Speaking Italian and Be'ing Love

While studying Italian, my eyes are caught by the painting on my wall: Two hands are trying to touch each other. One, the upper one, is almost without any energy, just and only able to hold up his left hand. The other one on the contrary, touching from bottom with his right hand looks much stronger. It is easy to feel His energy. For at least the last twenty years, I have been watching this small square on my wall where ever I lived. Yet I saw the original painting only last year when I was in Rome. I had tears for hours while watching it. It was one of the very rare moments in my life that I felt myself as if I was nothing. This painting gave me strenght whenever I had difficulties and it was in front of me: God, my dear God, he was just in front of me in Michalengelo’s famous painting called The Creation of Adam.

Aristo was right while saying high thoughts must have high language. The language of The Creation of Adam was a proof of Aristo’s quote. Nothing could have explained a creation in a deeper sense than this unique painting of Michelangelo.

How could I now, being only a poor human, try to write what I mean when I say speaking a language and be'ing love after Michelangelo and Aristo? Poor me!

I remember my grandmother speaking to me in her Azerbaijan dialect. It was so funny; I would, although being only 7-8 years old, play with her and behave as if I didn’t understand her. I remember her annoyance; this gave me a kind of childish pleasure and I won feeling behind the walls of language. Without knowingly, I followed Emerson’s saying; thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it and I, from time to time, played the Little Girl after my grandmother’s call of ay, bala.

My other grandmother was a Russian. She was a soprano. After marrying to my grandfather, she moved to Turkey. During the years of her youth, Russia was a communist country and in Turkey, during those years being Russian meant to live a very careful life: She never spoke Russian, she never mentioned her homeland and friends, although being socialist, she never talked about her political view. I remember her cooking Russian food though. And one Russian word deep in my mind: babochka . This was me, the butterfly.

The word butterfly had different roots in different languages. In ancient Greek, psyche, which meant soul , in Latin papilio/onis was also related to a death or soul, in Spanish mariposa meant Virgin Mary rests, in Mandarin hu-tieh meant a young man in love and longivity. One of the great writers, Chuang Tse one said:

“I do not know whether I was a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I was a man.”

If I were to change the word butterfly to soul as it is in Latin, the above sentence would have been as below:

“I do not know whether I was a man dreaming I was a Soul, or whether I am now a Soul dreaming I was a man.”

How about that idiom we all know well; the Butterfly Effect? Using the same method as before, this sentence can easily be the Soul Effect! And yes, I truely believe that each Soul has a Butterfly Effect!

While writing these lines and from time to time I am watching the Creation of Adam on my wall. What if, Michaelangelo called this painting Helping to a Poor?

Well, here we are; a completele different perception: This is called the game of the language. Through this game, language creates our world. Samual Johnson while saying, language is the dress of thought, was totally right from this perspective.

When I started learning English, I was twelve. We had very intense English classes; almost 30 hours per week at school. I loved English, because I loved my teacher and it was a great way to communicate with the Americans living in Adana, the city where I was living in those years. English was always a mean of communication for me. During my teenage years, it was the main motivation which made me more curius about other cultures and prepared my mind to an international life. And yes, I had that life full of travels meeting different cultures that developed my profession to what I am today; an international mediator and a trainer of Intercultural Communication and Mediation.

German was different. I didn’t like it at all at the beginning. It was harsch after English, complicated in grammer and somehow not friendly enough to learn. My life in Vienna and my love to opera changed that negative perception completely into a positive one. As for today, I don’t remember any opera I had been at The Opera House during which I didn’t cry. German was the language of opera like Italian. Further more, I realized how creative German could be if I had courage to play with words and how deep it was if I could feel the language.

My unique experience with a simple German word called geniessen became the reason of an important awareness about languages: A translation could be only a translation and never could reach the meaning of that word carried in its mother tongue for centuries. When I am writing these lines, I am still not sure if there exists any word I know, either in Turkish or English which fully expresses the meaning of geniessen.

I met Italian only by coinciedence. I wasn’t forced to learn because of school, I wasn’t curious about Italian because of any reason I could name. I met someone called Stefano who became a freind later, at a Cafe in Istanbul. I met his friend Alberto who was looking for an office in Istanbul and became my neighbour later that year. I met my business partner Giacinto who was that time the boss of Alberto. My first trip to Rome was almost a last minute decision which at the end turned to be a real love; RomAmor! My first trip to Milan was for bringing my son to his British father who was living in Milan. I wrote my first poem about Sicily without being there, only by feeling the region and yes, after a short time I have written that poem, I met my Sicilian! At last but not least, Turkey started to have very intense business relations with Italy after I came back here and Turkish people witnessed Italians all over the country…

I was in a way forced to hear Italian. When I really got close to it, I realized that it was different than any other language I heard until that time. I could differ the dialects and if there was someone respectively speaking, Italian was very attractive. Many say, French is the language of love. I feel Italian this way; it is the language of love. When I decided to learn Italian, I started an Italian course. But it was like any other language course which was forcing the participants to memorize every word and sentence and I left it two weeks after I started. I couldn’t learn Italian by memorizing. This could have been to superficial.

Love was an experience itself and it wasn’t about to love or to be loved but to be the Love itself as Rumi said. So, if I wanted to learn Italian; the language of love, I had to be the love; Italian, myself!

This was how I started to make love with each Italian word I wanted to geniesse . I accepted the offer of the the most inviting word and started to flirt with him or with her. I played with that word as if I was a child and he/she was my favorite toy. While I was reading, I felt too shy and was afraid of hurting the delicasy and while writing, I became creative. I wrote short, simple poems and re-read these lines a hundred times to get used to its melody. From time to time, I gave a different flavor to a word; sometimes it turned to be salty, sometimes sweet, sometimes chilly, sometimes sour and I, full with curiosity, waited the word’s response to that flavor I added. I was tender to some words and harsch to others, I was missing some more and the others less. I loved to feel some words deeper than the rest and I wanted to repeat some words until the end of time. Each Italian opera or song I heard, had another meaning to me and by time the Italians with strong dialects seemed to me not respecting the delicasy of love.

When I started a new game with Italian, I didn’t know what I would experience. As for today, Italian touched my Soul like my mother tongue did. Italian taught me to celebrate the language; a gateway to the inner self and the deepness of a culture. Italian showed me how to become love by Be’ing Love, itself.

As for tomorrow, I shall live… Maybe another perception of another language and its Reality.

Deniz Kite, 14th December 2008 in Ankara by listening to Mozart