Language as Cage and Sky (with Memory of Translation)
When I first enter a new language, I feel confined — unable to stretch, gesture, or even breathe in it. My ideas crash against the bars. But over time, that cage grows, or perhaps I shrink within it, learning to move.
When I was in grade six, I was sent to a French immersion school — possibly as punishment for every past misdeed. It was far away, foreign, and formal. Suddenly two plus two equals four became deux plus deux égal quatre. I’d always struggled with math, yet somehow ended up studying mathematics and linguistics later in life — as if chasing the ghosts of both logic and language.
Years later, in 2000, I went to Russia to teach English — and found myself learning a language that resists being learned. Russian doesn’t open easily. It guards its meanings behind cases and consonants. But once it lets you in, it gives you the dignity of effort — every phrase earned, every vowel an act of respect.
In English, I fly — stochastic, recursive, reflective.
In French, I dance — eloquent, tentative, expressive.
In Russian, I pace — respectful, restrained, full of fire, but slow to lift off.
Each language is a resonance chamber for the self — echoing what we can remember, imagine, and articulate. Sometimes we inherit the wrong registers — slang from corridors instead of poetry from cafés. Still, it’s all part of our map.
I’m a standing wave of memory in a biological form.
Language is my cage — and my sky.
The larger the lexicon, the freer the mind.
But even in small cages, birds learn to sing.
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