In season one episode six of the cult-classic show Twin Peaks, one of the main characters, Agent Dale Cooper, orders a cup of coffee. His partner, Sheriff Harry Truman, tries to rush him along to continue solving the crimes rocking the small town. Cooper turns to his partner at the diner counter and says, “Everyday, once a day, give yourself a present. Don’t plan it, don’t wait for it, just let it happen.” They share this moment of peace together amongst all the chaos in their Pacific Northwestern paradise.
I watched this scene for the first time 32,000 feet above southern Greenland, an expanse of endless white interrupted by veins of grey mountains. I was on my way back from a week spent in Paris with one of my best friends, and Cooper’s ethos rang through my head, familiar after a week of. Perhaps it’s my astrological predisposition for indulgence (Taurus moon), or my coming-of-age during the “treat yourself!” cultural moment, but it is something I practice frequently, especially when traveling.
If I died tomorrow, wouldn’t I be more satisfied with the life I lived if my last meal was mussels and champagne? It’s more than just indulgence. It’s risk taking, making the most of what’s in front of you. Two years ago, I visited Puerto Rico with some college friends, and this meant leaping from cliffs deep in el Yunque and peeling mangoes with our teeth. In Paris, I did less cliff jumping but found a way to take advantage of my circumstances anyways, finding room for one more museum, one more card game, one more pain suisse, one more look at the Seine. My host, Bobby, calls this “sucking the marrow out of life.” Safe to say I cracked every bone I could find.
But this is not the main point of this entry. I actually want to write about language. This was my first time visiting a place outside of the mainland United States where I was not accompanied by a native speaker. However, this was also the first place where, in theory, that would not be necessary. I chose to take French on my first day of high school orientation solely for this reason. I had whimsical dreams of Paris and hoped to one day go there to find something important. I don’t know what this something was supposed to be, but I did find a lot of good food and third spaces during my search.
I also chose French because the idea of sitting in a Spanish class filled me with a dread so heavy I’m surprised I can even write this entry. Contrary to popular belief, I cannot speak Spanish.1 It is often assumed about me, a given based on my last name and the way I talk. I subvert expectations, usually to the awkward surprise of others. Their eyes often avert mine, and I shrug my shoulders. I can admit that some are kind to my admission. I had a professor tell me once that because time is a made-up human construct, it could never be too late to learn my heritage language. I did not believe him.
For a good portion of my childhood, I assumed I could will my Spanish-speaking into existence. I imagined the skill of knowing another language like a superpower that one day would blossom, spontaneous and radiant. I dreamed that at some predetermined date, I would wake up from sleep and Spanish would pour out of me, like coma patients who awake speaking foreign languages. If I listened hard enough to my father’s chismeando with my grandmother, then it would one day morph into understanding and I would be able to mimic their low island tones.
I never received my powers. Truthfully, I wasn’t doing much to receive them anyway. I tried forcing myself into speaking situations with the hopes that it would trigger a hidden ability, but that typically went nowhere. With embarrassment prickling my skin, I would usually apologize in English and give up. Instead of seizing a moment to begin learning, I took French for 6 years. At my big age of 23, I am in a strange limbo with my people’s language, a textbook No Sabo.2 I’m trying, godammit. I can understand better than I used to, can even read it somehow. Yet no matter how much I try to speak, however, the words clog my throat, my brain lags, and I cannot produce sound.
At first consideration, I wondered if knowing another romance language helped me get ahead with Spanish. My strongest reason is my infatuation with Bad Bunny. I only started listening to him relatively recently. In my senior year of college, I joined a Latin dance group at my university. We opened our show with “MONACO,” the second song off of nadie sabe lo que va a pasar mañana. Benito was a part of every warm-up before practice, his voice greeting me when I ducked out of the January darkness into the graces of my choreographers. He was at every party where my peers and I forgot, for just a moment, that we attended a PWI, finding togetherness in sweaty basements and suburban backyards.
Many people have told me the best place to listen to Un Verano Sin Ti, the album that really cemented my feelings about him, is en la playa. I fell in love with the album in the brutal midwest spring, similarly to the way I listened to his most recent album, DTMF, under the white blanket of an upstate winter. I wish I had listened to Benito when I visited Puerto Rico. I have family there who sing praises of the island during Christmas time as a special place, and that was how I experienced it. In this gorgeous place, people looked like me and spoke loud with familiar consonants or lack-thereof. Reggaeton poured out of car windows, and palms whispered with dry fronds along the sidewalk. Coquís sang all night long, even in the city. I am hesitant to overly romanticize the island because of its Hawaii-fication, but it is hard to ignore that this place was once called by poets la perla de los mares.
But from the moment we flew in over the ensenada, anxiety mounted. My dismal Spanish would be coming to the fore. There would be nowhere to hide. Even with my friends who spoke Spanish fluently to cover my ass, I was nervous. I got so scared that I humored pretending to be a different kind of ethnicity all together, if anyone asked. I wasn’t scared of the language barrier itself, but the awkward situations it would put me in. These interactions, in my eyes, would be opportunities for disappointment.
