I had my first dream in French last night, but it absolutely does not count, and I will tell you why. First of all, it wasn't creative... I wasn't fashioning French sentences in my mind, I was just repeating phrases that I know by heart, because (second of all) I dreamed entirely in lyrics to Jacques Brel songs. Now, you might argue that that in itself is an accomplishment that I should be proud of, and I would agree with you. Everyone should dream in Jacques Brel songs; but it's an emotional and trying experience, for sure, riddled with references that you only understand in the most tangential of ways because asking your French husband to explain them is a lot like asking an Italian to explain the meaning of a word, in that it starts out with "Well, there's no way to directly explain it, I will have to give you some history..." and ends with "...and that's how Marc Antony lost his standing with the Roman army. Wait, what were we talking about?"
So I found myself on a deserted white beach, wearing the dress that the woman is wearing in that poster on the subway of a mosaic of two people dancing, on a beach, with a stupid poem about "butter sammiches" or something next to it. God, why is subway poetry so stupid? That entire poem is basically like, "I love you like I love food, in that I don't actually love you but I devour you when I want to but when I'm not hungry I could care less. Also, sometimes I hate you, like when you're the gross bread-and-butter pickles and I'm expecting the sour ones. Basically, I'm so glad we both understand that this relationship is purely sexual, which we both were totally aware of before I started this poem." It's spelled 'sandwiches', subway poem. Fuck. You.
Anyway, I'm wearing that mosaic dress, or what I assume the dress would look like in real life, because it's the only good thing about that poster. There is not a weirdly out-of-proportion dog dancing at my feet, because if a dog were really that size it would in fact be a rat, which is not a good image to put in the minds of your subway commuters, MTA. I really hope you've seen this poster, reader, otherwise this is all annoying gibberish to you. Suffice to say, I'm on a beach wearing a white dress and I come upon Jacques Brel, because why not?
He's wearing a full suit and he's intense and disheveled and sweaty because I've not ever seen him any other way and it's my dream, although I can't imagine any other way to be while you're on a beach in a suit. Like, imagine yourself on a beach, in a suit, and you'd probably seem a little unhinged as well. OH HELLO THERE. YES IT IS A BIT WARM TODAY, ISN'T IT? ALMOST LIKE THE SCORCHED DRY EARTH OF MEN'S SOULS, OR THE BELLIES OF A PROSTITUTE AND HER JOHN PRESSED TOGETHER IN THE HEATED DESPERATION OF FALSE INTIMACY. AND THE SAND IN MY SHOES PINCHES LIKE THE THOUSAND TINY INDIGNITIES OF DAILY LIFE IN THIS COLD, BOURGEOIS SOCIETY. NO I DO NOT KNOW WHY I AM WEARING A SUIT, WHY DO ANY OF US DO ANYTHING...?
And, thusly, I have just uncovered Jacques Brel's writing technique. You are welcome, world!
Anyway, Jacques Brel is really energetically upset about something (surprise, surprise, Mr. Brel) and he's gesturing for me to come with him and speaking in French. Note: this dream is happening in my mind, so while I comprehend the fact that he's speaking French, it's probably more like he's going "uhn-uhn-uhn-jwa-wa-wee-woo", which is what French sounds like to me. So... he's speaking "French".) Jacques Brel leads me down the beach, gesturing emphatically, until we reach a big, sealed glass box, and inside the box, playing a game of freaking Canasta, is Julien and my mind's interpretation of Miche, who I've never seen, but who is Jacques Brel's wife, and incidentally also my sister Claire. Don't trust him, Claire, he leaves you for a chorus girl!
This is where the song lyrics come in, and while I would like to lie and say that the particular lyrics my brain chose to spew at me somehow fit the situation perfectly in a poetic sort of way, they absolutely did not, as Jacques Brel walked up to the glass case, put his hands to the glass and said "Dans le port d'Amsterdam y a des marins qui mangent sur des nappes trop blanches des poissons ruisselants," or basically, "In Amsterdam there are sailors who eat wet fish." He's just repeating the lyrics that happen to get stuck in my head for rhythmic or stylistic reasons, but Claire-Miche can hear him and leaves her game of Canasta to put her hands against the glass as well. I'm suddenly grasped by the emotional desperation of the moment, and I turn to Julien, but... he can't hear me.
"Julien, why are you in a glass box with a dead woman, and/or my sister?"
"Julien, I'm with freaking Jacques Brel over here, look!"
"Julien, stop playing cards for like a second, ok?"
Jacques Brel turns to me in urgency, his hands still against the glass, and says "C'est dur de mourir au printemps, tu sais."
"Yes, Jacques Brel, I know it's hard to die in spring, but you actually died in October, so you don't have to worry about it."
"La valse mille temps."
"Okay, I think a valse is a dance? But we have other problems here, if you could just concentrate..."
"Les flamandes, les flamandes, les fla-- les fla-- les flamandes."
"Fuck the flamingoes, Jacques Brel! FUCK THE FLAMINGOES."
But as the images of Jacques Brel, sweaty and desperate against an imposing piece of thick glass, my sister, Miche looking longingly from the other side, and Julien, deaf to me, continuing his game of cards without ever noticing me, fade into my memory, I'm left with the very real impression of this dream: that, sometimes, with a language barrier, it's very alienating to be on the other side of the glass.
In my personal experience, Julien's family--the people who are most important to him and therefore to me-- can't understand me, and I can't understand them. He talks with his family over Skype, and I sit and smile next to him before I wander off to hide in the bedroom. They don't know me, and beyond Julien's descriptions, I don't know them. He has a whole world of communication, news, media, entertainment, that is completely beyond me. I can read and write French, and I can even speak it on a conversational level if my partner is patient and speaks slowly and doesn't have too strong of an accent... but I'm still locked out of a culture that I simply don't understand, even when I really do understand quite a lot.
The French language, like English, isn't very accommodating to an outsider: the oral part rarely sounds like what the written part looks like, and there are so many liaisons (contractions) that a sentence ten words long can sound like it's three. Practicing it can be a nightmare, especially with a populace that is less-than-willing to help you, even when their intentions are good. Basically, the French refuse to understand you if you pronounce a word even slightly off. I recall a time when I was attempting to read a French version of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" to Julien, and he absolutely could not understand my pronunciation of the French word for "bears". The story is about a little blonde girl and three bears. There are literally no other characters, and he couldn't piece together that when I was referring to "the three ____", I was talking about god damn bears. He didn't even mean to be frustrating, and he wasn't testing me: he just absolutely could not fathom that a word I was pronouncing like "oorse" was the French word pronounced more like "orse", and after the ensuing tragedy, we can never speak of that particular fairy tale ever again. For three weeks, I asked the Hispanic workers at the restaurant I worked in the equivalent of "You can me to give the kitchen now?" in Spanish and they happily engaged with me, in my nonsense, until correcting me later when I'd built up my confidence a little bit, but with a French person I can't mispronounce one vowel in the word "bears" in a story about motherfucking bears or I might as well be screaming Pig Latin at a radiator.
But I tarry on, learning a little bit more every day, because I have the luxury of time and resources to do so... but just be prepared for an epic shitstorm if you ever suggest around me that a busboy or day worker or gardener, who more often than not pull 13, 14, 15-hour shifts with no regulation, commute for hours from the bowels of the city, and spend most of their time with the other Spanish-speaking immigrants that we take advantage of, should "Just learn English!"
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