December 3, 2010
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What to do with all of these?
I posted this poem the other day:
Hace pocos días escribí este poema:Ellas Ellas
What to do ¿Qué voy a hacer
with all of these? con todas éstas?
I cannot love them all No las puedo amar a todas
the same way. de la misma manera.Superficially, it is a bittersweet expression of admiration for lovely women friends who are single because of life’s circumstances. It also alludes to my six sisters and three daughters. And in a more ironic sense, it evokes middle-aged female clients of my handyman business (whom I most definitely do not love all the same way).
En la superficie, expresa mi admiración por lindas amigas que están solas debido a las cosas de la vida. También alude a mis seis hermanas y tres hijas. Y en un sentido irónico, hace referencia a las señoras de mediana edad que son clientes de mi empresa de remodelación (y a las cuales definitivamente no las quiero a todas de la misma manera).
In a deeper sense, it refers to feelings of home: the jungle houses of my earliest memory, the home in Robledo where we lived during grade school, my grandma’s house that was the nucleus for our extended family, and especially Casa Shalom, the big country house above Medellín that my parents occupied for 22 years. Each of these places holds a special place in my heart, as do the houses where my own family has lived.
En un sentido más profundo, alude a los hogares donde he vivido: mis primeras memorias en la selva de Colombia, la casa en Robledo donde pasé los años de primaria, la casa de mi abuela que era el núcleo de mi clan familiar, y especialmente Casa Shalom, la casa de campo donde vivieron mis padres durante 22 años. Cada uno de estos lugares ocupa un pedazo de mi corazón, al igual que las casas donde ha vivido mi propia familia.
The poem was triggered by my visit to Colombia. Two weeks ago I was at an event in Bogotá at which the Colombian national anthem was sung. My gringo companions were surprised that I sang along and knew all the words. I lived in Colombia for 17 years, and feel a bond with it quite different from my feelings for the United States.
El poema nació de mi visita a Colombia. Hace quince días estuve en un evento en Bogotá en el que se cantó el himno nacional de Colombia. Mis compañeros gringos se sorprendieron porque yo conocía la letra y también canté. Viví en Colombia unos 17 años y siento un vínculo con ese país que es muy distinto al que tengo con los Estados Unidos.
My younger daughters were born in Costa Rica, where their mother grew up and where we lived from 1991-1995. I loved living there; the language, culture, topography were similar to Colombia. The kids went back for a visit a couple of years ago. I asked them how much was familiar to them. They said they somewhat remembered our house and the jungle house where their grandparents had lived, but it was the food that really triggered memories.
Mis hijas menores nacieron en Costa Rica, donde creció su madre y donde vivimos de 1991 a 1995. Me encantó vivir allí; el lenguaje, la cultura, la topografía todos se parecían a Colombia. Mis hijos hicieron un viaje a Costa Rica hace dos o tres años. Les pregunté qué recordaban de su infancia, y me dijeron que recordaban nuestra casa y la casa donde vivían sus abuelos en la selva, pero que los sabores de las comidas eran lo que más provocaba memorias.
Being a Third Culture Kid is complicated. You feel like an outsider no matter where you are, even in the places that evoke the most feelings of “home.” People from one or the other culture may become your dearest friends, but your own culture is that of the pilgrim or wanderer, and even among wanderers there are differences because we grew up in different places and assimilated the cultures to different degrees.
Es complicado ser de la Tercera Cultura. Uno se siente forastero dondequiera que vaya, aún en los lugares que más considera su ”hogar.” Uno puede tener amigos muy queridos de una u otra cultura, pero uno mismo se siente peregrino o nómada. Y aún entre nómadas hay diferencias porque crecimos en lugares distintos y nuestra participación en las culturas anfitrionas también ha sido distinta.
I now work with fifty translators representing two dozen languages and cultures. We all share the feeling of being immigrants, pilgrims, exiles. We’re all the same, and all very different. Good American citizens, but yearning for faraway places.
Ahora trabajo con cincuenta traductores que representan más de veinte lenguas y culturas. Todos compartimos la realidad de ser inmigrantes, peregrinos, exiliados. Somos iguales y muy diferentes. Buenos ciudadanos de los Estados Unidos, pero añorando lugares lejanos.
Forty years ago my sister Ruth wrote a poem that is still used in reentry seminars for missionary kids returning to the US. Here’s a piece of it:
Hace cuarenta años mi hermana Ruth escribió un poema que se sigue usando en seminarios para hijos de misioneros que regresan a los Estados Unidos. Este es un fragmento:
One life is navy blue
One life is sunshine yellow
I am green
Is there a place
where
I can be green?
