about languages… and stuff

This is about bilingualism. Or at least, that’s where I started. Then it turned out to be about identity. And then about history and information in general. I am in awe at the fact that people ever manage to stick to one `subject` – to me everything seems connected with everything else. It might be time to convert to some native religion on some virgin island 🙂 .

Aaanyway – an article about unbalanced bilingualism got me thinking about why it was that I seem to have trouble speaking my own language with my children, although it is a language I am still very comfortable in, of which I love the versatility and of which, conceptually, I want them to have the benefit. Of course, there are all the contextual excuses – that the home language is the same as my partner’s language and the school language, therefore it’s far more contexts of Dutch to outbalance Romanian exposure; that I have to switch a lot and that I am not comfortable with the people in the room not knowing what I just forbade the kids to do or the people in the supermarket not being aware of the contents of a conversation that has them as a subject (`please let this lady pass in front of us at the register`, `watch the cart!`) etc. But there was a question in the article addressing one’s potentially internal reasons for linguistic inconsistence. And, while painting walls in the study, I went with it to see where the answer might take me.
It may be that what I often perceive, while translating, as shortcomings of Romanian in comparison to some Germanic languages is also perceived, consciously enough, as proofs of shortcomings in the `signified`, of empty spots in the fabric of `the world according to the Romanian` (because I strongly believe that language shapes the way one sees the world). It may be that those shortcomings (that I supplement linguistically by long and uneasy periphrastic constructions) become symptoms of where my original identity was lacking perspective, symptoms that I compensated by adding new layers of identity on. It might be that the fact that I am embarrassed to place the kids in front of even DVD’s dubbed into Romanian because of the sloppiness and fake tone of the translations, the unnerving quality of the TV shows when we are there on holidays and the `quick-and-dirty` way of making money by publishing children’s books/CD’s with idiotic poems/songs illustrated with a couple of animal shapes printed off the Internet without paying the rights, or printing Disney’s integral with texts that twist the language in ways it was never supposed to be twisted – drastically reduce my linguistic exposure resources – but also, mainly, get me down. It might be that my guard is down insofar as speaking Romanian is concerned because I’m all the time angry at and dissapointed with my country and that it takes an effort to filter the `now` out of the legacy of beauty that I need to pass along.
And that took me to another thought. I am very much aware that there is no such thing as absolute truth where personal or national identity and even history is concerned. But, for the sake of the game, we hold some stories to be commonplace in order to be able to relate to one another. Obviously (to me), Romantic nationalism put in place all sorts of fictions about nations and collective identities and especially about reasons to be proud of what you are (even though you have no merit at all in being born where you were born and even less in not trying to see how anyone else sees the world). These fictions have been, to large extents, debunked at some point in the 20th century – in any case to the point that nations had to admit the existence of quite a few skeletons in their closets. However, manuals all over the continent kept selling plenty of the Romantic dough – and many of us didn’t question it. I have met an extremely intelligent Finnish guy who claimed unflinchingly that the Kalevala was an absolutely unique product of national genius and that no other nation had ever produced a saga (he was a bit appalled at the wikipedia page with which we opposed his stance). Just as I have only met Dutch people being very-very-very proud of being Dutch – because oh, their commercial and colonial history and oh, their standing up to everyone and anyone and oh, such a little country among so many powerful nations and water… And of course, when asked, they will tell you that it’s not always the nicest of histories and that in fact it is based on a lot of suffering for others and mistification afterwards, but the core is unchanged – whatever is objectionable can be swept under the carpet of national pride. Where I come from, relativity in this sense has become the norm – because we know that the communist-nationalistic manuals we learned our history in gave a very warped vision of the world and because we are aware that their predecessors stem from a rather nationalistic age as well, I, for one, have no clear idea about any historic truth (apart from years and wars – which can be interpreted in all manner of ways). My lack of trustworthy information about the place I come from makes me relativise all messages I’ve ever received about my identity. Having been fed `national poets` whose value I couldn’t really, objectively, appreciate and `national values` which turn out to be inexistent in a free world, there is this fundamental lack of `pride` in my identity: there are, of course, wonderful things where I come from, but I see them being destroyed year after year by greed, stupidity, cowardice and, more than anything, a basic incapacity of working together towards any goal. So the strange thing is – I question other people’s rationale of national pride and can even find it misplaced, but, for the simplicity of self-definition, I miss it.
And this might be it – we live in a world in which nurture, as far as values are concerned, is placed significantly above nature. If you are a greatly successful farmer on land where your ancestors were greatly successful farmers, your added value is seen as minimal. If you come from a modest family and make something of yourself intelectually, it’s all your merit – these are, I think, strong and widespread beliefs (maybe `well-bred` as a concept is going to win back some force in the years to come, who knows). Conserving your given identity feels like little work, shaping a new and better one gives you an individuality which you can take pride. It might be then that it is sometimes easier speaking a foreign language because it is the signifier of who I worked to become instead of the signifier of a random complex of events shaping me from the start. With the added bonus that the people that I tried to approach were actually happy being what they were, as opposed to the people I was slowly drifting away from. In which case the right operation to sort this out might be embracing all of the identity layers instead of unconsciously fighting some of them; and only buying one’s resources at an old books’ shop 🙂 .

