The shadow of my life is the words I leave you

Sometimes I think language is all there is. Like in American Dad, “A set of tennis or a game of checkers… words.”

I’ve spent a considerable part of my trip, especially the frigid first 2 months, reading. I discovered several new poets. I’ve read part of a memoir about traveling through Romania. I get frustrated from time to time, but it’s not like it used to be. It used to be really hard to read Romanian. It’s very very frustrating, knowing that I know these words but for some reason I can’t access them. But something happened this time. It’s probably not that my reading comprehension suddenly got better, it’s that I found something worth reading, so valuable, that it doesn’t matter if I had to look up every word. I wanted to know, and I needed to know. I wanted to know what Nichita Stanescu wrote.

The way the words fit in your head when you’re thinking to yourself is important. When you read poetry in another language this happens. Because poetry is short, and sweet, and memorable. It’s like a catchy song. It gets under your skin. So you start thinking in the language of the poetry you read, and the language of the songs you hear. I think in necuvinte and obiecte cosmice. English sounds sing-songy and I’m always tempted to add Romanian to it.

Last time I was here, I got excited about Romanian. I spoke it alot, and it rolled off my tongue – quickly – for the first time. This time, the speaking came fast. The reading, a bit slower. And it’s different. It’s gotten under my skin. I think it. And I’m reminded that you can only think in one language at a time.

I haven’t been translated to Romanian, I’ve been rewritten in Romanian, for now.