I am a penguin?

Both my parents were bilingual. My father spoke fluent German, and my mother understands and speaks Italian.

When I was growing up, I was envious of those who spoke more than one language. While I took French in high school, I never quite got the hang of speaking it. In order to learn a language, one must experience immersion.

I discovered that I might have had an aptitude for languages when I visited family in Sweden about 23 years ago. I was only there for two weeks, but at the end of that time, I had begun to pick up the gist of conversations. Had I extended my stay, I am confident that I would have picked up the language.

This past summer, I went to Montreal with a church group. I was excited to learn that my high school French was put to good use; that is, what little I remembered did. Actually, more came back to me than I thought. I remember being lost on a street in Montreal, and I was trying to find my way. I standing on a street with a woman who knew very little English, and I was trying to get directions. She and I fumbled together — she knew very little English, and I knew very little French but somehow we made it work.

I found my way.

Although I made a few halfhearted attempts to learn a second language in the past, I decided to make a serious attempt this year. I enlisted the aid of Duolingo, a free language learning website, to help me learn Spanish. So far, I have been quite diligent, but as the lessons get more challenging, I truly wonder if an old dog can learn new tricks.

Part of the difficulty is the variety of verbs the language offers.

English is fairly simple:

I drink.
You drink.
He/she/it drinks.
You drink.
We drink.
They drink.

Spanish offers a bit more of a challenge:

Yo bebo.
Tú bebes/usted bebe.
El/Ella bebe.
Nosotros bebemos.
Ellos/Ellas beben.

In addition, Spanish speakers often drop the pronoun before the verb, making it challenging for us non-native speakers to catch on. I wonder if English is as difficult to learn as a second language.

That is just the tip of the iceberg. There seems to be more rules to follow than the English language offers. I am beginning to wonder if I will ever be able to get the hang of reading and speaking Spanish.
The limited vocabulary I have learned so far has been amusing.

Yo soy un pingüino.


I am a penguin?

The Power of Loss.

My father died last month. I use the term “die” instead of the polite term “pass away” because he always hated that term. “Pass away to where?” he would say.

If I were to answer his question today, I would tell him that even though his physical existence on earth ceased, he is still very much alive. I always find him in the strangest of places.
Last night, my husband and I went to a Vespers concert at the church (marimba and piano). The featured music included Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Bach, among other selections.

I continue to be amazed at the caliber of talent offered at the local level. The couple who performed last night had been working together professionally for over a decade and  had immersed themselves in the local musical culture, as well as in areas up north. They are both entertainers and educators with resumes boasting some of the finest universities in the country. They had established their careers up north; however, they chose to spend their later years in Florida in order to take advantage of its mild winters.

Although native Floridians still exist, many of us move here from other parts of the country. Others visit seasonally — we call those residents “snow birds.” Up until the past year, my parents would pack their car and head down to Florida in order to escape the frigid New York winters.

If my father were still alive, my parents would be here, and I wondered  if we would have invited them to join us.  We might not have thought to invite them, only to express our regret later.  My father would have loved it, especially the Bach’s Concerto in A Minor.  I imagined him sharing my fascination as the woman played the marimba with two mallets in each hand, effortlessly balancing precision and speed. I saw him in my mind as he looked at the pianist’s face, engrossed in the moment. I almost cried, because I knew the extent to which he loved music and how much he would have enjoyed the small, yet appreciative setting.

I began to fill up. All of a sudden, an episode of M*A*S*H popped into my head. In this episode, Radar has the hots for a woman who has sophisticated taste in music. He doesn’t know anything about Baroque, so his buddies advise him to exclaim “Ah! Bach!” whenever he is at a loss for words with her. I remembered how the term was used all too frequently, and  I almost giggled at the thought.

My father saved me in my own grief.


He had the same crazy sense of humor too.