The elements have passed through here, elements that i think are invisible to me, but not quite odourless, because i get a minuscule whiff of something else, something that evades the pointed weight of my finger. It has rained, and snowed. It has dawned, then dusked. It has dayed and nighted and eclipsed, and i, distantly na(t)ive, have put my departed hand in this pocket of earth, feeling the grooves of racinations: a favourite activity perhaps because this hand keeps clutching, pulling, feeling a weight give, then come up to the surface with clumped dirt, warm, yet no root. It knows there's something there, it just can't quite hold it. And i feel some sort of sadness in me, though not an abstract, but a pre-sentiment, somefeel umbral, about that clutching. I've been in Romania for nearly three weeks, and tried writing my feelings down, but the words i want to use are not the words i can use. I want to use Romanian, but i realise that my grasp of Romanian has diminished, perhaps limiting my ability to use it to comprehend, for often i'm not so aware of connotations. And i'm thinking that this place isn't one that can be translated for grasping in another place, like New Zealand, nor can that place be brought here.
It's more accurate than i initially thought, to say that this is a different world. It's constructed differently. That perhaps has to do with the language itself, the story of it and its own impact on the place it is used in. I struggle to imagine a Romania built using the English language. It would be something else. And i struggle even further to imagine it because i note grinding linguistic edges that creak frictively when Romanians use English. Globalisation, advertising, capitalism, other tions, ings, and isms, have collectively chipped at the imaginary body of Romanianness, probably boring holes into it (sockets?) and allowing hybrid beings/double-citizened beings like myself to fit a little better. But the electricity, the communication that passes through such channels, doesn't find the same solitude of journey, of understanding, of clarity, as it would be if it were Romanian spoken to a Romanian, or Englishman to an Englishman. This probably means that the Romanian no longer exists, if it ever did. Pithy English phrases and instantiations of Fuck leak into friends' Romanian, pooling into a sense of gone-by, a sense that visitation has happened during the night (from aliens) and in the morning, they find they are able to communicate slightly more efficiently. I wonder whether they feel probed anywhere.
With my own language use, it feels like i have been probed and taken away for ten years for testing in a corner of the universe, and then brought back here to test-drive my capabilities, and the implanted intelligence. Shortly, i'll be ported back to Middle Earth, where that intelligence will serve causes there, but it seems somehow like my being in Romania is a programmed/expected spike in the machine, a want of return, back to, back to then, subsequently met by dissatisfaction, by an inability to compute happenings here within the framework developed back there. That feels sad. The robot can feel things. So returning, doesn't really strike me as returning, but rather retuning, and in this, coming to terms that, not living here, not forming the mindset of here, i'm not able to comprehend it, to figure it out and feature as data in it.
Perhaps if i'd kept up Romanian... but Romanian away from Romania is not the same thing, as i'm now bridging that French away from France is not the same thing. French being closer to Romanian though, i perhaps subconsciously saw merit in learning it back when i chose to study it in high school, in 2005.
I've been reminded several times to remember my roots. All i have so far been able to do, though, is to feel them underneath my feet, something i'm far less able to do in New Zealand. There is a quiet happiness in knowing that the roots are here, but being unable to hold them. I tell people: New Zealand doesn't feel like home, and Romania doesn't feel like home, either, and i let that thought dangle in front of me as i say it, watching it curiously float, aware that it can easily get tangled in conversation. I further say that i don't feel at home anywhere, but i wouldn't say that i am homeless. In Romania, i feel something. Something i perhaps cannot put words to, something that does not word. Emil Garleanu, an author, wrote a book called "Din Lumea celor care nu Cuvânta" which translated, means "From the world of those who do not speak." This book is about animals, if i recall correctly, and it contains stories about animals, with animals. I'm interested in the last word of his title, "cuvânta," which means to speak, but more concretely refers to wording something. Cuvânt means word. And i want to say that the feeling of home that is underneath this particular earth, one that is everywhere here, in this place, its connotations i recognise, its corners and wall faces, its gestures and quotable troubles, its air and airwaves, is something i'm probably not going to be able to cuvânt to anyone, not even my double-citizen self.
To end, i word this: the 'i' graphemically represents my being with some pointed accuracy. The bottom 'stand/base/body' remains steady and holds up the 'head/ornament/globe' which floats above it. The head is separate from the body, though they are undoubtedly linked. Even though my head has been constructed double-hemispherically, both here and there, it cannot grasp the piece of earth below it, wherever it finds itself. What it is doing, however, is enjoying the air and gravity that's holding it, sculpting it, eroding it.
And more plays…
3 months ago
