Words Fail
Ava Ledes
Even before I had language, I was a pot boiling over with countless thoughts and interjections, intent on disrupting the silent rhythm of our world. My family has always referred to my chitter chatter as baby babble. Allegedly, before I learned to ‘properly’ talk, I attempted communication via incomprehensible sing-song noises in glee— something along the lines of bibbitybaplippitylooplooloobable accompanied with spits and shrieks— for up to ten minutes at a time. Of course I have no recollection of said phenomena. We’ve failed to uncover the few recordings and despite my parents’ best efforts to elaborate, it’s always come down to It was your own language, Ava, impossible to truly mimic. You had to be there. Still, I know with certainty all of this occurred as it was told.
I am given this certainty as my babble persisted throughout my childhood to present day. With the achievement of learning the English language, my mind only continued to race with commentary while my lips, tongue and teeth struggled to keep pace. In the classroom setting I was often reprimanded for my speed of speech, a particular frustration when it came to class presentations.
Orwell’s Animal Farmtouchesonthepowerofpropogandaandbabbitybhpityblipbliploo— Ava
please slow down we can’t understand.
While I worked on slowing down the mechanics of my delivery, the influx of thoughts never waned. I clung to words that covered those I love in knitted blankets of I love you thank you thank you I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to I love you more than you know. The same words that have saved my own ass and others at social gatherings when I offer a string of bizarre and captivating questions to ensure those I’ve just met are never swallowed by unbearable stillness. Perhaps this has always been more for me than for others as I struggled to navigate silence. Words became my deepest most beloved partner in crime—you can imagine the heartbreak when they finally revealed their ability to fail. How cruel of my learned language to abandon me and those near when we desired it most.
I first fell in love at 17; the perfect age to feel deliriously confident that this is forever, that I need no one in my life but this person and our understood language exchanged through homemade meals and freckles counted. As the feeling from my head to my toes grew, I eventually courageously mustered up the I love you. Once the seal was broken, the phrase frosted every encounter and letter and goodmorning/goodnight text and call. I don’t remember when exactly, perhaps it was after the 1 million and first, but I love you soon faltered too. The statement was blank and overused, I found it on every generic birthday card the store offered. Could the all-consuming warmth this person gifted me be stripped down to a scratched label on a heart-shaped chocolate box in aisle seven? I could compose a dance for every little feature of this person that made me feel weak. A left ear with a dent at the very tip resembling a chipped tea cup. Curls with the power to shapeshift after each nap, keeping me on my toes for their next creation. A birthmark on the iris: a promised scar from past lives. I could say or write all these little details, and trust that I did, but oh it was not enough. Words constricted the ability to express the mightiness and intensity I felt for this person. This restraint felt personal. Even now, past the eye of this relationship, I am unable to do justice in conveying the irreplaceable role said person holds within me. My words will never tell the full story but I trust that only they understand what will forever exist beyond our spoken exchanges. I love you and then some.
I found my words tangled by a similar awe yet again, not too long ago, when I embarked on a psychedelic journey with a lifelong friend, both of us experiencing foreign terrain together. I’ve come to understand that the great joy and marvel of said substances, when taken with intention and care, is to unlock the inconceivable. I felt elated and lightweight as I noticed pieces of artwork in between the sky and its stars that had seemingly been there all along. I laid down next to her and we quickly realized our visions differed from one another and scrambled to describe our current states with intense urgency out of fear it would all vanish before we’d even begun. Once again, our spoken language failed us. After several attempts it became clear that, try as I might, I was not equipped with the words to paint a picture of the beings and creatures that had not existed until this moment. To perceive a world entirely different from one you love was, at least in this moment, deeply defeating. I peered beyond her fence of eyelashes into the pupil of a person who made this infuriating life all the more worthwhile and yet I could not speak. Through sobs and stuffy noses, we began a discourse of our own creation. Our symphony echoed nostalgic thoughts of how the hell did we get here? What felt like an entire night passed as our throats croaked never before heard songs of bibble and babble indiscernible yet far more successful than the Merriam Webster dictionary ever was.
