Spanglish Two

Spanglish is kicking my ass. The Spanish class I am taking is whipping me. The joy of knowing a language is being able to communicate with people. Someday I might be using Spanish as my method of communication, but I have so much work to do to improve my grammar. I see now why language should be taught through games. It's just too strenuous otherwise. Also, I see more of the developmental continuum. I see people who don't speak English write in English and it doesn't make sense. From doing all of my own translation excersizes, I see why. You think you are making sense, then you realize that you are not, not really, not really truly. It's like your realizing your brain is scrambled eggs in someone else's world. No summarizing comment from me tonight, just a report: going to drink some tea in the tradition of "Elegance of the Hedgehog" and do a little typing for what is due tommorow at my real job. Tomorrow: recording myself translating to help an actress playing a cancer patient in a hospital.

Spanglish

I am taking a class in medical translation and I have decided how horrible my Spanish is. It sounds like a I have a metal plate in my mouth and like I am drunk. This is the result of Spanish boyfriends and learning street Spanish, not real, really Spanish. One's failings are always a
reason to reflect and become better. We live so close to Mexico in so many ways, and not to mention Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica. They are in the air in Denver through the people who live in Denver, the radio stations, the restaurants, the dance clubs, the social needs and fabric of the city. I wonder how many people have been polite to me despite my terrible Spanish. Some is better than none, but so many times I have dreamed of being fluent in Spanisn and I find myself standing far from my goal.

After spending Spring Break with a brain freeze, I have decided to publically announce that I am not a writer, despite dreams that I might be so. It is just too complicated to do, and I feel paralyzed after I write something good. I don't wish to subject myself to the pressure of writer's block, of being clever. So this is my official resignation. I will keep up my diary and this blog. Other than that all my energy goes into other people and to living out other dreams.

Gentle Horse

The best advice that I had ever received was try gentleness.

Story

In my head there's a girl picking up sunflowers in a flower shop. Their in a metal antique milk carton and she lifts them up to the counter because a man has come in and rested his daughter on the counter. Her legs in white tights hang over the counter. The woman working behind the counter places the sunflowers on the counter on a piece of crinkly clear cellophane turned to the side. She picks up each flower to separate it slightly from the rest. The sunflowers have wide, strong stems and heads curled under. She talks to the man's little girl. She thinks about her home. She has had an early miscarriage, and there are toys all over her floor that her husbands daughter uses when she comes to visit. She feels something inside her womb when she looks at the yellow leaves of the sunflowers. They have such a simple name. She picked her husgand because someone told her to pick what made her happiest and he reminded her the most of what she felt like when she dressed in the dark to run in a long skinny park that was behind her house.

Rain

The snow is silent and doesn't whine, until you listen closer and then it is a barrage of small, stinging complaints with great power. I prefer the rain. Right now in my life there is nothing that rain does that is helpful- I don't have a garden, I don't use it for water. None of the properties of rain help me. However, I still feel exhilerated when it rains. I feel this exhiliration whether I am indoors or traveling somewhere outdoors and hearing the hammer of rain strike me. The rain is soft and gentle like a lover.
Someone I know made a comment about how a book wasn't good because it wasn't moral, and now I don't want to write as much because I know my writing sounds moral and is overmuch about right and wrong. I listened to her too much. I am full of comlaints right now about myself. It's so hard for me to get started on anything, every minute I feel like a big hand is throwing dirt on me. I love the rain because it tells me which direction to grow, what amazing things lie in store in the heavens, and just generally which way is up when I am groping in chaos. It's a visceral thing, a small appreciation of the earth and weather, that I am glad is part of being a human being.

Changes of Circumstance

I've written on here a lot about how important it is to me that people care about me. Things with the important people I work with have been really haywire lately. It's hard to realize that people really do care, everyone is just in their own world. I have clients that I have to care for- and doing a semi decent job of that is helping me to get through. There a changes in my schedule, in how I am perceiving things. It's like being on the subway, rushing through a tunnel. Some things move and some things don't move. Passengers and poles stay steady while the tunnel outside is a blur too dangerous to enter becuase of the speed of the train. The passengers would be my goals for next year, the poles the values that I will need to accomplish them. The speed of the train in it's liminal-like form are the changes of circumstance that I will encounter. I like that speed when it is on a real subway, it exhilirates me. I pray for my inner turtle-like spirit to begin to like that speed as it relates to changes in my life. I want to be a hero in a John Cheever story, traveling on a subway to some metaphorical shimmering of gold, to some Spring day in Central Park that ends with a beautiful subway ride home.

Lakesteam

Denver has an old bathhouse that has been around since the thirties. It has a hottub that feels like a habernero pepper, a gigantic dry heat steam room that has ancient wooden benches and a huge metal oven door that lets heat flow into the building. There's a eculyptus room that is full of steam. There also dressing rooms which breathe with a kitschy luxury. There are plants, posters from MoMa, a few mirrors, mosiacs, hand made signs. I ate a delicious egg salad sandwich in the cafe and drank a cherry seltzer that tasted like jello. It's a mix of tradition, comfortableness and relaxation.

Telling life that you care

Scraggly tree branches reach out over the pond. The sun sets over Denver and two Japanese people take a picture of it. I am still feeling incredibly grateful in my life. Grateful for meeting some funny people, grateful for the strength that people seem to give me. I still feel at work incredibly supported by those around me. I also feel myself giving support. I am you and you are me. That's the lyrics from the last song in Yoga Tuesday night and tonight it's still so true. It's good to tell life you care.