La Langue de L'amour

Ah, it's Valentine's Day. ......a day when love is in the air.  "Love" wasn't exactly in the air this morning when I was driving to an appointment but the "language of love" was playing on the air, courtesy of the Quebec music station broadcasting via my Sirius Satellite radio.  I was enjoying picking out the stray French phrases that I knew and listening to the lovely pronunciation of the words and that got me homesick for the days when the Commander and I were speaking French daily, when we lived in Morocco.

"I REALLY need to brush up on my language skills," I thought.

Ah, but THERE'S the rub.  What language should I brush up on?  Should it be French?  I love the sound of French, love to speak it aloud.  It makes me feel all sophisticated and sultry.  It makes me want to sling a scarf around my neck, light up a cigarette and find a little bistro with a small stage to sing on.

The Commander, when he's feeling romantic, usually speaks to me in French.

"Je t'aime," he'll whisper.

I usually counter with the language of my ancestors.  "Ich liebe dich!", I'll say.

Just not the same, is it?  No matter how I try to squelch it, I usually get the feeling that the other person ought to pop up, stand at attention, click their heels, and salute.  German is a language of action.  It demands a response and a snappy one, at that.  French, on the other hand,.....well, they don't call it the language of love for nothin'.

Should I concentrate on brushing up on my German?  It IS a strong part of my heritage, after all.  I'd hate for it to die off with my generation in our family.  I really would like to pass it on to my grandchildren, at least a few phrases and sayings.  There's also a good chance that I'll get to use it again if we get over to Germany and Switzerland to do more genealogical research or just to travel over there.  I love Germany, enjoyed living there while in the Army, and would really like to get back there.

There's a third option though.  I COULD resurrect my very rusty Spanish.  We plan to move to Texas so I know there would be plenty of opportunities to speak it.  It would be a much more practical language to work on then either German or French.

I know, I know....you might be wondering, why limit yourself to just one other language?  Ah, it seems the way my brain is wired that I can only concentrate on one other language at a time.  When I was fluent in German and then started studying French, I lost almost all of my ability to converse in German.  When I stopped back in Germany and started trying to speak in German, my French started bailing on me.  Spanish jumped ship long ago.  I don't know why this is but it seems I don't have a multi-circuited brain.  I'm pretty linear.

For tonight, though, I'm not going to worry about any of this.  I'm going to express my love non-verbally as I cook up one of the Commander's favorite meals and as we raise our glasses to toast 32 years of marriage, I'm going to give him the "look of love", which doesn't need translation in any language.