My fears ended up being unwarranted. Because of the tourism industry and the neocolonial relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico, English is everywhere, especially in touristy places like Viejo San Juan. My amorphous Spanish-speaking skills caused very few issues. The only time it became a problem is when I ordered pork ribs instead of pernil in the campo. We had spent the morning hiking in the rainforest, and I would have eaten anything put in front of me.
Even with the heavy presence of English, the moments I worried about proved to actually be opportunities for connection rather than letdown. Once I got comfortable on the island, I ran with what Spanish skill I had, however limited. I entered shops shouting buena in greeting. Most people continued speaking Spanish to me after I responded in English, and we tested the limits of each others’ comprehension. A waiter in a restaurant commented on how good my accent was, that he was waiting for me to switch our conversation to Spanish. When I explained, bashful, that I could understand him, but I couldn’t get the words to come out, he nodded. He said he felt the same about English. We found a way to communicate anyway.
Through all of this, I felt the luck of my unique and informal teachings. I thanked my tias who entertained me as a child by listening to me read off menu items just to taste the names of our cuisine; my father who let me babble in Spanish in an attempt to try to find where words fit; my sister who twisted Spanish slang into a secret sister language. I would thank Benito, too, if I could.
When I bought a parcha piragua outside of Poncé de Leon’s house in Viejo San Juan, I did not use English. It was a very simple interaction, tucked under an umbrella on a ballast-cobbled street, but I still swelled. I was beating the No Sabo allegations. My friends hyped me up, a moment they knew I had been waiting for what felt like my entire life. Maybe my professor was right, and I was really starting my learning then, caught in the drizzling fits of tropical rain.
Fast forward to June 2025. I am in Paris, France. I am, once again, staring at the edges of my comfort zone when it comes to language, my stomach churning. I hope that magically, in spite of my two years out of practice, my body would recognize the French spoken at Charles de Gaulle, and I would arise like a French sleeper agent.
That did not happen. Wrapped in a jetlagged fog, I could barely understand English. In the haze of my first few days, Bobby handled all interactions for me. Bobby, is great at French. He will say otherwise, ever humble even though I watched him for an entire year translate Moroccan novels with meticulous care. I skated by with merci when appropriate, but left everything else to him, comfortable. It was nice to have somebody order for me, guiding me along while I floated to a favorite Lebanese restaurant or a park bench to play cards. It was even nicer to not risk embarrassment as my French had yet to manifest.
A strange sense of déjà vu settled over me as I got used to hearing Parisian French in place of English and New World Spanish. I felt it the strongest in la Grande Épicerie at the checkout. After wandering up and down clean aisles of caviar, yogurt, and fruit spreads, I thought I would have something to say come the end of my time there. When the cashier started to ask about packing things together, I balked. Bobby swooped in to save me at the checkout because my body thought that buying butter was equivalent to being stalked by a sabertooth tiger.
I must admit that this shouldn’t be as big of a deal as it is. These examples are all pretty trivial. The acquaintances I made in France that I hope to keep spoke English, coming from all over the globe. Both in Puerto Rico and in France, the language barrier is not a deterrent for visitors. It is not damning to not know the language of the country you’re visiting as long as you’re a respectful visitor otherwise.
But this is not about the language barrier itself. It’s about the fact that the use of these languages, however small, means something. It is the physical result of my language education, one I can use to connect to others. I don’t want them to be a party trick. I want to use them to know more: more people, more jokes, more stories, more cultures. In the case of the language that was forced on my ancestors, I want to know myself better.
That feeling in la Grande Epicérie, of the words sticking to the roof of my mouth in thick gobs, reminded me of my rudimentary Spanish. Except this time I had wasted 6 years in preparation, full of late nights fighting for my life trying to remember irregular verb endings. That night at drinks with Bobby and his friends, I complained about how I needed to thaw as a French speaker. Once, I could think in French without hesitation. I often journaled in French as an exercise to know my life in a different way. Where was that version of Elizabeth now, when I needed her most? Was her commitment to learning for nothing?
Halfway through my visit, Bobby left me alone for a trip to the countryside. For the day, I was on my own, floating around Paris untethered. On the train heading to the Quai Branly for my solo day, I perused WordReference for vocabulary words I had lost over time. Billet. Couteau. Gauche. Of course, I could always use English. The earth would not implode if I did. But I wanted to at least try. I didn’t want to be the American tourist who expected accommodations. I was a guest, and I should behave like one.
At first, I defaulted to English when I panicked. When a woman asked if I was a part of a tour group in a museum, I thought she was asking to see my ticket. That’s on my own horrendous auditory comprehension, so we switched to English. She was very kind about it. I realized then, in my huffing embarrassment as I stalked up aisles of anthropological artifacts, that I was not defusing a bomb.
