She Called It "Traveling Grace"
No one took your voice away. It has become a series of grunts, universal noises expressing recognition or glee, chained vowels sung out too loudly cause you do not speak the language here and volume is a reflex. You do talk a little, mostly like a baby, pointing and using the most rudimentary words, strangers nodding or staring into your face like it’s an eye chart, waiting to understand what you mean. Strangers treat you like a baby. I don’t mean to say they patronize you, no. I mean they treat you like they would a baby: Sort of delicate and gentle. Being mute and illiterate must make you more charming, just as it makes the world more charming, since no one speaks of things like schedules or repairs when you, an observer here, write the script that takes the place of language. You don’t speak the language, you just hear sounds and surely each conversation is about love, or art. You toddle through this world, greedy like that, wanting, and strangely enough it is given to you, what you need when you need it.
You brutally mispronounce the name of your desired destination, affirming that this is the right bus. He nods. You open a handful of money before him and he graciously picks out the fare, nothing more. You ride, traveling with a stupid smile that belies the primary nature of this route, locals heading to work. Any of these stops could be the one you’re headed to; you’re even nervous for awhile, wondering if you missed it. But you couldn’t miss it, cause when the bus stops at the stop whose name you butchered getting on, someone helps you. A woman takes your shoulder, your arm, turns/guides you and says the place-name the way it should be said, so correctly that you can’t even recognize it. You get off at the right stop, and now a man points, he doesn’t even bother to talk cause he knows that won’t mean what it should to you, you lazy american but that’s not what his point means at all, and that’s not what it feels like either. It feels like help. It feels like kindness. You didn’t leave it on the bus, or home with all those useful words you’re so comfortable with, no. You didn’t leave it. In fact, you found it.
You brutally mispronounce the name of your desired destination, affirming that this is the right bus. He nods. You open a handful of money before him and he graciously picks out the fare, nothing more. You ride, traveling with a stupid smile that belies the primary nature of this route, locals heading to work. Any of these stops could be the one you’re headed to; you’re even nervous for awhile, wondering if you missed it. But you couldn’t miss it, cause when the bus stops at the stop whose name you butchered getting on, someone helps you. A woman takes your shoulder, your arm, turns/guides you and says the place-name the way it should be said, so correctly that you can’t even recognize it. You get off at the right stop, and now a man points, he doesn’t even bother to talk cause he knows that won’t mean what it should to you, you lazy american but that’s not what his point means at all, and that’s not what it feels like either. It feels like help. It feels like kindness. You didn’t leave it on the bus, or home with all those useful words you’re so comfortable with, no. You didn’t leave it. In fact, you found it.