A Language I Do Not Speak
Long ago, walls — barricades — were erected to guard the interior. The heart was a precious treasure, and I built the walls high enough to ensure I would never get hurt again. And then, with what appeared to be great ease, she tore down every one of those walls. In doing so, she let out something I didn’t know was trapped inside. She opened the floodgate of my words, and they poured out. Word after word, letter after letter, I wrote.
I soon reached the limitations of the English language, and struggled to find descriptive words for the things I saw in her. How do I describe the sensuality in the curve of her collarbone? Are there words to describe how I feel when I see her love in the form of a sparkle in those beautiful hazel eyes? How do you write about the feeling of home?
The writing has not stopped since the day she unleashed it — nor has my struggle to find the perfect phrase. Though I don’t speak French, I have grown to have an appreciation for the language, and the depths to which it can capture a phrase.
A term of greeting in English, relegated to a casual pleasantry — it’s nice to meet you. More literally, it means charmed. But in English, the only time we ever use the French is when we’re trying to impress a beautiful woman, or we want to sound pompous. Enchanté. The meaning has been lost in translation, and it’s so much richer than a common pleasantry.
From the root incantare — in, meaning upon, and cantare, to sing — enchanted has taken on a mystical, magical connotation. To enchant: sing a spell into me.
The imagery brings me to the lore of the siren, whose sweet song, upon being heard, would compel a sailor to follow it even to his death. I named her a siren. I accused her of being a witch on many occasions, for there is no doubt that she sang a spell into my soul. You have bewitched me, body and soul. A Mr. Darcy fan, she immediately recognized the line from the film — and I began to sing my spell into her.
Clear evidence that the song was sung into my heart was the ease — the natural comfort — with which I could talk to her about anything. In the grander scheme of things, one of the earliest conversations we had was about how we fall in love. In our culture, we have romanticized the idea of love at first sight — the notion that our soul instantly responds, at a glance, to its counterpart in another. But my soul says otherwise. Love at first sight is safe. It is warm, intimate, the quiet knowledge of your counterpart.
But is that love?
Love is loud. It knocks you on your back. It changes your world. It is violent. Explosive. You are never the same again. I told her that falling in love was like being struck by lightning.
Instant. Powerful. Life-changing.
Years later, long after being struck by that lightning, I began to study French — and one phrase immediately spoke to my soul. The English renders it love at first sight. But the French says something else. Coup — a blow, a strike. De foudre — of lightning. Literally: a strike of lightning.
The next phrase comes when the heart tries to find words for love after the lightning strikes. Toujours à toi. It translates simply as always yours, but the French is so much richer than our succinct equivalent.
Toujours takes always to another level, like being outside time, perpetually in that state for all eternity — past, present, and future. It is a state of being. And à toi elevates yours to mean something closer to belonging to you. Ownership is imposed; belonging is chosen. I am yours is possession. I belong with you is home. So, poetically, toujours à toi is better translated: eternally, I belong with you.
Always yours is something you write in a greeting card that is then — eventually — thrown away. Eternally, I belong with you is a vow — a declaration on how you will live your life. I made that vow when I etched toujours à toi on the handles of my cookware — she always said she could taste the secret ingredient in all that I cooked. I lived that vow in everything I did, even the act of cooking her a meal.
In everything I did — this is how I love. Total attention, directed outward. The French have a term for this, too: amour fou.
Worn smooth by overuse, the English idioms are mild. Casual. Madly in love. Head over heels. I’m crazy about her — something you say about a person you’ve been dating three weeks. You can translate the words: mad love. But in our language, it has lost all meaning.
And since Breton’s 1937 L’Amour fou, modern French culture has largely lost the original meaning as well. It has become less about love and more about toxic obsession. But in the author’s original work, love consumes him absolutely — and in doing so, allows him to reach the sublime in the everyday, in the commonplace, in the mundane. Mad love is the highest form of love. It defies convention and rationality. It puts the lover in touch with the marvelous. It is unbridled joy, and in its totality, it never erodes.
It has become foundational in everything I do. It resonates with my soul — because that is exactly how I love. Since 1937, the French have had a phrase for it: amour fou. I just had to find it.
In the past, where four footsteps tread, now there are only two. Decorated for Christmas, I walk the museum, because that is what we did. In the pre-dawn hour, I stir awake and turn to pull her close and fall back asleep with her in my arms — and find only the pillow. Like her ghost, taunting me, the photographs on my wall take me to places we have been. And in the frying pan, with toujours à toi engraved on the handle, I cook eggs for one.
In English, we say I miss you. The French say tu me manques. Literally: you are missing from me.
The lightning strike fused our two souls into one. And so, just as scorched earth and burnt trees are the evidence left behind, everywhere I look, I see her. In all that I am. In everything that I do. She is missing from me.
Now, I stand outside once more — face pressed against the glass looking into warmth only she was able to show me — wanting, more than anything, to once again hold her in my arms. The park where we walked is empty without her. By the end of a short walk, my body aches to hold her hand. The joy of discovering new restaurants together and the many happy memories we shared are always right below the surface. In every new restaurant, I still turn to ask what she thinks. And every interesting thing I see or do produces an unquenchable yearning in my soul to tell her about it. The cold is colder without her warmth. Dessert is not as sweet without her to share it with. My hand does not feel right without hers to hold. The French have a phrase for the precise pain of wanting what you cannot have.
La douleur exquise.
We are old friends, for without her, I know the exquisite pain well.
It is all I have.
Six phrases. A language I do not speak. They told the story of my love.
I wrote an entire piece on how I love.