It’s all very well to know theoretically that language is arbitrary and all meaning is deferred, to start to grasp Derrida’s notions of supplementarity. It’s another entirely to be surrounded by a tongue you barely comprehend and slowly feel those arbitrary connections being made, the meanings attaching themselves temporarily, hesitantly, to the concepts in my head but more likely to other signifiers… layers and layers… so that “quiesero” starts out meaning “I want” in English in my head when I use it but slowly transmogrifies into something ever so slightly different, so that when “I” want in Spanish it is a different I and a different wanting and an entirely different mode of wanting.
It was all very well practicing before I left… but when I walk into shops, my mind freezes and all I can remember is “¿Habla inglès?”. After two days, I’m getting a little better.
Still, when I went up to the people at the squat I saw and faltered after a few sentences, it was awkward. I am a product of the imperialist nations, forcing English into the space. The woman I meet, Lia, invites me to the screening of Bowling for Columbine at the anarchist café on Friday… but the film will be in Catalan. She chats with friends and after the first couple of words I lose the thread again and am surrounded by musicality I know to be communication but to which at the same time I am exterior.
Good pop culture kid that I am, it reminds me of The Thirteenth Warrior. Thankfully, I also speak French, which has come in handy more than once, but confuses the situation even more. I am switching between languages, losing the assumptions of accessibility, revealing the sliding interconnections and slipping between the cracks of meaning. Nothing is exact. Precision escapes me.