Barbra Streisand as Fanny Brice on the floor with her roller skates. Image from icollector.com

In the film Funny Girl, produced in 1968, Barbra Streisand plays the role of aspiring broadway star Fanny Brice. She forces herself into clubs and theaters trying to get herself on stage. When eventually she manages to drag the soul out of a director and he decides to hire her just to get her to stop yammering, he asks her “Can you roller skate?” With a brief pause she puts her hands to her waist and looks condescendingly at him, clearly offended by his question, and repeats his words with her nose in the air, “Can I roller skate??” She stresses so much on the “I” to emphasize her shock at his question.

The next scene is of Fanny sliding along the stage, completely off balance, taking down other skater dancers with her. She then justifies herself: “I didn’t know I couldn’t!”

To me, Fanny holds the secret recipe to success. She plunged herself into her dream and then began to struggle. She didn’t sit on the shore and think how much she couldn’t. In her mind, she was already there. She could roller skate, she could do anything a star could do.

Now that I go learn Italian twice a week. I’m Fanny Brice. Italian used to run around in my head all the time. There were times when I felt like it was simmering inside somewhere and just needed someone to lift off the lid. The more time passed with me not doing anything about it, the more frustration took over me, especially whenever I was supposed to understand that particular quote from Michelangelo as I read his biography, or felt the itch to jump into conversation with Italians, only to realize that all I’d be saying would be “Ciao! Come va?” (Hi! How are you?) and then idiotically repeating it if they ever answered.

Nevertheless, in my mind I spoke Italian. So whenever I remember that scene in the movie I realize that I wouldn’t ever get myself on stage if I wasn’t already there. And that goes with everything.

Can you speak Italian, Arwa?
Can I speak Italian?? Che domanda! (What a question!)

Can you ice climb, Arwa?
Can I ice climb?? Che domanda!

And so on ☺

I just need someone to lift off that lid and let all the aromatic simmering out. It’s funny how I realized that getting that lid off was such labor. My teacher looks me in the eye and asks me a question that I can perfectly understand but instead of answering I get this choking sensation in my throat. Everything gets jumbled inside and I only manage to dig out sounds, completely irrelevant words, and verbs in their infinitive. Being the witty professional that he is, he pretends to struggle to hear me or understand me whenever I try to help myself with some Arabic or English.

The one thing I’ll do differently from Fanny Brice is that I won’t ever EVER say “I didn’t know I couldn’t!” I’m going to drag everyone with me into my field. Of course I can speak Italian! I’m gonna throw myself in the middle of it and wade through all the laughs and come out as dignified as I will continue to see myself. There’s just no other way around this.

I’ve been having my comic moments with Italian, of course. So a sentence like “Nel tempo libero gli italiani vanno al caffè e parlano di calcio.” (In their free time, Italians go to coffee shops and talk about soccer) Becomes to Italian speaking Arwa “In the liberal age, Italians used to meet in cafes and talk about calcium.”

Good times. And a lot more to come. I’m rooting for my patient teacher. God bless him.