My Life in Languages

     At the moment I was about to drift off into sleep, I had the brilliant idea to study Latin.  What could be better than a language I don't have to speak? I would be able to read inscriptions on statues and maybe even read the poems of Sulpicia or Catullus.  When I was a child, my cousin gifted me a small book, "Springs of Roman Wisdom".  Why I have no idea but I liked the stern profiles of the "illustrious" men of the time and the mysterious quotes.

    My first language was Latvian.  It gives me a world of nature, fantasy and names of strange ailments.  I learned English at school.  Although Latvian has a "sh" sound, my first grade teacher sent me to a speech therapist who showed me pictures of shoes and made me pronounce the word.  I never understood why and was upset because this made me late for lunch.

    I studied French in school and made it to Paris in my junior year of college.  Like anyone who has studied a language in school, actually speaking it is very different.  In a Paris bar, a guy explained to me how to correctly pronounce the language and how to form the unaspirated p.  It worked because I could talk to the workers downing red wine in the morning cafes and use the telephone system with no problem.

    French functioned until I learned Spanish which took over that part of my brain.  I decided to learn Spanish the natural way, which meant I didn't study it formally for a long time but just spoke it with endless mistakes.  It was my way of testing language acquisition theory which worked but always left me with the doubt if I was saying things correctly.  

    I had a short stint with Russian.  I loved drawing the letters but I had a Russian teacher so strict that I developed a tic in my eye and dreaded attending class.  The fear system worked up to a point because you never went to class unprepared but in the end the tic won out.  I tried a very short-lived Chinese class when I was in Malaysia.  Mostly I decided to try it out to give some work to a friend's Chinese wife who was going crazy with nothing to do.  I remember absolutely nothing of Chinese.  Once a psychic told me I'd had a horrible life there so I became afraid of visiting.  The closest I got was Hong Kong.

    My years of living in Barcelona made studying Catalan a must.  I struggled with the politics of the language which is exclusive so I never took to it though I studied it.  The highlight of my Catalan studies was explaining to the class how I grew up in a county with more cows than people.  That fit in with the Catalan glorification of rural culture.  

    Back to Latin- it will never be a political statement but perhaps an elite one but since I never went to private or Catholic school and am proud of my working class background I don't care.  I love words so what could be better?   I'll never have to feel foolish making the simplest of mistakes and most importantly, I'll be able to read those inscriptions in museums.  

The Anthropology of Tourism

 

The Anthropology of Tourism

 

When I taught English at the University of Barcelona, one of my students gave a talk on the anthropology of tourism.  Since I recently traveled to Guatemala, I remembered what the student had said.  Hospitality can’t be bought.  So very true.  Many years ago, I stayed on a farm that was part of a rural tourism network near Kuldiga, Latvia.  The hostess was welcoming and very kind. We spent a lot of time together and she explained the complexities of the changes from the old Soviet system to capitalism. When I left to return to Riga, it was with flowers and a bag of apples from her orchard. 

            With mass tourism, hospitality is even more difficult to find. I don’t think that money can buy hospitality though on the surface, it may seem that way.  Another student I had in Barcelona worked in a five star hotel.  She told a story of how a cleaner discovered a suitcase of sex toys and all the staff went up to the room to examine it. There really is no privacy.  Workers in the tourism industry may enjoy their jobs or feel distain for their clients or even laugh at them.  The bottom line is money.  They may be charming and polite but I listened to two waiters at a high end restaurant and one asked the other, “How much tip did you get?” 

            The opposite of hospitality is what I call aggressive tourism.  Though every other aspect of my trip to Guatemala was great, when I arrived at Lake Attilan after a harrowing mountain trip from Antigua, about ten men surrounded us as we got out of the van.  We were cornered and not allowed to leave until we agreed to a boat ride.  Of course, tourism is the livelihood of these men, but it was so unexpected and therefore, unpleasant.  In some destinations I’d expect a degree of aggression. When I lived in the Gracia neighborhood of Barcelona, I hated the tourists that took up all the seats on the bus when I was tired after a long day teaching.  There are endless stories about complaints of tourists but since it’s the main income source for many cities it’s difficult to find a balance between catering to the tourists and providing a normal life for residents.

An artist studio turned into an airbnb- Tony Sisti

        While I've been waiting for my Buffalo apartment to be ready, I booked an airbnb with my partner, Juan Luis Quintana who is an artist.  It turned out to be an interesting coincidence.

    As soon as I saw the building at the address it looked familiar.  There was a reason for that.  Years ago it was the artist studio of Tony Sisti, a prominent Buffalo artist.  I must have walked by it hundreds of times while there were still sculptures decorating the front.

    Sisti led a fascinating life.  Born in New York city, he moved to Buffalo when he was 10.  His first profession was as a successful boxer.  He moved on to a career as an artist, studying fine arts in Florence.  In one of the more colorful episodes of his life, he accompanied Ernest Hemingway to the Congo.

