There is not a day that passes when I don’t miss New York, where I lived for 12 years.
Or Paris, where I lived for eight.
Sometimes, Bath, during the annual Boules tournament in which the team I gathered always came last (I blame the Champagne breakfast at 8am).
Often Wales, too, my hometown and, for all its faults, somewhere that will always have a place in my heart.
And, of course, London, which gave me my career, so many friends and the best fun.
How did I get here? Bulgaria, at the age of 67, unable to speak the language, only one friend, and dreaming of being able to buy gravy browning and custard powder in Tesco.
I feel I don’t belong anywhere now.
The familiar has gone: the items on the shop shelves and the working life I once had that has diminished not only financially but in what it gave me. I can no longer afford my Bafta (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) or RTS (Royal Television Society) memberships, two things that gave credence to my identity as a TV critic of over 35 years’ standing. It might seem like nothing to many people, but they were still my connection to a world I was once a big part of.
Edinburgh TV Festival, Montreux Comedy Festival, awards ceremonies, screenings – all gone.
My strangely shrinking life.
But here’s the biggie: language. In a country where I can understand only a handful of words (and I have really, really tried), I am linguistically disabled. I go for days without speaking to a soul. There are e-mails and messages, but very few people talk anymore. I might as well be a deaf mute for all the live communication I get to enjoy.
This is not a pity cry – it really is not! And I am not unhappy. I still find great joy in many things, but at a basic level, I have a shrinking life.
It’s true for all of us as we age. Injuries we sustain limit us physically, friends move on with new partners, grandchildren are born, we go to more funerals … the diminished emotional economy of life comes to us all in various forms.
It’s not the aloneness that gets me, though. I can be by myself anywhere as that’s just the way my life has always been; it’s the silence. I’m currently sitting in a room where the only noises I can hear are car horns, the elevator on the other side of my kitchen wall and the rustle of the silver foil ribbons I’ve put on my balcony to try to keep the defecating pigeons at bay. There are days when I welcome their company.
It’s the language interaction I miss. Language is my partner in crime, the thing that is always there for me when all else fails, my one great love. Without that tool of communication, I shrink into the shadows. My voice dies.
Three weeks ago, I was in Paris, the city I love more than any other, and I spoke to many people sitting at neighbouring tables in various bars and restaurants – sometimes in French (which is quite good – a darn sight better than my Bulgarian), mostly in English. Without exception, we exchanged numbers and have been in touch since. Waiters know me by name.
Language is my armour; it makes me fearless. Although I have spent long periods of time in both France and Spain, I have never felt the verbal isolation I feel in Bulgaria. Spanish and French, along with Italian and Portuguese, are Latin based Romance languages and relatively easy to pick up when you learn certain roots that are common to all (word endings such as ence, encia and encio, for example). The Cyrillic alphabet of Bulgaria is like trying to ride a Great Dane when you’ve been used to trotting on a toy poodle.
I’ve given up.
And it’s why I’ll be giving up on Bulgaria.
Much as I love the country, the people (what I can understand of them), the food and the wine, I will always be a linguistic outcast.
There are many people who speak very good English here and most understand my humour and been find me hilarious (yes, I know. I am). But it’s still a slow road. ‘Speak more slowly,’ said my landlord, who happens to be a very nice man. ‘You have to talk to me like a five-year-old.’
The bureaucracy is worse than in any foreign country I have ever been – and I’ve done Spain, France and the USA. Endless papers, endless extra costs, contradictory advice at every turn … so, while having miraculously made it to the Everest of my six months visa, I won’t be pursuing residency. I can’t even find and am not able to afford the translator they recommend accompany you.
Next stop? No idea. Not the UK. But I have options, not least with my USA passport and dual Citizenship.
So, it’s another door slamming on my ever-shrinking life that gets smaller by the day.
Body, friends, family, finances, work.
It’s only a matter of time now, I suppose.
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
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