It has occurred to me that there is another thing that I do all the time – beside narrating and/or staging things in my head.

I translate.

Well, maybe not so much in everyday conversation – although I’ve been known to do that as well – but books, films, television, lectures… I seem to possess a special squad of neurons in my brain, on constant translating alert.

Or maybe not even quite “translating”, so much as holding whatever I hear/read up to the light, watching for the original English (or French – though not as often) through the Italian version. That is especially true when the translation is rickety and the original shows through, but has a habit of going on in the background even unprovoked… So it’s not exactly translating, right? It’s something else – and the funny thing is, I catch myself doing it even when there is no English version beneath…

In which case, technically, I am translating.

Oh well. It seems to be an inherited trait, too, since my mother recently confessed to doing the same quite often. Wherever it comes from, it’s a little odd at times, as though my brain didn’t have clearly different tracks for its languages… Or at least, not all the time and not for all tasks. Odd, yes.

And, in all likelihood, yet another lens, another philtre… how do you take your reality, Clara? Narrated, staged and not-quite-translated, thank you very much.