hhmmmm. grumble. so, i’m stoked to have a writing job, and there are millions of other jobs out there that i’m glad i’m not doing, but i still feel grumbly about it all today. I called my first five businesses to profile this morning, and everyone was too busy to talk- which is fine, i made appointments- and one guy was flat out rude. snippity, pompous lackey-type who’s been left in charge and is stressed out and kind of power tripping. poor dude. it was tough to get him to understand that i wasn’t trying to sell him anything. people are understandably wary, given that at least 70% of the people who call a business are trying to sell them something. dealing with this is not the biggest deal, though. the truly stressful part is mentally preparing to interview people in my second language.

Thinking in another language hurts your brain- hopefully only until you get used to it again. I used to be so good in French. Back when I was working in retail and had to flip back and forth between the two tongues all day long, I knew all the right words and could joke and communicate and get useful information out of people. Now, not three years later, I feel like I have heaps and stacks of english communications/academic-specific lingo in the way, gumming up the works. I translate my questions into french to ask them, then translate their answers back into english to write the little article. i know this will get easier, but today it feels like gymnastics, and i am not particularly known for my coordination.

when i take a breath and think rationally, i’m quite glad, of course, to be able to speak these two lovely languages, and thankful that I get paid to make use of this hard-earned ability. Multi-lingualism is a feature of life here in Montreal, but not to the degree it is in many other places of the world. People who live in places where more cultures have attempted to coexist in closer proximity learn to speak five or six different languages while they are growing up. And I wonder if they always feel that one is their ‘Mother tongue’? I wonder whether polylinguists settle into one homey language that feels closer to their thoughts and feelings and selves then any other?

I know when I’m away from here, I miss the french. I miss hearing on the street, seeing it in the signs..I mostly miss those beautiful bilingual conversations that you hear snippits of everywhere. English is easiest for me, but there are words and emotions that are uniquely conveyed in French. Learning the language gave me access to an entirely new understanding of indentity, gender relations, social structure…And so I think the fear that english will obliterate other languages might be misguided. Having one lingua franca to facilitate exchange between us might mean that we gain small windows into other people’s realities- realities that have been shaped by all kinds of personal experience, including the framing fact of language. In this way, we are given access to a feeling of deep and intriguing otherness, and when that otherness connects with something in us, when a language and a culture calls out to us, we’ll look for ways to learn it.

Culture disseminates in this unpredictable way, hooking into people and getting taken up and changed by them. French language, Montreal culture, hooked into me a long time ago. I just need to shake my nerves, get past the feeling of dislike that gets inserted in by the awkwardness of telephone communication and distrust, be myself, suck it up and do my job. smile. grumble.