English as a̶ ̶s̶e̶c̶o̶n̶d̶ ̶l̶a̶n̶g̶u̶a̶g̶e̶ a third space

For some reason our house still had a landline with a Canadian phone number, even though we hadn’t lived there for years. It happened only so often that this landline would be used, but from time to time…it rang. The ringtone was a digital sounding version of Vivaldi’s “Spring”. Like any kid when you hear the phone ring, you disengage from whatever you’re doing and run, flailing to give the phone to one of your parents. My sister didn't, however. She’d pick up the phone and press one of its gummy buttons:

“Hello, who is this? Yes, I can put my dad on.” (Till this day, I don’t know what the calls were about.)

My older sister was already able to speak English. Back then I was a 7 year old who thought “coconut” was the most difficult word in the English language. Understanding what was being said to me but not being able to reply back made me feel like I was in desperate need of the Heimlich maneuver: the words were just all stuck in my throat.

But things changed. Me and my sister were two kids raised on American cartoons and Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast and lunch. Paired with a healthy side of Youtube, English didn’t seem so foreign anymore.

I loved it, actually. I loved everything about it. 

It felt freeing; making anything into a verb just by adding “-ing” at the end…you can’t just do that in any language. It wasn’t just the language that attracted me, but all that was attached to it: all the movies, toys, trends, and all of it came from America. I knew America was a real place, but I still couldn't fathom its actual existence.  Starbucks and Target stores from the Youtube vlogs I frequently watched seemed like note-worthy historical landmarks that one day I'd get to see. Maybe I’d even buy myself an EOS lip-balm that I would reapply in between sips of a Pumpkin Spice latte. It all sounds so stupid now, but I was a kid.

Though, I wasn’t the only one who had this preoccupation with the US. It seemed like everyone was fleeing to or copying whatever we saw in the western countries. Fleeting rumors and remarks about people from our hometown emigrating to the US brought up by family members at the dinner table. High school kids getting accepted to universities in the UK that they’d have to pay for in a currency 6 times smaller than the British pound. Singers on the radio trading our mother tongue for English lyrics sung with unmistakable Eastern European Pop accents. But this is nothing new; the east has always had a fascination with the west, see the Adidas tracksuit in Russia, 1970’s Berlin and so on.  

Growing up I tried my best to have an American accent. Looking back, I wasn't as embarrassed by my natural accent as I was by what it meant: the fact that I was from an unknown, uninteresting, unimportant city in the Balkans. But soon enough English became more than just a tool that mended the way I was perceived but one that aided the way that I expressed. It sort of crept up on me. The journals I kept, the poetry I wrote, all were found in translation. What really surprised me was the fact that English wasn’t just a language to me, it was a place: anytime I’d have to say something embarrassing or something that I cared about…I’d instinctively switch to English. It felt less real, less consequential and more forgiving, like getting under a blanket and self-disclosing there. In my native language…such confessions made my ears ring.

However, I didn’t realize how this would affect me once I’d (finally) move away from home. In Amsterdam, almost everything is English. Don’t get me wrong, everything was fun and new in the beginning; I got to slide words like “quintessential” in casual conversation just because I could. At some point though...

It all felt distant.                                     Things felt far away.                            People felt hard to reach.

If English is not your first language, then the way you speak it is still somewhat deliberate. The person you are in English is somewhat of a choice

So where am I? Where do I go when I speak in English?

When I love someone, what language do I love them in?

When I love someone, in which language do I say it? And would it mean the same in both?

If I were to say things in my native tongue to someone who doesn’t know it, how would it feel?

Maybe I would feel like a fish in a fishbowl: behind a glass wall, surrounded by what it knows best and what it feels at home in, something that the onlooker wouldn't understand the way the fish does.

It’s funny how even escape can feel constricting.

When I moved here, for the first time in my life, I missed home. It made me want to listen to the songs that were on the radio when I was a kid, songs from my parents’ youth, and watch new and old movies made in our cities. For the first time I wanted to get back to something I had only ever wanted to get away from. And yet again I don’t think I was the only one; in recent years, there has been an appreciation for Eastern Europe. A few years ago posts started popping up showcasing rusted swings and sand filled playgrounds, thick duvets in Balkan households, post-communist panel buildings, old women with traditional headscarves and tomato salad with bread (iykyk).  

If it wasn't apparent from the "escu" in my last name, I'm Romanian. What I used to run away from is now something I seek refuge in. Maybe this is simply a matter of “you always want what you don’t have”, a matter of picking and choosing and the inherent dissatisfaction that comes with being a person. But rather I think I realized there wasn’t something wrong with all the things I condemned as a kid.  This is the language I speak in with my mom, the language I dream in, the one I hide in when I gossip with my sister when we're in public in another country. There’s a privilege to take a break from making yourself understood, the privilege to reference things only some would know, the privilege de a nu fi înțeles și de a rămâne așa când vrei tu.