This Is Not About Hiccups

A hiccup is an involuntary spasm which usually causes an equally involuntary squeak. The seemingly sporadic nature of a hiccup means that scientists have not yet been able to say, for sure, why or how they come about. They are uncertain. But I can tell you with unwavering certainty that for me, hiccups follow hysterical laughter. Proper, unabashed, explosive laughter always gives me the hiccups; I go from one type of involuntary convulsion to another, and they egg each other on. 

When I was nineteen and travelling with my first love, I hiccuped my way round Eastern Europe. I hiccuped in Warsaw and in Krakow, in the Tatras mountains in Slovakia and in Bratislava, I hiccuped in Budapest (on both sides of the river) and in Prague. Although here I am suddenly reminded of an essay by the Czech writer Milan Kundera, who points out that despite it being politically appropriate to call these countries Eastern Europe, culturally it is not. ‘Central Europe’ is geographically correct, and kindly permits these nations a symbolic shift away from their recent history with the East, and closer to their cultural ties with the West.*

However regardless of the profound impact on expression of identity that this may have, it does not impact the fact that, Eastern, Central, or Western, I hiccuped my way round it and through it. Having laughed hysterically first, and then squeaked involuntarily but merrily afterwards.

But this is not a post about hiccups.

After I graduated I ran away to Madrid to learn Spanish, with a romantic idea that the voice in my head chanting, ‘what now? What now?’ on repeat, would sound less urgent in a second language. (If you're wondering if this is true or not, please refer to previous post Alice's Mushrooms)

The first thing that struck me about my bedroom when I arrived there, was the one, statement, royal purple wall. The plaster had been left rough, and running my hand along that satisfying texture, in the bare room, completely alone, in a new country, I had one of those strange feelings where a relatively insignificant moment suddenly seems to signify everything. The colour purple instantly became more important to me than it had ever been before. Purple became the fledgling fear that had chased me there, mingled with the excitement of freedom; satisfying but rough, like it felt on my fingertips. Purple became the language barrier. It became the ethereal glee of not understanding a word that was being spoken around me, of existing outside that familiar anxiety to constantly translate thoughts into sounds, in order to express, and express, and express, and express. It also became the searing madness of failing to translate my thoughts into sounds, in moments when all I wanted to do was express, and express, and express, and express. 

The colour purple then, like the hiccups, has come to represent something more specific in my life. Like a shiny cookie-cutter that is pressed softly into the dough, the gooey nature of life is cut into distinctive shapes. Thereby making it possible that hiccups can come to represent nomadic laughter, and that purple can become the colour of my unattainable expression. 

Although of course I did learn to speak in Madrid, eventually. 

*Milan Kundera, The Tragedy of Central Europe, 1984