Listening to native speakers really helped me get my bearings and lose the pressure. Bobby took me to an auction house to watch the live sale of historic jewelry, an unexpected excursion on my itinerary full of museums and galleries. In the back of the room lined with glittering glass cases, Bobby told me to keep my hands in my lap lest the auctioneer interpreted my fidgeting as a bid. We watched Chanel and Cartier parade around the room in white gloved hands. Some pieces sparked bidding wars in the thousands. The auctioneer hypnotized me with his fast speaking, bouncing his attention around the room. I paid close attention to really follow, and I felt my comprehension trickling back. By the end of the auction, I turned to Bobby, wondering half-serious if I should bid on a ring for my grandmother as a souvenir.
My time in the auction house and the flub in the museum emboldened me. I started to use my French freely, even if some interactions were clunkier than others. I became the master of the boulangerie counter, so much so that one morning Bobby and I scored a free pain au chocolat. By the time I made it to the Orsay at the end of the trip, I was making jokes with the visitor service staff. Comfort in Paris came at its own pace, and once I had it, I relished it.
I started missing France while I was still there. I wondered about my French ability when I returned stateside. My last interaction in practically flawless French in a Lebanese ice cream shop left my heart hurting. Would it stay with me when I went back to the United States? Not without effort. I have recently started keeping a vocabulary journal for my Spanish, a small composition notebook that fits in my tote bag. I’m sure that the Duolingo owl couldn’t hurt either. It would help me at least be regular. But it won’t fill the same cup in my being of speaking with other people. The solution there remains to be seen. Maybe I need a penpal.
Since coming back, I have decided to take Agent Cooper’s advice when it comes to learning new languages. I have tried both planning and waiting. Neither brought as much joy as letting language grow on me, organic and messy. I think that’s where the magic lies. Until I travel again, to some far off place, I can only dream about the next day it’ll happen.
Thank you, always, for stopping by,
EAV
R.R.C (RECIPE RECOMMENDATION CELEBRATION)
In Paris, I ate a lot of incredible food and produce. One of my favorite stops was Rue Cler, a street cluttered with bakeries, butchers, cheesemongers, and fruit stands. Bobby and I collected the makings of a stellar picnic there, including juicy cherries, thick brie, and very tiny rum-soaked canelles. The perfume of fruit rose up from the tables lining the street, just as strong as the cigarette smoke drifting out from under the restaurant awnings. In a fromagerie, Bobby and I sampled a sheep’s milk cheese straight off of a cheesemonger’s knife that made me swoon. It made me feel like Julia Child, so much so that it reminded me that I needed to take a necessary pilgrimage.
After a hefty lunch of steak tartare at Rue Cler a couple days later, I visited Julia Child’s house at 81 Rue de l’Université, or “Rue de Loo” in Julia’s words. In 1948, she moved there with her husband, Paul Child, for his job in the U.S. State Department. This move launched her on to her pathway to being the gastronomic icon we know today. For a long time, I used them as my lockscreen and homescreen to remind me yes, love is out there. To know more about her story, I highly recommend the film Julie and Julia, or Julia’s posthumous memoir, My Life in France. The picture below comes from her book, showing her leaning out over her courtyard.
As someone who grew up watching her and a laundry list of other regional cuisine specialist chefs on PBS, the walk up to her block felt charged in the best way. I spent it imagining her coming up the street with a bag of groceries or a new piece of kitchen equipment under her arm. I pictured her rounding a corner in her skirts and pearls, lost in thought about a pastry she had savored days before.
I am not the first person to use Julia as a road map to explore Paris. Many writers talk about her perseverance and lack of fear in not only moving to a foreign place, but a foreign career as well. Journalist Layla Khoury-Hanold talks about needing a “soupçon of Julia’s fearlessness” to pursue a cooking class in Julia’s honor. Personally, the thing I love about Julia the most is not her fearlessness or her perserverance, but her playfulness, especially in the face of mistakes. Once, while making a cake, she forgot about her browning butter, and ended up burning her star ingredient. She smiled, and carried on, giving her audience the permission to make mistakes just like her.
When I arrived at Julia’s house, I stood for a good ten minutes on the other side of the street, staring. The blue door leading into the courtyard was cracked open for renovations, giving a peak into the place she once called home when she decided to pursue French cooking. Although beautiful with its Juliet balconies, it was a typical French building. No historic plaques in sight, no signs shooing fans away from the stoop. I continued trying to fit her image into the doorway, wondering if there were pictures somewhere taken by Paul of her slipping through the blue frame. I heard some fans of the chef leave sticks of butter on the stoop in her honor, but in the sticky heat, that sounded like a bad idea. I felt empty handed. I selfishly did not want to share the wild garlic butter I bought at la Grande Épicerie with her.
Seeing Julia’s house made her tangible, bringing her down to Earth. The experiences I had in France that rivaled hers, like an incredible day spent grocery shopping, made her even more real. I wonder then if her story could happen to anyone. Remember me when you’re the next hit PBS chef?
I also do not speak Greek for that matter. My grandfather really pushed Greek radio on us, hoping that the louder it was, the more likely we would be to receive it. But it didn’t do much for me.
To those who don’t know what a No Sabo is, it is a young Latine person who does not speak their respective colonial language. No Sabo is an improper conjugation of the verb saber, to know.
Respectfully, not ordering pernil should get you the death penalty.