Who "I was"

A few weeks ago a friend of mine (visiting from Melbourne) and I had one of those wonderful long and lovely conversations friends sometimes have. We met after having not seen each other in a long time, and we immediately cut through the small talk. We were instantly, spontaneously, deeply, intensely right in the middle of a Real Conversation.

My friend is German, lives and works in Melbourne, is married to an Ecuadorian, and her two boys speak two languages at home and another with their friends. Her situation is almost as complicated as mine is, when it comes to language.

At one point she asked me what “I am”: Canadian, German, Stateless. Even though we did talk back and forth about citizenship, nationality, identity and belonging, I didn’t feel content with my answers because, having been born in one country, raised as a child in another(s), and having lived my adult life in yet another, who “I am” in terms of citizenship or nationality has little meaning.

Then, last week I listened to Jackie Kay read her poem “Old Tongue” (audio and text here). All of a sudden I realised who “I was” before I came to live in Germany twenty-odd years ago. If I had been asked me then, I would have answered, English-speaking. Even though English was the second language I learnt, it was my mother tongue, my inner language, from the ages of 6-26. And, like Jackie Kay, since leaving my English-speaking world…

“Words disappeared in the dead of night, new words marched in…”

And like her, I constantly ask where the words go and feel their loss…

“Oh where did all my words go –
my old words, my lost words?
Did you ever feel sad when you lost a word,
did you ever try and call it back
like calling in the sea.
If I could have found my words wandering,
I swear I would have taken them in,
swallowed them whole, knocked them back.”

(Jackie Kay)

The last few days I have been reflecting upon what it means to no longer be an English-speaking person. Yes, I still can speak English, but, other than tell the children in English to pick up the mess in their rooms, I don’t speak it. For over twenty years, I have not heard English regularly, not witnessed the changes in how people speak English, nor have I been able to sustain my English proficiency. My “old tongue” is slowly disappearing into the far recesses of my brain.

In some ways, I find this frightening. It is also quite sad, when looked at in isolation. That is, without the compensation and experience, the comfort and richness of speaking other languages.