relearning english
fighting my way back to idiocyncracy
i was a book kid; reading, writing, buying em to store on a shelf—didn’t matter, i just loved books
my active vocabulary was active indeed, churning forth elegant elocution and no-fucks frumpery in the space of like a single run-on sentence about some expressionistic nihil-novel or other
i had a unique way of talking and a dry sense of humor—i know cuz folks brought it up quite a bit
;; then i moved to korea
turned out my schtick didn’t do the trick with non native speakers;;
it took most of my first year abroad to tone it down—to figure out how to use simple vocabulary, say what i meant without double-meanings or ambiguous humor, and keep a lid on any impressionistic networks of meaning that were difficult to convey precisely
basically i started talking normal. too normal. like, local tv news normal.
every once in awhile, i pick up a book or scan an article and find a word that would’ve once been in my active vocabulary, but now has gathered dust
i got a slap of frisson the other day, seeing someone use the word ‘seditious’ creatively. a decade ago, it would have been a totally natural word for me to wield well and be creative with. seeing it now, the first reaction was damn i forgot about that word entirely
the feeling is,
it’s like i was a brash and fitful but undeniably talented painter in my youth;; i had an eye for the precise misuse of color that would make a mural glow and leave a keen hook in the mind of the viewer
then i set all that aside for a few years to do paint by number
and now, coming back, my old pigments are crusty, i’m forgetting what i used some of them for, i’m clumsy i’m clumsy i’m clumsy and thrashing
but there’s still something there; not what it used to be, but some shimmer, some quiver of a color just a few inches outside of purple if i could only—
still the tingle of a half-numb instinct
reaching through the surface of language
to tussle the animal underneath