    He opened his Buffalo studio in 1938 in the building that is now an airbnb.  I find myself looking for any traces of his illustrious life while enjoying one of the most eclectic book collections I've seen in years. 

 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Sisti

 https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=tony+sisti+paintings&qpvt=Tony+Sisti+paintings&form=IGRE&first=1&tsc=ImageHoverTitle

 

What's next? The past, my Latvian past, and Ukraine today

 

 In my mind’s eye as sleep is descending, I see a field of sunflowers against a blue sky.  This image is far easier for me to handle than the daily horrors of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Every day brings new heartbreak.

This same week I discovered truly depressing information about my father’s life.  I never knew much about his life before he fled Latvia as a refugee in the US.  There’s a Facebook site called Latvian Genealogy which I contacted about him, not expecting any information. Much to my surprise, Laura Zvirbule, (one ot the monitors of the site) responded with the UN refugee document from my father.  Now I had the names of my grandparents: Antons Peipins and Magdaliene Bolins!  It was a missing piece of the puzzle of his life.  My father was from a small rural town, Izvaltas, with less than 300 inhabitants that even today is underpopulated.

            Like the Ukranians, Latvians suffered the horrors of Russian occupation during the Second World War.  My mother’s home in Livani, Latvia, was bombed after she, two brothers, her mother and sister fled.  She thought they’d be able to return in a week.  Of course, that never happened.

            The story of my father took a different turn.  Instead of the Russians, he was forcibly taken from his farm by the Nazis and conscripted into forced labor in Germany. His situation got worse.  He was sent to Poland to work on farms and then to work in the forests cutting trees.  In the documents provided by the German government (to detail Nazi atrocities) he’s shown to work until he is so ill he’s unable to continue.  Throughout those years of physical torture, he is never given documents until he is finally able to connect with the displaced persons camps and registered, the first step on his journey to America.

            Despite the deep sadness of his story, I have to marvel at the life he created.  His lungs were filled with asbestos from his work at Dunlop Tire and Rubber.  His health was compromised but he worked hard and accomplished his dream of owning a farm with fields of grain and farm animals.  Perhaps they helped compensate for the great losses of his life.  When I found this information, I felt sad that I had not carried on this lineage but somewhere there is a Peipins from his first marriage when his young wife died in childbirth.

            What will happen to the Ukranians forced to flee?  Will they lose their loved ones and be unable to return home like the Latvians after the war?  Will another generation struggle to make sense of a meaningless war?

           

On the Anniversary of my Return to Buffalo

 

The Return

Delaware Park, Buffalo

 

 

               With each step around Delaware Lake, I feel their presence.  The ground squishy with moisture, as I walk, the first face appears.   Like when I was a child back from a day out, my uncle asks me what I have seen on my adventures.  “A rabbit?  A fox?’  And as if such things were even possible in the city, I vigorously shake my head.   Crossing a grove of trees I relive all the trips to the hospital for chemo, my mother clutching the plastic container she vomits into.  Five years of her pain see me through high school and give me the possibility of escape. 

            Yet I can recover great pleasure too.  I find my first love, Daniel, looking like Jesus in a Rafael painting.  We lay on a rooftop in August or under a blanket on the winter floor for hours on end pulsing to the universe.  His scent acrid like a farmhand’s sweat fills my brain.

Each moist step forgives and brings back the past.  Dunlop Tire and Rubber filled my father’s lungs with asbestos, leaving him on mood altering steroids and an asthma inhaler.  The delicacy of his peeling my fruit and mending my clothes contrasted sharply with the bouts of rage that erupted from nowhere and found me shaking in silence. 

            This city provided a framework to my existence, the years when I was so shy as to be unable to speak.  The heritage of an immigrant past meant never to stand out, as such pride could lead to a trip to Siberia or even worse.  On my return I find the remains of that person who had no way to construct the boundaries needed just to survive.  I could flow into the rivulets that empty into the lake, a motionless expanse of water. 

            This place resides in my blood, inhabiting a white winter landscape and the endless sunlight of summer.  This verge of spring fills each cell with longing and memory. 

            Across the street, I gravitate to the anonymity of the local university library, doubting I can still pass for a student.  The clock chimes the quarter hours as definitively as the local cathedral in the Spanish town I inhabited for so many years.  Another fifteen minutes and my mind is still racing, facing the blank page in front of me.    From the window, the grey sky is the color of a Paris winter where buildings and air meld together. 

            The old me, who I thought I’d squelched so long ago resurfaces.  In my dream I am lying in bed.  The doctor comes to visit but turns out to be my French dentist.  He examines me and tells me the problem is my heart.  I get out of bed to walk outside to find giant snowflakes swirling in the night sky. Can a return bring recovery?