Our Language, Our Selves
August 14th, 2011
Twenty five years ago, I began a friendship that broadened my world. A French exchange student stayed with us in our home. I enjoyed showing her my 15 year old’s version of America for the summer. Soon afterward, I got to take a tour of her 18 year old’s version of France.
I spent two summers abroad with her family. My French became strong enough for me to enter the advanced French literature seminar in college.
But I haven’t been to France in over two decades.
J’ai beaucoup perdu.
This past weekend, a little bit of France came to me. I had another lovely visit with my French friend (that’s how she signed her letters back in the day and continues to sign her emails now).
Only this time, she brought her family.
I didn’t know what it would be like to try to summon up all that dormant vocabulary and grammar, especially after the number chemo did to my brain.
I’ll be honest, it felt a bit rough at first. Lots of misconjugated verbs and comment dit-on‘s.
My friend and I can weave in and out of all sort of versions of Franglais, but her two girls and husband counted on me for some French conversation. Not to mention my own family. My husband speaks fairly functional French but the kids needed to be let in on the action. I found myself playing the role of translator quite a bit.
But then, I crossed over to actually producing thoughts in French, to hearing myself what the song and rhythm of the language should be without having to overthink each utterance. Every time a synapse connected and a word came back –– pop!–– I wanted to do a fist pump.
Becoming plural — having a we to talk about –– was not the only significant change to my language in the past 20 years. As teenagers we spoke in singular tenses — je et tu — but now we are very, very plural.
In part, the gaps in my vocabulary reflected the changes in the world –– I needed words for “email,” “going online,” “googling.”
But the missing words also reflected changes in my own life. I need much more medical vocabulary now that I am a 40 year old cancer survivor than I did as a 20 year old college student with a Eurail pass and a backpack.
I have picked up some of the vocabulary from reading the blog Maison du Cancer and by tweeting with the amazing French survivors that we often refer to as les Cathies, Catherine Cerisey and Catherine Malhouitre. So I knew radiothérapie, chimiothérapie. But I needed some help describing consultations with le chirurgien. That word is a mouthful.
All of these words rushing forward, all of these blanks to fill in: it made me remember, once again, how deeply our language is connected to who we are.
Why, for example, is there no good French translation for “silly” but English is so impoverished when it comes to food that we need to borrow French words like gourmet and the even better gourmand?
There are whole swaths of experience that can be kept at bay when we have no words to describe them.
Which is, in part, why I blog. We share our stories and put words to the otherwise indescribable experiences cancer brings to us.
When we tell our stories, they are no longer invisible. We learn from each other and invent the words and images we need to feel seen.
Our stories become a part of a collective strength, and then we are no longer alone.
This entry was posted on Sunday, August 14th, 2011 at 7:22 pm and is filed under Survivorship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Ah – as a Francophile AND a breast cancer survivor, ta “poste” m’a beaucoup plu! Bonne sante et je vais continuer a te lire.
Big fist pumps from me, sweet friend. I was very fluent in French in high school. My grandmother gave me subscription to Paris Match. Didn’t have an opportunity to use my French until I was 21. My Parisian accent was evidently very authentic, but my comprehension was not. How wonderful you still have this precious relationship with your French friend.
XOXOXO,
Brenda
So true! I visited Paris for the first time this summer, partly because cancer had kicked me in the butt and made it clear that I couldn’t put things off anymore. (One thing Cancer reveals to all who enter it’s Halls is there is no guarantee of time). Paris was a 30 yr dream. In many ways pursuing that dream at this stage of my life turned out to be both more and less than I had expected. In fact I found that the young, romantic dream had to die before the mature one could be born.
I had studied both French and Spanish as an adolescent/young adult but the distance between then and now was so far removed I found myself mixing the two or just resorting to asking someone in French if they spoke English. I had been told that everyone would speak English and I wouldn’t have a problem, but I found that mostly worked for ordering dinner or asking simple directions. I personally felt trapped and a little mournful by my inability to communicate anything more than that. I longed to share those “swaths of experience” and unravel the inner workings of the people I met, but had so few words at my grasp that I simply gave up, took a lot of photos, and ate some great food.
As an intelligent adult, only being able to communicate at the level of a child was maddening. I found renewed empathy for those living in the US that do not speak our native tongue, as well as for my students who are behind on their reading skills. I also vowed to study French again before I returned to Paris.
