Per due come noi

There are songs we enjoy and there are some songs that seem to recognise us.

Per due come noi has been playing in our house for weeks. I'm not sure I can explain why. I just love it.

I still don't understand every word. It doesn't seem to matter.

I've been wondering why certain songs move us even when we don't fully understand the language they're sung in. We often assume connection begins with comprehension. I'm no longer sure that's true.

Language has followed me for most of my life.

As a child, it was simply part of home. Different countries. Different accents. Different ways of belonging.

At university, French became my world. Later I taught languages, believing I was helping children communicate.

Then I left the classroom and spent more than twenty years in financial services.

On the surface, it looked like I'd left language behind. In reality, I had simply changed dialects.

Every day I translated. Between investors and technologists. Boards and teams. Risk and opportunity. People who were saying similar things but hearing completely different messages.

I thought my work had changed. Looking back, I think the question stayed the same. How do we help another person feel understood?

When Arnaud and I decided to raise Ella bilingually, people often talked about opportunity. Two languages, more choices, a broader future.

Those things are true. But they were never the reason. I wanted her to know French because I wanted her to know her father. Not just his words. His humour, his childhood, the parts o him that don't quite survive translation.

Over the years our home has filled with other languages too. Malayalam through my mother, Telegu through my father, Hindi through the movies, Spanish through Mikel. Italian through Elena.

Music has become the common language around our dinner table. None of us understands every lyric. Yet somehow we understand enough.

That has made me rethink something much bigger than language.

For years I believed understanding came from knowing more. More information. More expertise. More certainty.

Now I wonder whether understanding begins somewhere quieter. With attention.

The kind of attention that lingers a little longer. That notices the pause before someone answers. That hears what wasn't said as much as what was. That asks another question instead of rushing to the conclusion.

Writing has changed what I notice. And what I notice has changed who I am becoming.

Maybe that's why Per due come noi has stayed with me. Not because I can translate every line. Just because every time it plays, it reminds me that some things are understood long before they are explained.

The older I get, the less interested I become in mastering languages. Not because I'm no longer interested but because I'm more interested in learning how to recognise another human being.

The words were never the destination. They were simply the bridge.

And sometimes the deepest conversations begin long before we speak the same language.