Playing to different rhythms

Family is a complex thing. Perhaps things were made more complicated by the fact that I have a different "temperament" from the others, as I've tried to explain to my friend H. But it's not a very good explanation at all. More like, I'm somewhat out of sync, like an oblivious violinist playing to an errant rhythm while the oboe player and the cellist and others in the ensemble roll their eyes at me in exasperation.

It's kinda hard to explain the intricacy of it all, but I attribute it to differing personal outlook. I've frequently been at odds with my parents in our opinions of well, almost everything. And I'm not even trying to be a rebel; they would be more relieved if I were, because then a neat explanation would have been available to them.

One of our biggest barriers is language; not just language itself but also the way language has tinged our outlooks into different shades. I've long discarded the idea that language is merely a functional tool. It is political, and visceral. You may say you don't really care about language use (especially if you are bilingual) but you will when your main language is at the losing end and is being seen as socially inferior. Which is why my father is dismayed that while my siblings and I (whom they think is the most recalcitrant in this matter, and come to think of it, in almost any other matter) converse in our mother tongue, we don't read or write it.

I'm saying all these because I read an interview in the local newspaper of a prominent playwright who started out writing English plays and later learned to write plays in his mother tongue. At a performance of 1 of his MT plays, looking at his parents sitting in the audience, he realised that he's been writing them as valentines to his parents.

You could say that I felt a slight twinge of remorse, especially since my mother recently decided to go to a community club to learn basic conversational English. Her English lesson is by itself another story and I shall blog about it if I have the time, and mood.

Family has been a cause for concern lately, not just the parents but siblings also. Family is a complex thing, and here I am, just trying to figure out my thoughts, and their rhythm.