Most recently, after previously mentioned encounters, I was finally able to make sense of an exchange I had with my dad several years ago. Growing up, I frequently felt that my dad and I spoke different languages. I found excitement in live music and fashion, celebrated by mom but deemed excessive and frivolous at dad’s dinner table. He could only engage with topics of philosophy and psychoanalysis, something my older brother was eager to untangle but I, a seventh grader at the time, was far too preoccupied with push up bras and food stuck in my braces. I’ve since accepted that my father’s mind has always been wired in ways different from my own, but as a kid I could only understand his disinterest as rejection.
During this time of tweenhood, I once passively asked my dad if he loved me. The question meant little to me. I knew he loved me; it was just one of my many attempts to regain attention, stability through the assurance of asking what I knew to be true. Instead of yes of course don’t be silly he began to cry. I could never, and still cannot, anticipate when my dad’s waterworks will break through. I cried when my Papou passed away, my dad cried at a painting of goats seen at the MOMA. In his response to my question, he turned to Shakespeare’s King Lear. Cordelia, King Lear's third daughter, is banished when she is unable to describe her love with a speech as excessive as her sisters’. Nothing will come of nothing. At the time, the misunderstanding between Shakespeare’s father and daughter meant little to me but now it is clear. My dad explains the love I feel for you could not be skimmed down to ornate language and overwhelming affection. When you ask such a question it makes me weep because of course I love you but it is so much more than that. Don’t you see? So much more than you or I or the language we share could ever understand. I understand. Bibble babble I feel the same way, Dad.
With all these limitations, it makes perfect sense that humans turn to art to cope. My dad creates films to add vision to the stories he is begging to share. I seek the incomprehensible everyday through music and can finally let out a deep exhale when a song like “On the Sea” reaches its crescendo and ever so slightly scratches our unspoken feelings of this is all so painfully temporary. Still we move. How could we possibly begin to untangle all of this before we run out of time?? We continue.
I still find myself attempting to convey it all to the other. Never forcing my mouth to slow down. A relentless search to fill the unknown gaps with bibble and babble and skim the surface of what it means to love these people, and then some, with the time I have to do so.
Ava Ledes
Even before I had language, I was a pot boiling over with countless thoughts and interjections, intent on disrupting the silent rhythm of our world. My family has always referred to my chitter chatter as baby babble. Allegedly, before I learned to ‘properly’ talk, I attempted communication via incomprehensible sing-song noises in glee— something along the lines of bibbitybaplippitylooplooloobable accompanied with spits and shrieks— for up to ten minutes at a time. Of course I have no recollection of said phenomena. We’ve failed to uncover the few recordings and despite my parents’ best efforts to elaborate, it’s always come down to It was your own language, Ava, impossible to truly mimic. You had to be there. Still, I know with certainty all of this occurred as it was told.
I am given this certainty as my babble persisted throughout my childhood to present day. With the achievement of learning the English language, my mind only continued to race with commentary while my lips, tongue and teeth struggled to keep pace. In the classroom setting I was often reprimanded for my speed of speech, a particular frustration when it came to class presentations.
Orwell’s Animal Farmtouchesonthepowerofpropogandaandbabbitybhpityblipbliploo— Ava
please slow down we can’t understand.
While I worked on slowing down the mechanics of my delivery, the influx of thoughts never waned. I clung to words that covered those I love in knitted blankets of I love you thank you thank you I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to I love you more than you know. The same words that have saved my own ass and others at social gatherings when I offer a string of bizarre and captivating questions to ensure those I’ve just met are never swallowed by unbearable stillness. Perhaps this has always been more for me than for others as I struggled to navigate silence. Words became my deepest most beloved partner in crime—you can imagine the heartbreak when they finally revealed their ability to fail. How cruel of my learned language to abandon me and those near when we desired it most.
