by Yeseina Tarango 

Blocking out the words you can not understand is easier than you realize. The sounds of your father and mother speaking across the dinner table fill your ears as you eat beside your siblings. You’re zoned out into a space of oblivion because you have no concern for what the world around you says. A quality you developed after years of lacking the ability to absorb and comprehend the words around. The sounds of chewing fill the air and words that have been said around you since you were born are registered by your brain, except you don’t understand. You flatter yourself or perhaps in an attempt to save an ounce of dignity, say that you “lack the ability” when in reality, your incapability was a decision made by you. 

It’s the same chitter chatter your parents have spoken within your presence for the past fourteen years, a language foreign to you because inwardly you declared that the one way of speaking, which was known to you, stood sufficient. The first language that had entered your ears and soon formed the basis of your thoughts was indeed enough. Suddenly, the sound of someone addressing you pulls you out of your distant state of mind; it’s your parents’ continuous encouragement reaching your ears over the clinging of forks against dishes, their attempt at communication. You look up to see that it’s your dad asking something, but he seems to recognize the look of confusion on your face. He repeats what he said slower this time. Instantly, the phrase is familiar from the repeated times you’ve heard it directed towards you. But, rather than acknowledging his encouragement with some attempt in the foreign words, you reply in the tongue you have long since mastered. “It was good,” forcing him to continue the conversation with the language you understand, something easy for him because both he and your mother have long since grasped both. But soon enough, you slip back into your silence while they communicate. However, this time it’s your silence that carries through the room because though you can’t understand them, they understand anything you utter perfectly, they always have, always will. And that’s the problem. While they absorb the complexities and emotions of both worlds, they know their children will forever be held to the chains of one.

Weirdly, this isn’t a problem for you, not yet at least. As long as those nearest to you are able to understand and communicate with you, you’re fine. Though you feel shame as extended family shake their heads when you make a face conveying how you don’t understand, you lack the desire to learn. What’s interesting is that the sound of certain words has become so familiar, yet doesn’t hold the power to affect you at all. Words, something that hold significance to a person who can apprehend: can’t make you happy, can’t cause anger, can’t even inflict pain, simply because you don’t understand.

At least that’s what you think, until suddenly you’re itching in your seat at the dinner table because you’re surrounded by kids your age: kids who only speak your parents’ foreign language. Suddenly the clitter clatter of spoons against dishes remains the only sound around the room. You’re thinking back to when you begged your mother to attend the international trip your school was having. A trip that involved meeting students from another country who would be excited to meet you. The clitter clatter grows louder as you wonder how you could have overlooked such an immense part. Looking over to your only friend seated next to you, also unable to understand in the group full of strangers, you realize you have no excuse for your inability to converse. You watch as the girl in front of you says something to her friend and you strain to capture a sense of what is being said. What was once so easy, something done absentmindedly, slipping into oblivion, is now impossible with the repeated clang of dishes. It’s the same rhythmic beat of spoon against bowl, mouth against spoon, and spoon clinging back against bowl. The silence is unbearable when there’s nothing that can be said. Nothing that can make the girls in front of you drop their utensils with the sound of a ding because they’re responding to the question you just asked. 

What was once the sound of clinging dishes allowing you to escape, was interestingly now the same sound making you sit there in its lonesome presence.

Note: PUC’s English Department held its annual high school essay contest called Emerging Voices of the Pacific Union for students attending an SDA or junior academy in California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Hawaii to submit their personal stories for a PUC scholarship and cash prize. The writing prompt had students focus on a meaningful memory associated with one of the five senses. Yeseina Tarango, a senior from San Gabriel Academy, was this year’s third-place winner.