baia de culori

paintball joacă netul cu mine. mă împroaşcă cu vopsele colorate: albastru e informaţii noi, roşu e frica de a nu şti destul, galben e neputinţa de a schimba conţinuturile, verde e centrul care închide pe rând sursele de zgomot. vânătă, aflu într-una că trebuie să mă păzesc, dar să mă deschid, şi mă măzgălesc cu sentimente neadevărate de toate culorile. din timp în timp, pulsul se grăbeşte către interiorul unei pungi de hârtie: „şi dacă mă-nec în culoarea vântului turbat?”

dezordine

Mă întreb dacă în capul fiecărui om e la fel de dezordine ca la mine. Sau dacă cei la care dormitoarele arată impecabil îşi întreţin şi interiorul glăvatei cu aceeaşi scrupulozitate, asta făcând din mine un „slob” în general. Şi de data asta nu e vorba de incapacitatea de a ţine o agendă mentală sau scrisă şi de perpetuul nod în gât că am uitat să fac ceva important – subiectul ăsta e epuizat, mă tem. E vorba despre ordini mult mai fundamentale (ştiu că nu suportă grad de comparaţie, j’m’en fiche!). La mine în cap convieţuiesc straturi peste straturi de „adevăruri” despre ce simt şi/sau gândesc cu privire la anumite situaţii. Şi nu-i cred nicio secundă pe cei care jură că „ce-i în guşă şi-n căpuşă”, fiindcă ei fie a) fac rău orbeşte în numele principiului, suspendându-l apoi temporar când pagubele sunt prea mari, fie b) nu sunt conştienţi de straturile lor sau, mai rău, chiar n-au decât unul, ceea ce mi se pare tare simplu şi destul de egocentric, fie c) trăiesc într-un mod pe care încă n-am reuşit eu să-l concep (trebuie să ne recunoaştem tot timpul limitele!). Dar divaghez.
Straturile cele mai evidente sunt destul de strâns întrepătrunse, de-asta mi se şi pare aşa de dezordine – câteodată devine tare greu să aflu ce cred cu adevărat. Există un strat de „onderbuik gevoelens” (emoţii viscerale, să le traducem), în care există oameni pe care nu-i plac (fără motiv), există frici neţinute în frâu, există revolte ieftine eu-alţii, tot soiul de gogomănii inerente jeguleţului uman, dar care, pe de altă parte, nu se lasă negate în bloc – şi zice-se că nici nu-i sănătos. Stratul ăsta e făcut sandwich de două alte straturi – unul către afară, în care emoţiile astea sunt raţionalizate şi domesticite către „dar nu mi-a făcut niciodată niciun rău, nu există motive de ostilitate către X”; „dar dacă pun un pahar peste păianjen şi-l iau cu cartonul, pot să-l scot din casă fără să-l ating şi nu vreau să fiu cineva care se lasă dominat de bube-n cap”; „nu m-a pus nimeni, am făcut munca y pentru că am vrut eu şi nu pot să-i scot asta pe nas altcuiva [negare raţională a unui mod de a disfuncţiona (nu există? îl inventăm!) în care am crescut şi care nu poate fi dezrădăcinat]”. Sau, oare, ăsta e stratul de dedesubt şi nu cel de deasupra? Nu ştiu, ele par acelaşi lucru, dar se simt diferit. Exemplificând, dialogurile interioare curg în ”Ne vedem duminică cu x şi cu iubitul lui X, pe care [adevărul e că] nu-l agreez deloc, deşi [adevărul e că] nu mi-a făcut niciodată nimic, e un om la locul lui, uşor exagerat, dar bun ca pâinea caldă, etc, etc.” În care adevărul e şi stratul 1 (cum că n-aş acţiona niciodată pe baza emoţiilor viscerale, dar faptul că n-o fac îl resimt uneori ca ipocrit), şi 2 (dar, superficial, aşa simt), şi 3 (dar cine sunt se defineşte prin valorile xyz, ca atare emoţia n e invalidată). Iar 2 e adesea un adevăr de neocolit. Dar şi raţionalizarea lui e corectă. Do I make any sense?
Problema e că, pe principiul ăsta, poţi să ajungi la dileme de viaţă grave de tot – din care te salvează, în bună parte, ceea ce e acceptabil în lumea în care te învârţi. Fiindcă, slavă cerului, degeaba te bântuie riguros şi încăpăţânat câte-o fantasmă în condiţiile în care „do no (intentional) harm/do no harm knowingly” e atotputernic. Dar cum ştii dacă, cu totul independent de ce se întâmplă înafara ta şi de consecinţe, atunci când e vorba de sentimentele pe care construieşti, sentimentele reale se află în stratul cu cine eşti ca substanţă sau în cel uşor inflamabil şi egocentric căruia, la alţii, îi răspund partidele de extremă dreaptă? Pentru că adevărul e că…

