On Language and Belonging, by Adebola Rayo

I cannot remember how old I was when my parents insisted that we speak Yoruba at home because we were learning and speaking English in school. It must have been before I turned 6, because my brother’s first sentences were a mash of Yoruba and English. For my parents, it was about giving us a heritage that would be ours in a way they probably did not think English could fully be. Now, English and Yoruba are the languages in which I think, speak, and move through the world easiest. Still, these languages, on their own, were never able to give me an easy pass into community in Nigeria. 

Having lived with neurodivergence, I know the ways my tongue can seize of its own volition, or that my mind can step out of my body while I am amongst people, and leave me unable to step into their worlds. Despite being a writer, I often struggle with words. The words to say how I really feel and to hold myself steady, moored in the worlds I have to be in. If you have experienced neurodivergence or even been the different one in any setting, maybe you know what I am talking about. How it can sometimes feel like you are an unwilling captive in your own mind at the times when you most want or need to speak.

But there are other ways to not have words. When I left my home in Lagos for Madrid in 2019, I tried not to think too much about the ways my life would change. I assumed I knew what the hardest part would be — that I would be the minority. And yes, since I have been in Spain, I have often been the lone black person in spaces. However, that has not been the hardest thing. I arrived eager to learn Spanish, eat Spanish, and live Spanish. The first few months, I tottered unsteadily, overwhelmed by settling into my master’s program and the city. Then, Covid-19 lockdowns hit, and I was suddenly home alone all the time, taking classes online but also stripping my life down to the essentials because the anxiety of living in a pandemic took up too much space in my mind. My Spanish language classes were one of the things that got stripped away — online lessons are just not the same.

As the months passed, school ended and the city opened up, I began to think about how language is an anchor for belonging and the lack of it can throw one adrift on a sea of mental and geographic displacement. Without the ease and comfort of shared language — and I don’t just mean in the sense of understanding what a person is saying and being able to speak back to them — months passed where I felt like I existed on the fringe. Being unable to be part of community was not merely about lacking words. What I had too little of was the context, references — the deeper layers that make language a vehicle for connection, for community. Being isolated for months in a city where I knew only few people had certainly not helped to improve cultural contexts.

Post lockdown, even when I had the courage to stumble my way through conversations, I often lapsed into, ‘My Spanish is not enough.’ What I really meant was, ‘I have the words, but I do not have the right contexts and references to mould them into a bridge to make a connection with you.’ 

In the past months, I have been in therapy, attempting to reframe how I see and engage the world. It is at an art residency in Mas Palou, Penedes, that I finally grasp just how much language transcends words. I was first drawn to the residency because it is hosted by a family and the call for applications was in English. I imagined that it would offer a chance to experience Spain in a different way and place while creating. I did not expect much beyond that.

In Penedes, my days are spent around nine other artists and our hosts on a gorgeous 17th century property. In the mornings, I read and make notes about an essay I am working on. In the afternoons, I conduct interviews and write the essay. It is centred on identity and culture, and revolves around my father’s tribal marks. In the background, I can hear Marie working on a song, playing the same chords again and again. Through the days — especially during evenings spent in the midst of wine, food, and stories told partly in Spanish, partly in English, and partly with body language — I realise that what I had been seeking was deeper than being able to speak the same language. Our conversations revolve around the arts, work, life experiences — crisscrossing a spectrum geographically, racially and in other ways. Still, there is a sense in which our minds and ways of seeing the world are in sync, and that is what matters. There are other ways to create community besides words because it takes more than mere words to say, I see you. I know you. You know me. 

I have to accept that Spanish cannot give me community in Spain any more than Yoruba and English were able to do, of themselves, in Nigeria. And, perhaps, the biggest thing I take with me is that a way of mitigating the mental displacement of lacking language would be to anchor myself deeper and longer to communities, spaces, and people that speak my language, not just the words of the language in which we are communicating. Sure, not being proficient in the language of a place makes it harder to find those one might connect with. In addition, I have to move through the world and interact with others beyond those with whom I have shared contexts. But I can give myself more grace and not agonise over my inability to anchor myself fully into worlds that aren’t mine.

On the last evening at Mas Palou, I tell myself I will not cry, but when Marie plays the song that she has been working on all week, I close my eyes and let the tears fall. My Spanish may not be enough, some people’s English may not be enough, but art crosses that bridge. It is a language on its own and, for now, here, it is enough.