This post makes me smile so much. My French is pauvre at best these days, but I remember very fondly a vacation in France many years ago & staying in a village where people did NOT speak English. So I made my attempts with my meager comprehension, armed at all times with a Fr/En dictionary, a French book of grammar & a separate book for French verbs. Everyone was exceptionally gentile. I remember those moments when I began to think in French with wonder & accomplishment. But my greatest triumph was when I actually began to make jokes in French — and people actually got them & laughed!! I also remember when it finally struck me that I could apply what I already knew about vocal and facial expressiveness while I was struggling to speak French words. Duh! That was another relevation. I remember as well having a conversation with a woman who ran a small nursing home — although it was really much more like a B&B for seniors; put our entire notion of senior care to shame. I managed to tell her I was an americaine physiotherapiste, and how comically delighted I was that most of the latinated medical terms I already knew were approximately the same in French, just pronounced with a French accent — except when they weren’t. I asked her what the word was for “walker,” and would never have predicted that it was “mobilisateur!” LOL. What a lovely thing that you & your French friend have maintained your relationship.
so, this comm will be exclusively in French
)
histoire de gesticuler aussi quelques mots introuvables 
)))
Cette amitié à travers le temps et les océans est franchement formidable !
Tu écris souvent un excellent français, maintenant on en connaît la source.
Grâce aux réseaux sociaux et aux blogs, j’ai de mon côté fait d’énormes progrès en anglais, j’arrive même à distinguer maintenant un texte US d’un texte UK
Internet est un splendide outil de partage, sans frontières ; qui m’aurait dit, il y a quelques 2 ans de ça, que j’aurai des amies US, virtuelles certes, mais auprès de qui j’apprends tant !
Et je me dis qu’un jour je traverserai nécessairement cette grande mer
Je t’embrasse précieuse amie, toi ainsi que celles qui se reconnaîtront.
1 des Cathies (thx for this apellation, cause IRL, the other Cathie is one of my best friends, thx to cancer-blogging, once again!)
I just returned after ten days in the Loire valley as a guest in the home of a friend. What an incredible blessing that was…the fields of sunflowers, the sound of the language, the beauty in every day life at the market, the flowers, the quiet….everything. My friend told me that if sing, your French flows more naturally. While true for her as she has a beautiful voice, my slightly nasal Midwestern wash is no match for the subtle intonations. But that didn’t matter, or doesn’t at the end of the day.
What matters, as you said – it that we share our stories by combining words in patterns we never expected for an experience that often leaves us wordless. I have to think about cancer in French, because what I know of cancer and the beauty of the French language seem incongruent. Yet cancer is global, affecting men and women everywhere.
You’ve given me yet another way to think about this.
Thanks, Lani.
jms
Beautiful post Lani and it echoes what I often say on Journeying Beyond Breast Cancer about the power of stories to heal our wounded places. Perhaps it is because I come from an Irish tradition of the seanachai, the story-teller, that I hold the art of storytelling in such high-esteem. In times past, neighbours gathered around the fire to listen to the seanachai tell his stories. Stories are how we orient ourselves in our world and make sense of what is going on in it. Telling our story is a way of discovering ourselves and what is deepest in our hearts. The very act of sharing our story with others counteracts the isolation we so often feel. It also carries within it the seeds of community and connection which is lacking in so many of our lives.
“Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion” ~ Barry Lopez
Lovely reflection on friendship, language and words. It’s wonderful you have kept this friendship going for all this time.
I love the last part, “When we tell our stories, they are no longer invisible.” Which really means WE are no longer invisible, doesn’t it? Therefore, we are truly not alone. Love that.
I am so glad I have finally been able to read this, and amazed that there is another area that we share. There are so many aspects of your posts which resonate – the way language changes, reflecting also changes in life and our contexts. The life changing experience of an exchange “friend” – my friend was known as French Anne!
As a mature student, I spent a year in France with my children and they went to school, becoming fluent very quickly. They still speak reasonable French, and my daughter sounds fluent – except for the fact that she uses the language and expressions she did at the age of 11 – and coming from a woman in her 30s you can imagine how funny that sounds!
Thanks for another wonderful insightful post
P
xx
This is a great post. Most of you knows French though. Thank you for sharing this one, it’s interesting. I like it.