third in a row

(meaning third post in English in the last few days, mostly in order not to dissapoint my first other-than-my-mom subscriber – who so pleasantly surprised me this morning – with random musings in Romanian.)

The thing circling about in the bucket of my mind and trying to get a formulation, stimulated by more or less debate-ey comments on the mummyblogs that I’ve been reading with unembarrassed thirst for the last weeks, is the extent to which exposure to gender identity stimuli in the world around us makes us comply and be what we are told we are. Or rebel. Or – ideally – shun labels.
Because I used to think I would die if anyone ever called any thought in my head a feminist thought. I also used to think my children, if female, will own no pink piece of clothing – in apparently no connection at all with the first thought. I used to think I could be absolutely anything I wanted AND that the thing I absolutely wanted to be was a mum (to be honest, this is the one piece of reasoning that never substantially changed and I’m happy with that, in spite of the fact that I never got round to actually resigning my lucrative activities and probably never will). And I hated the feminist movement because of growing up in a country where the movement had done nothing but defeat its purpose: where I come from, women were and are supposed to work full-time, more often than not keep households in which their men don’t lift a finger (rumour has it it’s been changing lately, I’m not there enough to check), raise children more or less on their own – with the occasional male input of ball-throwing at little boys at the weekend side-of-the-pond-barbecue and of belittling them if ever they manifest any non-masculine interests. I am quite aware of the extent to which this sounds like a rant – I used to see the issue rather black and white and be angry at the wrong… ah, but no, I still think, to a degree, I was angry at the right people. Because the generation of our mums, while being quite driven in their carreers and telling us sky was the limit, also taught our brothers to be exactly as helpless as their dads, whose mothers they used to curse, in turn, in their youth. Chores in houses were seldom split evenly, the roles of boys and girls were distributed before we even knew it and by the time I went to the seaside on holidays on my own with a group, when we were about 15, the girls were cooking every single day for everybody – never grudgingly, mind you, we were playing at being grown-ups, and that was what grown-up women did. (I also impressed a very temporary love interest to tears in my second year of university by washing his t-shirts – apparently it was endearing that there were still old-school women who took care of their men in that way, and amusingly, I was proud to be one.)
In time, a lot more nuance has come into the way I tell these stories or see `societies`. Having lived in three countries by now, I have been able to see that people get exposed to things to which their particular society attributes values and most of the time the `irrefutable truths` about `how things are` are integrated unquestioningly in one’s system of beliefs. (The temptation here is to illustrate with examples of `universal` trains of thought per nation, but I’m not going to fall for it, of course, this already being a rambling post with too many branches). What I wanted to say is that, with globalisation, quite a mass of the thought that is acceptable and accepted, mainstream, not consistently questioned, might just be the same for many of us. This being how come we can wonder on different meridians about the effect of sexualising pictures on children growing up and on their image of themselves. This is how come anorexia and bulimia are spreading at much the same pace in different places. This is how unfiltered feelings of being unsafe or of making too much effort in comparison to others (ow, how well this ties in with my rant, although it comes from somewhere completely different!) create rejections of otherness of the least politically correct kind.

