like I've lost a cornerstone, and now I'm standing all lopsided, but I'm just learning how to live with it.

Guess I'll just be a little lopsided now. I can pull it off, right? 

I could say I haven't written because I've been busy. It would be an excuse, but not a very good one. Sure, I've spent plenty of time studying Italian and painting and trying to find my feet in this new life I've chosen. But I've also spent heaps of time (a truly embarrassing amount) watching The Big Bang Theory, checking out Instagram, and deeply indulging in other mind numbing distractions.

You would think that struggling to communicate in Italian would motivate me to write more, to use this platform as a way to revivify my sense of, "I'm an adult with real words which I can use effortlessly to elegantly and accurately express my thoughts and feelings to the world around me."

Instead, I've managed to sink (not so elegantly) into the stifling, frustrating sensation of only being capable of superficial communication. And even making humiliating (and sometimes hilarious) mistakes when I discuss the world's most banal topics.

Like the time I was talking about how mussels make me throw up. But I accidentally said penises make me throw up. Cozze = Mussels. Cazzi = Dicks. Go figure.

"I'm happy to say she's gotten over this allergy," my husband piped in, reveling in my unfortunate error.

I facepalmed, blushing and withering a bit on the inside.

Why do I always have to accidentally stumble upon the word that's related to genitalia/sex? Like when I was trying to explain my work with homeless youth, but instead of saying "I worked with kids without homes," I said "I worked with kids without boob." Without homes = senza tetto. Without boob -- senza tetta. 

Why can't I just accidentally say something mundane and boring like.... potato? Butterfly?

...

Bourget, potato and butterfly both mean "vagina" in Italian. 

...

There's just no winning, accept your fate of always being unwillingly, unhappily hilarious. 

While not being able to express myself fully has occasionally sent other people into hysterics, it's often sent me spiraling into some pretty dark places. 

It's like being a child. A toddler. Who is chocked full of feelings and desires and needs but doesn't yet have the words to express the sensations simmering under the surface. 

Massi sometimes tells me that I sound aggressive when I speak Italian. Angry, even.

I'm not mad. I'm blocked. I'm frustrated. There's this massive disconnect between the half-baked sentences tumbling out of my mouth and everything I'm feeling. 

I think I didn't write because I didn't want to return to this page, return to the comfort and ease of writing in English, and then feel the sharp contrast between writing English and speaking Italian. It just seemed like it would be too painful and jarring.

Which wasn't really so far-fetched...

"Remember to write the positive things about learning a new language," Massi gently reminded me before leaving for work this morning.  

He's right. There are so many positive elements of learning a new language. They just don't seem to, you know, be the elements that you notice right away. They're the elements you experience later when you can actually speak the language well enough to express yourself, get a job, be a part of a new country/culture, 

Learning a new language is something I've always wanted to do (although Italian never was on the list of languages I wanted to learn). It's something I've always wanted to do, but it's something I've deftly postponed for the last too-many years of my life.

Because it's exhausting.

But in the end, like I said to Massi, I do feel immensely grateful to have the opportunity to learn another language. It's a remarkable gift/labor. It teaches mental flexibility, works the memory, all that jazz. But it's also fucking frustrating and difficult. Learning a new language strips one down to the basics again, but at a time of life when temper tantrums are no longer a socially acceptable method of expressing pent-up feelings. So instead of flailing about on the floor, I often find myself brooding (which is a regularly employed, adult version of flailing about on the floor). If we host a dinner party or go out with friends, and I can't understand the conversation, my shoulders slouch forward, and I sink back into my thoughts.

Thoughts which generally run along the line of...

Bourget... you've been in and out of Ticino for more than a year now. You should be able to understand. 

Why am I even sitting here with everyone if I can't understand what's going on? I feel awkward and uncomfortable and...

...pointless.  

And then to stop feeling pointless, I sneak out my phone and start looking at instagram, checking facebook, and wishing everyone would hurry up and eat so I could get back to watching the Big Bang Theory. 

And here's the thing -- I 100% know it's not helpful to spend dinner parties glued to my phone. I hate that I've become that kind of person. It makes me appear anti-social and rude and disinterested. But the truth of the matter is that I'm so social and so interested that feeling like I'm still on the outside looking in just makes me incredibly sad. Looking around dinner tables and watching people enjoy their conversations and feeling unable to participate makes me miserable. And so I reach for my phone.



"I feel like I'm underwater," I told Massi the other day. "Everything is blurry and confusing. When we're at restaurants and there's music, or when we're at home at there are more than three or four people, all of the sounds blend together and I can't pick out the words anymore. They all wash over me as a river of sound and before I have enough time to decipher what I've heard, more water comes flooding towards me. And I'm just left feeling lost and frustrated."