quiet

Current State of Mind

Jah-bia

I want to write something in Spanish.

The only problem with this small desire is that I, for the life of me, am a complete idiot when it comes to writing and reading in Castilian.

I ask myself how my Spanish has gotten progressively worse the older I get. Spanish, the language of my parents. Spanish, the first language that first graced my tongue.

“Mamá‎”. “Papá‎”.

Spanish was the first language I learned to read. ‎When I was five years old my mother bought me a Silabario from a libreria  across the street from MacArthur Park. It was the blue one with the boy and the girl reading a silabario with themselves on the cover, reading a silabario... A never ending loop of recursion.

I remember sitting on the carpet of an overcrowded first grade classroom at Hoover Street Elementary, reciting en masse all the syllables of the Spanish language. Ba, be, bi, bo, bu… za, ze, zi, zo, zu. Mr Carias, a cold man who still followed the disciplinary standards of the countries our parents had tried their darndest to escape from, proudly stated: “You now know all the syllables in the Spanish language. You can read now.”

I was surprised by this revelation, and slightly skeptical. But he was right, and soon enough I was devouring books left and right. And now, 20ish years later, I stare at the thin pages of my copy of Gabriel Garcia Márquez's Cien años de soledad, which I bought almost ten years ago, and try to follow along until I start developing a headache.

“Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había”  —the “h” is silent, but my stupid brain pronounces it. “Jah-bia…”, I disgust myself. I force myself to start over. I force myself until I close the book in frustration, and proclaim myself the biggest asshole in the world.

Miguel de Cervantes. Same problem.

Juan Rulfo. Same problem

Isabel Allende. Lo mismo.

I can read the English translations without a problem.

Pinche sell-out.