And this is where I begin to wonder about the sense of this post and get all solipsistic on my own ass – to what degree am I capable to think independently about these things when, in truth, I wanted to have girls because my own brain was washed enough (and it’s difficult to say by whom) to believe that girls were the part of humanity that I had a more decent chance to reason with? How can I stand straight in any debate on society shaping uneven roles when I have been glueing all-hated labels on human behaviours on both sides of the gender rift for years? But also, going back, are the unquestioned things which have been settling peacefully in my brain really disqualifying me from formulating any informed opinion? And if so, is there no informed opinion possible on gender identity issues (or any issues, in fact)? Or is there a way of securing one’s attempt at `objectivity` (lovely construct, can’t help labelling it `scientifically male` though 🙂 ) by critically questioning all assumptions one makes when trying to make up one’s mind? In other words, if I assess myself, for instance, as touched by an improperly/insufficiently questioned tinge of misandria, will that disqualify my view on how my world typecasts children in little princesses and little dinosaur lovers or will it just give it more strength because I am dealing with my own potential bias by admitting it?

Whoa, I definitely have too many questions for one single post and too many modifiers for every single sentence. Oh well…

of everything too much or too little – diary entry

The rambling quality of this my virtual place makes it rather difficult to communicate properly with anyone who managed to define more accurately what they are writing about. Hell, I haven’t even defined accurately what language I’m writing in, although I seem to have chosen as main one the one with the most limited potential audience. But then again, I wasn’t writing for the sake of audience to begin with. However, the feeling I get gliding from blog to blog in this labyrinth of minds and hearts spoken online is mostly a tinge of envy for all those who have learned to take into account the potential objections of the mainstream voice, to make fun of themselves/not take themselves too seriously, but still to allow themselves to go ahead doing the things they believe in or love to do, unrefrained by the harness of self-censorship. I stumbled today upon this adorable example of what I’d call a mild preemptive rebuttal aimed at the Other’s judgment of some me as a minority view on things: `Now, I know your Tie-Dye and Mung Bean Alarm is already sounding, but stay with me if you will. ` – and I so wanted the sentence to be mine…

I know I’m being incoherent right now, but – once upon a time in Amsterdam, I had this moment of clarity during a night of being drunk with friends and made a whole speech (that I immediately half forgot) about how being a woman is all about wanting to be things/people, not necessarily wanting to have things/people. I believe I meant that, even when there are things a woman wants to have, they are mostly props for who or what she wants to be – a setting, rather, for the play of her own life. But more importantly, that the way a woman lives relationships most deeply is not by wanting to posess another person as a friend or lover, but by wanting to be more like them, to reflect herself in them and them in herself. However, this kind of generalising talk (or drunken clarities) has left me quite a while ago, and now I only dare to write or say things in the first person, the way they teach you to in the rather pointless assertiveness classes. I, therefore, believe that I have been attempting all my life to become something, while constantly looking at others and emulating the parts of them that I would have liked to be – or just looking at the dancers and wishing I had the guts to go out and dance. However, at some point I cannot help but wondering, in the cacophonia of voices I’m trying to hear and in the multitude of people whom I guiltily envy because they seem to have found their convictions and peace – is what I call my self-censorship actually not my voice? Is the not giving in to the extremes of all the things I might like to surrender to completely, the measure of how I personally cope with the chaos? I would so like to be the person who invents rituals for themselves and for the children, and yet I am so obviously the person who could not stand the ridicule of their own partner about any excess of sentiment…

