The pen is mightier than the sword

Have I mentioned recently that I live, more or less, in my second language? Let's talk about language.

I met a French lady today, who, immediately upon meeting me and learning that I was American, informed me that "French is the language of Culture." That French is more difficult than English, because there are more French words (although a minute with google debunks this), each precisely defined, lending the language infinite subtlety.

If French is the language of Culture, what, I asked her, is English? It's for everyone, she responds. Everyone can learn English. Whereas French cannot even be mastered by all French people.

Which is why, if you speak French truly well, you will always succeed (just, in general). Because, she explains, if in conversation you use a word that the other person doesn't know, "you win." The perfect French is the language you use to bend people to your will.

This conversation put me at unease.

I'm not sure I properly understood her, but the questions I asked didn't lead me to the clarity I'd hoped for. I asked, first, if she saw conversation as a way to take the upper hand, rather than as a way to establish rapport. She protested heartily. I couldn't say on what defense. My second question was which French language she meant. "In general," she said unhelpfully. The language of inner-city youth? Nope, definitely not that one. That's not French, that's something completely new. Those kids who can't be bothered to learn French French will never leave les banlieues (French equivalent of the inner-city). It's French French that will open doors -- or close them.

She is absolutely right, though, that language is power; that language can be used to exercise control. You can see this in the dynamics of a single conversation, or you can see it in the power politics of colonized countries. As soon as someone opens their mouth, you have the evidence you need to pigeon-hole them in a class, should you choose to stop listening there. I don't disagree that you'd do well to arm yourself with the weapon of words. But wouldn't you rather see words as a million little doors that open you to the world and the world to you? Or as bridges uniting two minds?

And what the hell is Culture anyway, if there's only one? Surely not the one that was dead by 2007?

As we parted ways, this woman invited me to an olive cultivation expo next week. With a smile, she said, "It's culture."

Whatever, dude.

Who I played Bach for this afternoon

Blossoms and other lovely signs of spring

The sun is shining unabashedly, the fruit trees are blooming, I played Bach to an open window this afternoon, and I'm only going to write about the good things in life.

I left school in a good mood, as I often do these days. My students are endearing themselves to me more and more and the months pass. If I ever become a teacher (which is looking more and more likely), it would be for the endless possibilities of the job -- not only could I endlessly and endlessly master the art of teaching, but every one of my students is endlessly fascinating. As we learn to trust and understand each other, each one crafts a unique rapport with me. April seems too soon to leave.

Not to exaggerate my competences as a teacher either, but I've felt different lately, standing before my class; more at ease. I'm chipping away at my discipline issues (my middle schoolers listened to me this week, which is what getting high must be like). I'm learning to talk slowly, repeat the directions, and explain when we use the past simple instead of the present perfect.

I would not say that I'm a good teacher, or a natural. But I feel good.

I'd meant to describe my weekend -- a leisurely Saturday lunch shared, a blue-skied morning of music with poets and friends, and hearing Joan Baez sing in person. But you can imagine.

March Flowers

Mimosas

and almond trees.

February 25

If I sometimes hate my job, it's not from boredom. Other days, I love it.

This morning started with a class of eight girls who were very dubious at first about speaking English with a native speaker at 8am, but by the end of the class they were hard at work trying to set me up with another single teacher. That they referred to him as a "vampire" can only be a good thing in this Twilight day and age. . . right? Meantime, the prize-winning question of the hour was, "Why do Americans say 'oh my god' all the time?" No answer, but they decided it was like "voila quoi," a French expression that also means practically nothing. Still unresolved was my claim that there are more vegetarians in America than in France -- surely you can't be a vegetarian if your entire country runs on hamburgers?

The second class was 5 boys (slightly older, around 18-19 years old), one of whose claim to fame was nearly starting a fistfight in my class a few weeks ago, another who, when not preparing for the French boxing championship, has endless creativity energy for charming his way out of work. They walked into class singing in English ("What is love." "Qu'est-ce que ca veut dire, Madame?" and other smooth lines), asked me if I thought Tom Cruise was a beau gosse, and tried to convince me that they'd spent their vacation in Vancouver.

I can tolerate a certain amount of betises (idiocies, roughly translated) in class, but dropping the n-word in class? Not so much. Where do you begin? So they didn't know that it's an offensive word, even if rappers use it. I can only hope that the ignorance doesn't run deeper than that. If it does, I hope that it's at least been chipped away at today . . .

Today's return to (relative) innocence was a little 12 year-old boy going on a long monologue (in English!) about the (largely imaginary) tradition of oral history in his country, without knowing the phrase "oral history."

"In my country," with a hearty French accent, of course, "We [brainstorms in French] talk the stories of the family. My grandfather say to me," gestures dramatically and self-importantly, "and I say to my little sons." Et cetera. All that to say he didn't want to write his assignment.

Roaming

It's a Sunday afternoon in France. I went to the market this morning: bought my shimmeringly fresh yellow pepper; listened to the produce vendor warmly greet a friend in Arabic before offering me a bunch of parsley; accepted a cadeau from the cheese vendor who remembered me from last week and was happy that I had enjoyed the 24-month-aged Comte; and bought my hot fresh bread from the bakery around the corner. I arrived in France Friday night, after a sojourn in Rome. Walking past a cafe in Nice the next day, where the late-morning coffee-drinkers were still lingering, I caught myself thinking, "It's nice to be home."

But it's even nicer to travel; which, let us not forget, is what I'm doing every minute this year. I spent the first day in Rome in a complete buzz. I asked everyone patient enough how to say this or that in Italian, ate my meals one savory bite at a time, and flooded my eyes with artwork. Visiting a new country is a drug, and I can tell from the minute I set foot somewhere new that I won't ever have enough. When I wasn't stuffing my mind with Italian words or Italian art, I was scheming (ok, fantasizing) a year in Italy, complete with language courses and art history classes. It was a totally realistic dream until I got to the part where I'd start wearing fashionable Italian clothes...

I was not prepared for Rome. Even if I had pored over pictures guidebooks, you're never really prepared for Rome.

Rome is unreal. It's huge, larger-than-life. Every city has endless nuances and nooks for the patient explorer. Rome has everything -- the enormity, and the subtlety.

Every time you turn a corner, there is another church. The architecture is diverse, but each one rises above the street magnificently, wearing its columns, sculptures and stone filigree with the grace of a French lady at the opera. If a year in France had numbed you to immense stone facades, you have only to walk in to be awed anew. Inside, the ceiling is closer to the heavens that the roof had been outside. If you peeked in the door and then immediately closed your eyes, the colors, however muted by time and solemnity, would dance behind your eyes. If you looked again, your gaze would ascend along the marble pillars, past the larger-than-life sculptures of saints and popes, past paintings of every story in the Book, past Mary after Mary, and rest on the vaulted ceilings covered with paintings framed in golden lace. Finally, if you walked through the door and stood with your head tilted back and your hands hanging at your sides, you could stare for hours and hours without seeing everything.

And after your eyes were saturated, after the choir had finished singing their mass, after the nun had passionately pressed a Mary medallion into your hand, and you'd emerge on the street again, you'd blink in the crass light and and you'd start walking, towards, knowingly or not, the next monument to beauty.

Rome shows its true colors

It's never too rainy to be a huge, bright-orange building in a beautiful city.