I miss Spanish. I know I can study on my own, seek out Spanish books, learn a word a day, revise my verbs and hello, read my Spanish copy of Paulo Coelho's 'Brida'. BUT I miss Spanish as the Spanish that is easier to FEEL in. I miss Spanish as the language that I wrote my first ever full-fledged song in. I miss Spanish and alongwith my discovery of the Latino explosion, not as limited English popsters but as genuine pop-rock phenomenons back in Spain and Colombia (I don't have to mention who I am talking about, EI and S). I miss Spanish as I miss ninth standard. I miss ticklingly chilly Madras winter on long drives to Kotturpuram as the same album played on repeat for months. I miss 'Quizas' by Enrique Iglesias. It's on my iTunes now. But I miss the context I first listened to it in. I miss the freshness of discovery, the thrill of learning, so much unlike the relative monotony of revision. I miss my Peruvian Spanish teacher, our initial limited conversations as he helped negotiate my first steps into the language that I was already so in love with and the language that would become so close to my heart.
I am not brilliant at Spanish. I don't even know what level I am at. And months of non use have probably rendered my tenses rusty. But when Juanes, Enrique, Shakira, Antonio Banderas, Alejandro Sanz and Marc Antony speak to me, something happens. I am at once familiar and immediately far away. A fourteen year old whose world changed just because she had a language to speak to herself in, to communicate those feelings that English so restricted.
Siempre digo que ingles es la lengua en que yo puedo pensar y hablar pero es español que es la lengua en que yo puedo sentir, la lengua de mi corazón.