Shall we just leave it at that? No tie-dye alarm here today – just no nonsense, no maintenance, no envying others for being real – they’re probably just hurdling along as well – why else would they be writing?

lucru manual

Fiecare stâlp ori ţăruş
din fundaţie
e acolo graţie
mie.
Că i-am pus cu mâna mea sau doar i-am acceptat
e irelevant – ţăruşii sunt un dat.
Fiecare cărămidă sau piatră de râu
a zidului
e pusă cu buna ştiinţă a individului
adică a mea.
De am văzut la timp că-i strâmb
şi-am zis „merge şi-aşa”
e problema mea.
Fiecare ţiglă
a acoperişului
e definitivarea învelişului
în care mi-am visat siguranţa
iar clanţa
cu care am tras uşa
e înşurubată cu mâna mea,
dibace au ba.

Mândră mi-s
de edificiul la care-am trudit.
Nu se vede cât m-am spetit.
Nu se vede decât
că-s singura de vină
că a ieşit urât.

şireturi

Generaţii întregi de pantofi şi sandale
îmi înfăşoară glezna şi bolta păsăr-lăţ-înaltă
cu suavităţi de referinţe culturale
Scarlett, Anna Pavlovna, roşcată fundă – desigur, până la prima baltă.

Şireturi de şiret, de panglică, de piele,
de elastic, de opinci (şi oare ce-s alea obiele?)
sabine, sandale greceşti, curele-ncrucişate –
e evident un fetiş al gleznelor încorsetate

cu talie, cu frângere, „glezne subţiri”
şi totuşi cu sprijinul unei ample înfofoliri
în aţe cu izuri medievale –
cât amor identitar pentru tălpile de piele moale!

La un moment dat, nu poţi decât să te resemnezi
că pe cortex încălţările stau lipite de butonul pentru endorfină.
Dar şireturile, legăturile, prin ce teorie le somezi
să-şi dea pe faţă originea de ou sau de găină?

Protejat: spovedanie (aspect perfectiv)

Acest conținut este protejat cu parolă. Pentru a-l vedea, te rog să introduci parola mai jos:

Parolă:

despre furii şi alte creaturi mitologice

Lin zice că furia e un buzunar atotcuprinzător pe care îl foloseşti pentru toate emoţiile nedefinite, neînţelese, sau pricepute şi ascunse sub covor pe care nu le trăieşti de-adevăratelea. Că furia e o formă de lene şi de dezordine mentală, fiindcă e mai simplu să fii supărat ca văcarul pe sat decât să faci distincţii şi să te confrunţi cu o grămadă de drăcuşori care pot sau nu pot fi exorcizaţi. Amuzant e că ieri, după ce am citit-o pe ea, am descoperit în notiţele mele cu idei neduse până la capăt, măzgălită acum vreo lună, exact aceeaşi observaţie, cu alt nume pentru buzunarul comun, dar în cu totul aceeaşi ordine de idei. Citez:

„Se ia o oală. Se pun în ea apă, ceapă, morcovi, ţelină, păstârnac, praz şi cuburi Maggi. Se amestecă. Se fierbe. Se gustă. Se urăşte cu totul, se dă la raţe şi se decide că supele, de preferinţă în formularea generală, „supele”, sunt o porcărie. E cea mai simplă reacţie. Cea mai facilă emoţie. Greu e să guşti şi să afli că morcovii erau stricaţi, sau că îţi displace chimicala din Maggi, că legumele crescute în ţări fără soare n-au gust sau că apa locală e groaznică. E greu să decelezi diferenţele, să calci înapoi fiecare pas şi să găseşti bubele – şi să le repari. Dar cel mai simplu e să deteşti supa.”

