Sometimes, people happen to be interested in really useful things, like my ex, the Parisian, who was really, genuinely interested in fixing computers. So much so that it didn’t even bother him when I would stop working, point at my computer, and make high-pitched wordless sounds until he fixed whatever was ailing the laptop that sometimes feels like my entire life.
I, however, went with something decidedly less useful: French. Now, don’t get me wrong, when I went skiing in Quebec my freshman year of college, I was all over the taxi-ordering and menu-translating, but living in New York City, French doesn’t necessarily pop up as a necessity on a daily basis.
Spanish, on the other hand…
I’m glad I learned French. I love French, I love France, and I love the French, which is more than I can say for a lot of people who sat next to me through five years of high school French. And I do use it on a daily basis, even if it is on Facebook chat and I write things like “c” for “c’est” and “qqc” for “quelque chose.” It happens to the best of us, and until I write “sa va” for “ca va,” I will not apologize. You do, however, have the right to hunt me down and string me up by my toenails should I ever, ever write “sa va.”
Moving on.
I started learning Spanish during my junior year of high school, when I decided that learning a second foreign language was more useful than calculus. For the record, current high schoolers (sorry, parents…) it was.
Why? Well, a myriad of reasons, not the least of which was spending two months learning to surf in Spanish last year. I also successfully navigated the Barcelona airport several times this summer, gave the evil eye to a Spanish waiter in Figueras who was trying to flirt with one of our under-age campers, cheered for Spain in the World Cup without feeling like a poser and was introduced to the world of Spanish wine.
But perhaps one of the most useful, at least in my current day-to-day life and especially from the point of view from my father, is being able to talk to our Mexican gardener, Arturo.
Please don’t use that sentence to judge me.
I actually find it extremely embarassing to speak Spanish with people my father employs, not only because I hate, hate ordering people around when I don’t feel that I have the authority to do so, and no matter how nicely I ask (and make sure to use Usted), I still feel bossy. But even worse is the fact that the things I’m usually asked to translate–lawnmower, weeds, pine trees–are not words that I ever learned. I can talk about swells and point breaks just fine, but when it comes to gardening, I’ve got a black thumb in whatever language you want me to speak.
Nevertheless, I like to let my father see the fruits of the private school education he shelled out for, so I settled myself down in front of WordReference.com and found the appropriate words, typing up a little script, because, as everyone knows, I already hate speaking on the phone in English, nevermind in French, so Spanish was definitely not my cup of tea.
It was all worth it, in the end, though. My brother passed through the room where I had hidden out with my script and my phone. He stared at me, frowning for a few moments, before he continued into the kitchen. When I had finished my call, I followed, and my brother, standing over a large plate of melon–normal, in our house–looked up at me, the same confused look on his face.
“What?” I asked.
“You actually speak Spanish.”
I guess I forget that all the time and effort I put into learning my third language has sort of gone unnoticed by people who don’t see me every day. After all, my Good Egg wasn’t around when I spent my afternoons wandering San Sebastian–there’s no way he could know about all of the things I saw and learned.
He didn’t witness the San Sebastian festival that had me surprised in front of the main square by a man wearing a flaming bull’s head as a hat and a Basque flag as a cape.
He wasn’t watched every afternoon by Jesus on the Mount, and he didn’t decide, on one of his last days, to climb up to say “hello” to Him.
He didn’t take off from school to drive to Sopelana to watch Kelly Slater defeated by a relatively unknown Brazilian surfer.
As for me, I’m mostly just grateful that, as a writer, I naturally make a record of things that I’ve done that I deem important. It means that, more than a year later, when this article came out–From Corderos and Cheese to Artisans and Alubias–the people who weren’t there can relive those experiences with me.
And, of course, I can relive those experiences myself.
Tomorrow, there will be food again, but today, I’m taking a stroll down memory lane to remember that, nearly a year ago, my Spanish was little more than “hola,” and I had never tried alubias.