I first fell in love at 17; the perfect age to feel deliriously confident that this is forever, that I need no one in my life but this person and our understood language exchanged through homemade meals and freckles counted. As the feeling from my head to my toes grew, I eventually courageously mustered up the I love you. Once the seal was broken, the phrase frosted every encounter and letter and goodmorning/goodnight text and call. I don’t remember when exactly, perhaps it was after the 1 million and first, but I love you soon faltered too. The statement was blank and overused, I found it on every generic birthday card the store offered. Could the all-consuming warmth this person gifted me be stripped down to a scratched label on a heart-shaped chocolate box in aisle seven? I could compose a dance for every little feature of this person that made me feel weak. A left ear with a dent at the very tip resembling a chipped tea cup. Curls with the power to shapeshift after each nap, keeping me on my toes for their next creation. A birthmark on the iris: a promised scar from past lives. I could say or write all these little details, and trust that I did, but oh it was not enough. Words constricted the ability to express the mightiness and intensity I felt for this person. This restraint felt personal. Even now, past the eye of this relationship, I am unable to do justice in conveying the irreplaceable role said person holds within me. My words will never tell the full story but I trust that only they understand what will forever exist beyond our spoken exchanges. I love you and then some.
I found my words tangled by a similar awe yet again, not too long ago, when I embarked on a psychedelic journey with a lifelong friend, both of us experiencing foreign terrain together. I’ve come to understand that the great joy and marvel of said substances, when taken with intention and care, is to unlock the inconceivable. I felt elated and lightweight as I noticed pieces of artwork in between the sky and its stars that had seemingly been there all along. I laid down next to her and we quickly realized our visions differed from one another and scrambled to describe our current states with intense urgency out of fear it would all vanish before we’d even begun. Once again, our spoken language failed us. After several attempts it became clear that, try as I might, I was not equipped with the words to paint a picture of the beings and creatures that had not existed until this moment. To perceive a world entirely different from one you love was, at least in this moment, deeply defeating. I peered beyond her fence of eyelashes into the pupil of a person who made this infuriating life all the more worthwhile and yet I could not speak. Through sobs and stuffy noses, we began a discourse of our own creation. Our symphony echoed nostalgic thoughts of how the hell did we get here? What felt like an entire night passed as our throats croaked never before heard songs of bibble and babble indiscernible yet far more successful than the Merriam Webster dictionary ever was.
Most recently, after previously mentioned encounters, I was finally able to make sense of an exchange I had with my dad several years ago. Growing up, I frequently felt that my dad and I spoke different languages. I found excitement in live music and fashion, celebrated by mom but deemed excessive and frivolous at dad’s dinner table. He could only engage with topics of philosophy and psychoanalysis, something my older brother was eager to untangle but I, a seventh grader at the time, was far too preoccupied with push up bras and food stuck in my braces. I’ve since accepted that my father’s mind has always been wired in ways different from my own, but as a kid I could only understand his disinterest as rejection.
During this time of tweenhood, I once passively asked my dad if he loved me. The question meant little to me. I knew he loved me; it was just one of my many attempts to regain attention, stability through the assurance of asking what I knew to be true. Instead of yes of course don’t be silly he began to cry. I could never, and still cannot, anticipate when my dad’s waterworks will break through. I cried when my Papou passed away, my dad cried at a painting of goats seen at the MOMA. In his response to my question, he turned to Shakespeare’s King Lear. Cordelia, King Lear's third daughter, is banished when she is unable to describe her love with a speech as excessive as her sisters’. Nothing will come of nothing. At the time, the misunderstanding between Shakespeare’s father and daughter meant little to me but now it is clear. My dad explains the love I feel for you could not be skimmed down to ornate language and overwhelming affection. When you ask such a question it makes me weep because of course I love you but it is so much more than that. Don’t you see? So much more than you or I or the language we share could ever understand. I understand. Bibble babble I feel the same way, Dad.
With all these limitations, it makes perfect sense that humans turn to art to cope. My dad creates films to add vision to the stories he is begging to share. I seek the incomprehensible everyday through music and can finally let out a deep exhale when a song like “On the Sea” reaches its crescendo and ever so slightly scratches our unspoken feelings of this is all so painfully temporary. Still we move. How could we possibly begin to untangle all of this before we run out of time?? We continue.
I still find myself attempting to convey it all to the other. Never forcing my mouth to slow down. A relentless search to fill the unknown gaps with bibble and babble and skim the surface of what it means to love these people, and then some, with the time I have to do so.
Ava Ledes (PZ '25) is very happy to be here. She would like to shout out canned soup, canned fish, and her warrior cat.