Speaking in Tongues

Outside my bedroom window this morning was the sound of tiny bells jingling, or a belt gone bad in the engine—I couldn’t tell which—but suddenly I remembered the bird that awakened me most mornings back in that old house on the hill. Back when my life was tightly put together, like the interlocking pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. There were three windows in that bedroom at the top of the stairs, and each morning I heard the call of a spirited bird, chirping the same message over and over. And there were days that I welcomed his message, and days that it pecked at the nerves below my skin. And while the message was the same—a whistled staccato—it was me who heard it differently, lying in bed each morning, the sun muscling its way past the blinds, past the black & white toile. Every morning that bird said the same thing to me, said the same thing to an indifferent world, and sometimes I understood him, and some days I did not.

Once there were many messages flashing on a muted black machine. We had climbed two flights of narrow stairs on a late August night. The messages came one after another, a caustic beep announcing the end of each one: how sorry they were to hear the news, how sorry they were about the killings. And he and I standing there, numb, forgetting even to turn on the lights. We listened and listened and listened. And then sat on the edge of the bed and waited for the dawn.

There is a message from Chris for several days on my phone. I am busy working, driving, cooking, reading, taking care of my son—and then I finally call her. When she answers, I hear the melancholy in her voice: this friend of 20 years. How we have laughed at the world, smug in our awareness, our belief that music can change certain things. And she is painting the living room of a lovely Craftsman, rolling milky gray over the walls while she cries. Is this all there is, Rachel? she says. Her voice catches. Just this? And I fumble around my tongue, knowing that she is both right and wrong, but then again I hold fast to my illusions, seeing them as the stepping stones along an uncertain path. I put one size-10 foot upon one and then the other, and most days this brings me joy. I imagine her rolling the paint over the walls, can smell the intensity of it, feel the flecks of paint on my arms. And I want to tell her that this, too, can bring joy, the simple act of moving that roller over a steady wall. But instead I tell her about the message I found in a fortune cookie long ago, which I keep in the back of my wallet: “When you row another person across the river, you get there yourself.” But Chris knows that I have grown tired of all this rowing, tired of the extra weight in my boat—and she scoffs at this with the gut laugh that I remember. Who are you kidding? she says—and we hang up.

When I call her back a week later, she doesn’t pick up. And I have left her three messages so far.

And on a cold night before leaving, the usual email with an unusual message. She says…what? That I have had opportunities that she has not—and knowing that, makes it hard for her sometimes. This is what she means, of course, but she types out something very different. Something that wounds, something that sneaks into all my unprotected places and stretches itself out. I close the laptop that night and turn out the light. Drown the message in darkness. This is the same woman who took me to a downtown hotel where they spoke in dizzying tongues, where they heard the message of God--while I heard only the echo of my own footsteps hurrying toward the door...

This morning, his email is there--a familiar name--and I am in no hurry. Two simple sentences, just twenty-four words, that say he wants to help in this terrible mess. And I can feel his goodness, his caring--and it makes me cry, makes me want to say thanks for those 24 words, but I do not know how. I type out the words and erase them with the backspace key because the message won't be bottled.

And I sit here tonight, on a winter evening. Beyond the window, there is only night time and raw branches. I check my cell phone, my email. They write in code, speak in tongues—this thing called language is so difficult sometimes... And I remember that man at his table on the street. He studied my open palm, traced one craggy finger along my storied creases, and said, You have an overwhelming desire to communicate… And I want to say many things on this cold January night; I want to send many messages. I want to say that I believe in words—even those I don’t want to hear, even those fleeting ones that I chase after in my own unruly mind. That I believe in love, even if I have lost it. In your forgiveness when you are ready. I believe in all manner of things—despite this cold night, despite the darkness and silence out there.…
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