Pe de altă parte, totul sună minunat când vorbeşti în meta despre toate astea, ca şi cum sfătoşenia glasului te face transcendent supei de emoţii în care te scalzi. De fapt, legumele astea sunt emoţii pe care trebuie să le triezi şi să le pui în ordine într-o existenţă lipsită de timp pentru tine şi în care reacţia tipică e ca, dacă ai un strop de timp, să te scufunzi în ficţiune de orice tip (în litere sau imagini) ca soluţie de evitare a confruntării cu obligaţia autodisciplinată a curăţeniei creieraşului. Doar că o cantitate substanţială a emoţiilor este generată de fapte asupra cărora nu ai nicio influenţă – frici care reflectă bombardamentul informaţional; frici care reflectă nesiguranţele reale în timpuri de criză, care pot fi droburi de sare mai târzii sau mai apropiate, dar nu pot fi îngropate cu totul; frici privind inadecvarea proprie în diverse roluri, care duc la vinovăţii justificate sau „preemptive”; vinovăţii reale cu privire la oameni dragi lângă care nu poţi fi şi pe care simţi că-i dezamăgeşti sau că-i pierzi sau că-i abandonezi; frustrări cu privire la alegerile celor din jur pe care nu le poţi influenţa nici măcar cu vorba, dar care au un impact asupra vieţii proprii; frustrări cu privire la inflexibilităţile diverselor sisteme din care faci parte, care ar putea funcţiona mai bine şi pentru ele, şi pentru tine însuţi dacă ar mişca măcar un centimetru; solomoniade în care arbitrezi fără voie situaţii de „şi tu ai dreptate, şi tu ai dreptate” fără a putea spune părţilor implicate că în loc să se supere pe celălalt, ar putea mai bine să-şi vadă de bârnele proprii; uşoare depresii sezoniere; vinovăţia absolută că totul este, obiectiv privind, în asemenea grad impecabil că „te bate Dumnezeu” că eşti furios. Şi neputinţa pe care o generează această lipsă de influenţă face ca orice sortare-etichetare precum cea de mai sus să fie inutilă – fiindcă toate trebuie, în aceeaşi măsură, îngropate pentru a trăi într-o formă de normalitate, pentru că te sminteşti dacă le trăieşti simultan la nivelul la care le simţi atunci când le decelezi. Şi reîncepe bâzâitul surd al ciufuţeniei structurale înghiţite diplomatic sub forma unei singure pilule în loc de o medicaţie întreagă. Foaie verde lobodă, adică, cum zice bunica atunci când îţi bagatelizează vo jale…

luni, 11 aprilie-diary entry

Dormitorul e inundat de soare. Se aude duşul. Mă-ntorc pe partea cealaltă, în aşteptarea unui binemeritat ceas care sună pentru mine abia la 8. Copiii dorm, cu vastă bunăvoinţă, până la 8 şi zece. Cafea, lăptic, cornflakes, pupături. Pe drum, mame evreice cu perucă şi ciorapi negri îşi iau la revedere de la copiii frumos îmbrăcaţi şi cu ghiozdanele în spate. Fisa pică: copiii ăştia n-au vacanţă de Paşte, deci ai mei se vor putea juca în parc fără să aştepte o juma’ de oră la leagăn! – telefon acasă pentru a anunţa descoperirea. În tramvai, pe scaunul lângă care mă bălăngăn de o bară, un domn la patru acele casual moştenite din imaginea anilor 70, cu bărbiţă intelectuală scurtă şi pantaloni de doc bej, citeşte o versiune de buzunar a Coranului în patru limbi. În tren, citesc ziarul – lung interviu cu un naţionalist flamand care spune că totul e o problemă de lipsă de comunicare şi că ambele părţi ale conflictului fl/val operează cu imagini eronate despre cealaltă parte. Aleluia! În culoarul de la metroul bruxelez, un cerşetor cu vioară îl învaţă pe alt cerşetor cu vioară acordurile Habanerei. La capătul celălalt al călătoriei, negustorul grec din staţia de metrou îmi vinde cu un zâmbet plin un burec cu brânză sărată – ştie că îmi vinde copilărie la pachet. Ajunsă la muncă, îmi pun cafeaua pe birou şi muntele de treabă care trebuie rezolvat până la două pare floare la ureche, atâta de floare la ureche că mă apuc întâi să scriu despre dimineaţa asta.
Concluzia – Suficiente ore de somn şi o rază de soare schimbă total percepţiile despre lume…