Things have been noticeably different since the Spanish language abruptly exited to the left of my life. Now, whenever I hear that a sonorous accent, the lilt of Spanish speech that melts syllables together, my ears stand in attention like someone stranded and starving for food almost forgotten. It's a treat, a soft caramel melting in the heat, it's sweetness the same color of afternoon memories.

My apartment, all white and tiled, is noticeable absent of Spanish language, except for the rare foreign film forgotten in the VCR. The chatter of the stream outside, which is the incessant background song for our every interaction in #605, makes a sound like rushing footsteps, like the swell of applause, like a stiff breeze between leaves. It's different, and I find it lacks that sweetness that I loved so much in Spanish, the language like music that rose from the street and was caught in my curtains, the smell of melting caramel sticking to my sheets. Whispered and shouted and between giggles, the language that composed the sweetness of those days, now replaced with the sound of the stream forever running away, like boots marching.

Un recuerdo (because I have many, many, many now): On that stretch of sand that ran from your doorstep to the dunes in the distance, made the brightest white in the noontime sun. Summer was just ripening, and as ocean gew warmer she drew crowds to her shores, from all over the Continent. And how we would just lie there, pretending to be asleep, and be surrounded by the sound of a thousand people softly talking. It sounded like the waves, the organic ebb and flow of human dialogue mingling with the crash of saltwater. The Argentine, remember him?, with his full-mouthed Spanish spoken like music, lush and accented. The Chileans, and your accent that I always loved, echoing the place we both loved to the North. And Spanish! Warm like the blooming summer sunshine, that same sticky sweet caramel that stuck to the back of my teeth sometimes making my own vowels sound different.

I miss this language, that was never my own but always something I held close like a little girl. Sing me a song, won't you, sweet like sticky candy, something colored white-bright as that Chilean sunshine.