Parlando

Speaking more Italian everyday, it's good to feel these words in my mouth, in my body. I feel different when I speak this language: my voice changes and my inflection is that of some one else. My lips wrap gently around the words and I try to hold them in my mouth just a little longer than I normally would. I'm trying to hold each one carefully and preserve some part of it in the memory of my lips, my tongue, my body. My voice grows just a little bit deeper as the pacing of my words begins to resemble that of a snail with vertigo. I speak slowly trying to think ahead and trying to wrap my body around the water drop of a word in my mouth. Learning this language involves the whole of my being, because I learn it through a life well lived. With each word I use I see a flashing memory of the moment I learned it: who was with me, where we were. Was it a night a PaPaGui, an afternoon on the lawn, was I sharing a cup of coffee with Sofia, was I fighting sleep with Giovanni, was I watching films with Francesca, was I in bed with J? All of these people float through my sentences, all of my time in this place is present in each conversation. My acquisition of this language is not like that of my first or second. Although I'm sure I learned English in this way the memories live in a place I can't recall. My Spanish came to me from a text book and I barely remember in what order I learned the language. But Italian...Italian is so intertwined with my life, with my memories of this place and these people. The language is becoming my memory. The language and the memory, the two are one, and the one is remembered in my body.