I learnt to talk when I was almost three. My mother had to trick me into it, for I would simply point and flutter my eyelashes (she says) and it would be clear to all what I wanted.
"What you want? Cabbage?" she'd say at the refrigerator door. "Tomato sauce? a zucchini?" I'd stamp my foot and shake my head
"a raw egg? beans? leftover soup?" I'd stamp my other foot, frown (which must have been the beginning of the two ditches that now live most permenantly between my brows) and keep my finger pointed to the bottle of milk on the door.
"mince meat? margarine? you will have to tell me, darling, or I shall never know!"
"MILK" forced out on a pre-tantrum breath.
"Oh! Is that what you want? It is so easy when you tell me!"
I've learnt to use speech as a shortcut to my heart. And now, so many years I have been using them, it seems sometimes the words themselves have control, and give shape to my thoughts and emotions before I know about them myself.
I didn't know I loved him until the words fell out of my mouth.
I didn't know she was unhappy until I said "You're not doing so well, huh?"
I didn't know what to do until I said it.
Sometimes my words are strangely more wise than my self.
Words now trip out of my mouth, running and pushing each other
out of the way, sometimes racing to a finish with such velocity and
ferocity (verocity, I think would be the word) that they come out all
garbled and I have to say after a pause and a deep breath "you know
what I mean...don't you?". And sometimes people do.
And sometimes they don't. Cos no words have been able to explain to me why we exist. Or why I am homesick for something I cannot define. Or why I laugh so hard at the pictures in my head. Or why I only want to eat carrots today.
Or why, sometimes, we talk when we don't really have anything to say.
And why sometimes, though we learn to talk so early in our lives, it takes us so long to learn how to listen.
If only all my desires ran to singular, concrete, simple-to-understand words like "MILK".
Though then this really would be a boring read.
