Lost in Translation

Ancient Languages, W. Logan Fry, 1989


What made me change my mind?
Hard to tell. Perhaps the fact that before I didn’t have this silence, this distance that turns my life meaningless. I could speak. I could tell what I felt. And the writing was then merely to decrease my pain, my necessity of letting all those feelings abandon me.

Now I can’t speak. I still write to you, although you have lost your faith in me, although I have lost all meaning to you. Most of the times, what I write, I delete as soon as I finish. Sometimes I gather the courage (or the silliness) to send you those unwanted words. I know you don’t read them. I know if you did, it will only make you angrier and less willing to answer back. Or at least so I think. How can I ever be sure, if I hear no words in return?

But what can I do? I honestly don’t know. I have too many feelings inside and I am not so strong as to drown them. I can’t speak them. I then need writing them. Such words I have written all over. I thought a blog would be a good way of organising. Not my thoughts anyway. That would be too much to ask.

I still have the notebook I wrote, not to you, you know to whom. And I still have all I have written to you before. Does the blog mean I will email you less often? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. Would it make a difference? To you, I mean. For I am writing anyway. And to you. But will it be the same, you not receiving my words? You probably wouldn’t read them anyway. How will I ever know?

I have then decided for a diary, a weekly, a monthly, a yearly. A journey..ry.
And it seems to make no sense in writing it in a different language. Either you wouldn’t understand, or I wouldn’t be able to write it.
It is true that my ability to express in this language is not the best possible either. But it never mattered when we were together, did it? Our senses and bodies always found their ways to understand and to be understood. Our bodies are fluent in a language none of us can speak.

For we may be fluent, we may speak a language as though we haven’t been thought any other. But to translate something, to translate and keep the meaning as itself, we can never do. The translation is never good enough. The translated word is never so strong, so full of passion, full of pain, full of meaning, full of… full. We, or at least I, can never manage finding the appropriate word. Specially when translating a feeling. Not one that suits me, anyway. It is as though I can only express in the language I’m feeling in. Maybe the thing is we can only feel in our ancestors’ language. Maybe our brain is able to learn foreign languages, but not our heart.

Lets just hope all this writing will diminish my pain, and that when I write to you directly, or speak to you (may God wish), I would be happier and less despaired.

My ambition is to write a story. Yes, to write to a story is an ambition.


Anyone can write, you may say.

True.

Anyone can tell a story.

True.

Anyone can keep a blog.

True.

Everyone loves.

True.

Everyone suffers from love.

True.

It is not more painfully to you than it is to anyone else.

True.

Everybody moves on, forgets, finds other loves; why don’t you? Why are you so stubborn?

Why don’t I? Why am I so stubborn? Hah.
Is it not enough to tell you that I love you?

No.

Is it not enough to say I will gladly have all this suffering would it mean your smile would never leave me?

But you can’t even see my smile…

Oh, but I, I do!
And I can hear your laugh too, and look into your eyes, and hug you, and kiss you. Today. Always. For ever.

You are crazy!

Aren’t we all?


My ambition is to write a story. Yes, to write a story is my ambition.
Is it a love story? Well, it has love in it. Is it a story like any other? Perhaps. Probably. What makes it worthwhile is that this story was never told before. A different story, it will be. Will it be my story? Your story? I don’t know. Our story, perhaps. For I can’t distinguish anymore what is mine in you, what is yours in me, what is the two of us together, the two of us apart, none of us.

And what about the language problem?
This won’t be a problem, not to you and not to me. The least of my concerns. Because I have always had feelings for you in this foreign language I speak so poorly. We have never spoke another. With time, the strength of my love for you is making me more and more fluent. And after all, this is the international language. Although not the one my heart longs to learn. But again, that is another story. I am learning to take a step at a time.

As a baby, I stand to stumble for the first time.