revealing
Just when I get to something interesting in my
journalling I shut down. Why this is I do not know. Fear of
revealing too much of myself? I already reveal far too much
of my real self in this journal and in real life. And yet so
much of my story remains untold.
French
So, yesterday for some reason I was thinking about
speaking French. I used to speak it fluently. I read Sartre
and DeBeauvoir in their own language. Now? I forgot it all.
ingles perdido
The most embarrassing moment of language loss was not my
infamous Ingles Perdido moment in a travel agency in Russia.
Nope. It was a couple days after I came back from the
Galapagos. I was having dinner at La Madre's house. Her
French exchange student/roommate Natalie whom I had not yet
met joined us for dinner. La Madre had been telling Natalie
how good my French is.
Natalie spoke to me in French. I froze. The only words I
could manage were in Spanish! I answered her in broken
tourist Spanish, which La Madre and Thomas understood and
Natalie did not. ARRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!! I apologized and
begged forgiveness on the grounds that having just come back
from Ecuador the foreign language center of my brain was
stuck on Spanish. We all had a good laugh.
Why La Madre had a French student living with her remains
a mystery. La Madre speaks Spanish fluently and has not a
word of French!
whom?
So, there I am in the car on the way back from yet
another shopping binge at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, bemoaning
my lack of French. When was the last time I had a
conversation in French? Could it have been with Nikki? Her
mother? My Vietnamese boyfriend in grad school?
Nikki wore out her welcome amongst my family. Her mother
with whom I had many conversations en Francaise avec cafe au
lait, is long dead. The Vietnamese boyfriend fled to
Montreal when his student visa expired shortly before the
fall of Saigon. For all I know he's still there.
the Vietnamese boyfriend
He asked me to marry him so he could get a green card. I
thought it over a lot and said no. It would have been
strictly a political act or at least an act of
self-sacrifice based on principle. I would not have been
happy. The marriage would not have lasted. Yet, I have this
nagging guilt. Despite having been raised Catholic and
believing marriage was sacred, I was enough of a child of
the '60s to believe at least halfheartedly that marriage
wasn't very relevant any more. The right thing to do
politically was clearly to get him a green card whatever the
cost. I didn't do that.
relevant
Relevant. That was a word one heard a lot in the '60s and
'70s. Almost everything I'd grown up with and considered
important was suddenly not relevant. "If you're not
part of the solution, you're part of the problem. " was the
battle cry. I paid my dues. I demonstrated, I campaigned for
the "peace" candidates, I canvassed door to door for this
that and the other cause. I burned out on politics long
before a lot of my friends discovered politics. There are a
wealth of stories somewhere in there but they do not
currently choose to come through these fingertips.
sex and the Vietnamese boyfriend
So, back to the Vietnamese boyfriend for a moment. He
lived in an old apartment building on Symphony Road.
"Vietnam will win!" was spray painted in huge letters on the
front of it. He drove a battered VW beetle (I drove a dark
green Ford something or other that I can't remember the name
of). I drank a lot in those days. Mostly wine. I couldn't
stand beer even then. He drank a six pack a day of beer plus
whatever wine he drank with me. I had to consume a fair
amount of wine before I could have sex with him. Nothing
personal. I had to do that to have sex with anyone.
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