A Short Confession

Dear Hotties,

This is a short dispatch. I have a couple of analyses of Hotness brewing in the depths of my drafts, but while those finish getting ready for public consumption, I have to make a confession.

It is, frankly, an embarrassing confession. I don’t know why I feel compelled to confess, to be honest. I’m fairly certain that most, if not all, of you know this infuriating little fact about me. I guess I’m just ashamed that twice this week I was confronted by my irrefutable, most crippling weakness, and I predictably liquified upon contact. I need to own up to my proclivities, publicly, lest they overcome me. Here it is: I have a terrible weakness for the Colombian accent.

Any Colombian will do. I’m not picky—the person before me can be a rolo, a paisa, or a costeño and I’m rendered speechless. I’m not sure what it is. My accent in Spanish—fresa*, chilanga—is a sharp, nasal sautillé typical of Mexico City natives of a certain upbringing (though fortunately, I’m not so fresa that I slip into a “potato in mouth” lethargic monotone characteristic of some of the upper classes). The Colombians, on the other hand, though there are notable regional differences, speak as if from their sternum. The Colombian Spanish has a breathy depth as if each word weighed on their entire being as they try to release it. Their lips, too, are guarded. To successfully hold their melody, Colombians speak with their lips pursed. Perhaps rather than guard, they savour their words.

Anyway, keep me in your thoughts. I’m spending another three hours tomorrow under the tutelage of a beautiful Colombian in a workshop about narrative and storytelling. As I left the first part of the workshop today, I felt spellbound. I’m nearly certain that it was more a result of the way the teacher’s mouth caressed his words as he poured them into the classroom than what the words themselves actually said. On Thursday, I saw a Colombian novelist speaking about her latest novel in English. At one moment she revealed herself in Spanish to the group—soltemos la ficción, let’s release the fiction, she asserted after I asked a question rounded off with a sharp ¿no? to flag myself as a fellow Hispanophone. I almost howled in delight. Sadly, because there were pure gringos in our midst, she quickly cloaked herself, once again, in this other foul language I often inhabit, and left me desiring.

That’s all. Stay Hot, friends.

*Fresa literally means strawberry in Spanish, but it is also slang for snobbish. Not quite the Queen’s English (since I guess that would be Spain Spanish), but if we were forced to make comparisons, I’d point in that direction, or perhaps to, gosh, the Valley Girl register. Alas.