This resonated. It is what I meant when I referred to a “personal mythology”. A mythology because it is not just the words, but the map of a life, feeling, real and only ever in our heads. A world. It’s why, in a box that is rarely opened, there is a little notebook I carried for months, scribbling down phrases, sayings, the things that meant so much but are meaningless without you to give them life. I worry I will forget them. Sometimes I catch myself almost speaking our language, change it with a pang to something else. Or, worse, it slips out and I am left with the realisation that the expected response, or knowing look, isn’t coming. Nobody else is fluent.

I am indeed the last speaker of a language, keeper of myths. I cannot forget.