Something about Language

Some nights, always between the hours of 11:30pm and 2am, but for no more than five minutes at a time, a man walks along the street outside our condo, crying out in what sounds like extreme anguish. He's middle-aged, grizzled, wears either an old sweater or a long jacket, and staggers when he walks. His cries are spaced maybe ten, fifteen seconds apart and they sound like something's ripping through him. It's not pretty. If I was living four hundred years ago, I'd say he was possessed by the devil. What he is, of course, is mentally ill--probably psychotic or schizophrenic. We've always assumed he lives at the mental health facility not too far away, but somehow is free to walk out at night, and wander around the neighborhood.

You assume the cries are about suffering. His condition makes him feel attacked from within, out of control of his mind, lost, and nothing but screaming expresses how horrible it is. In that way it's a symbol, an outward sign of something inexpressible. Though maybe that's not it--maybe it's less emotional and more physical; maybe like an epileptic, he screams to let out the pressure building in his head, like the whistle on a tea kettle. And in that way, it's both painful and a sort of relief. Or maybe it's neither, or both.

Just the other night, we were up late and heard this man screaming in the distance, from where we were in the bedroom. Not soon after he started, Arlo, who had just woken up, hungry, started to scream too. For a while they made their noise at the same time, Arlo's cries a sort of desperate rhythm (aa-aa-aa-aa-AA!...gasp...aa-aa-aa-aa-AA!), the man's cries coming intermittently behind it, like a person being whipped. It didn't last long: in a few moments, Maggie was already up and shushing Arlo, getting him ready to eat. But while it lasted, it was a strange duet.

It got me thinking about language, and reminded me, again, how useful it is. How being able to communicate what's on your mind and in your heart, whether by talking to people or writing emails, letters, scattershot blog posts, (not to mention singing, dancing, etc.) is, at least on one level, like letting off steam. It not only relieves the pressure of certain feelings or ideas growing inside you, it clears away room for you to take in new feelings and ideas. Feeling like you have no control over what's churning inside you, that you're bound up, centerless, voiceless--that really sucks. One of my most embarrassing memories from growing up--something that I can still feel like fear in my stomach--was of not being understood, in a very literal sense. It must have been sophomore year of high school. I was in a high school gym, hanging out in the bleachers in between performances at a forensics meet, hovering at the edge of a conversation b/w two girls in my class who I liked but didn't really know. At some point, I thought I'd say something--and I remember feeling like I was taking a chance. I have no idea what it was I was trying to say--all I remember is one of the girls, Charlene Baker, saying "What was that?" after I'd spoken. And me saying it again. And somehow her not understanding me again. And me saying it a third time, but somehow again--maybe I was talking too fast because now I was nervous--her really not understanding me. She wasn't messing with me either--she sincerely didn't understand the words coming out of my mouth. Not thinking of course to say it another way, I said something like "nevermind" and then dissolved into a puddle. More than anything, I remember the disappointed, sympathetic look on this girl's face and the weird outer-space-sized distance I felt in those moments, where, there she was, listening, trying to understand this simple thing I was trying to say, and it was like I was speaking a different language.

This memory then got me thinking about my dad's dad--Grandpa Rader. He was an excellent farmer, a smart man with a good sense of humor, but also a guy who bottled things up, held grudges, got depressed, and felt unable to really speak from the heart. He could, when we came over for holidays, tell funny stories and he had the most excellent laugh--a sort of joyful wheezy hiccup that made his eyes squint. But often he'd fall into silence, adrift on his Barcalounger, and then he felt far away. Once, a few years before he died, he and my Grandma gave to Dad, for Christmas, a framed copy of a picture of their farm, Dad's home until he left for school--an aerial shot some enterprising photographer in the 1950s had taken from a little airplane and sold to them. A lot had happened there, some good and some not so good. Dad opened it."The farm!" he said, chin wobbling a little. "Home!" And then I remember him getting out of his chair and then Grandpa did the same, and as they hugged in the middle of the living room, Grandpa let out this little sob. Nothing else needed to be said.

Right now, language means nothing to Arlo. Words are gibberish. What comforts him is the sound of the bathroom fan, food, sleep, his bath, being rocked and swaddled. In time, of course, whether he likes it or not, we're going to read to him a lot, make up stories with him and for him. We hope he'll be able to talk things through with us when he needs to, to be as honest as he can; of course we do, it's what every parent wants. It would be fantastic if he never feels bottled up and unable to express what he feels. But he will. He'll feel confused alot. And when he does, all we can try to do, I suppose, is to remind him that he's the baby in the crib, not the man screaming in the streets alone.