Una vida es de azul marino
Una vida es amarilla como el sol
¿No existe un lugar
donde
yo pueda ser de color verde?
Comments (42)
@SoapAndShampoo - Thank you, and thanks for the rec.
You always have the most interesting stories Road……I would love to take a trip down the path of your life..it would be quite the journey I think.
HAppy Friday my friend and THANK YOU for the sympathy on my butt *grin
You cannot love everything all the same ways, but is that not the cusp of how easy it is to love it all in every way known? there is no shortage of ways to love. it’s a good thing : ) you might turn into poet to the core, yet. heh
@Nameless_woman - I am sure your butt is well-deserving of the sympathy. Thank you; this recent trip stirred up a lot of memories and emotions and reflection. Sometimes my life feels like a Dagwood sandwich, layers and layers of places and people that I can’t integrate all at once.
@anvilsandedelweiss - Thank you. There are moments that stir up poetry; quite a lot of them, recently. I suppose clowns and poets and pilgrims all share that deep-down-pain thing. We will never really be at home, and much of love is bittersweet. (Sheesh, I’m about to drown in sap over here.)
@Roadkill_Spatula -
ooh. keep on and in no time i will tell you that love is merely an energy. perception is the pain. but it would be premature to do so now. you’d just call me esoteric
Well, then: there is NO WAY you are handi-manning MY house – ever! Heh. just saying…your sister is correct: it is not easy being green. Loving (on the other hand) is not at all hard.
@anvilsandedelweiss - Well, Leah – you ARE esoteric. Love IS energy but perception/ego is where we are intended to dwell…otherwise we wouldn’t, and you and I couldn’t be having this conversation…and Tim wouldn’t have written this lovely poem…and the apple pie in my oven woul- No, on second thought, I’d still eat the apple pie. HEH. BIG hugs, Lovey. MUAH.
@Harpos_Mark -
yeah, but it’s funnier when Tim calls me esoteric. I shall be over for pie shortly : ) I feel that all pie is cosmic and eat it in any and all dimensions. muah!
@anvilsandedelweiss - saving you a slice.
xxxxoooo
@Harpos_Mark -
Though Rumi perhaps said it best about the guest house and all. With the dwelling. He is coming for pie too. The problem is, I have a very devlish need to keep on talking in Tim’s notes here about such, because I like the point where he has kittens. But he seems to be having a closeted spiritual awakening and all. I can tell. so he better come for pie too.
@anvilsandedelweiss - wait…wait – you and Tim AND Rumi are coming for pie? YIKES! ((laughing – esoterically, of course) I’d better clean the house, then - and make another pie!
I wish you were on your way (from just across town), more than I am wishing for snow…(snow, snow, snow, snow)…OMG how I love you! muah.
@anvilsandedelweiss - @Harpos_Mark - There is nothing ‘mere’ about love, whether or not it is an energy, which I doubt it is, although it provides (and sometimes saps) energy. But I’m completely in favor of apple pie, which is a very tangible expression of love and fuels my body and my faltering ego. Rumi can come too and I’ll give him a piece of my mind to go with a piece of Sandra’s pie.
@Roadkill_Spatula - @anvilsandedelweiss - Only Lovey, if the piece of your mind is a la mode, and Rumi talks in verse. Heh. And while you two are working it out, Leah and I are going turn the music up LOUD ( Aerosmith) ((laughing…..laughing)) and dance.
but alas, now I have to go to work…carry on, but PLEASE leave me a slive – ot both mind and pie.
XXXOOO
@Harpos_Mark -
no need to clean, it’s just us : )I will bring some extra cosmic pie. It’s magically refillable. Heh. I am having too much fun. I want to give puck a run for his money. I am not sure what has come over me. I wish I was across town too. I will bring the snow. We have it all swirly like. I shall bring tea. Oh how I love you too : )
@Roadkill_Spatula -
Okay, but I am warning you, Rumi is never with out a response. He’s like that. and I’d watch your pie. he has a sweet tooth. Of course it is a very big merely about love. Bigger than any of us, really. I shall write a poem about it if I ever stop feeling so puckish.
This was a beautiful post! Thanks for sharing. I think there is a bit of the pilgrim in nearly anyone. Or at least in all the interesting ones.
A wonderful expression of your feelings, of a life many of us will never truly understand.
@anvilsandedelweiss - I think you should continue to feel puckish AND write a poem. Heh. A mere love poem, with apple pie on the side.
)
@Harpos_Mark -
i did! though there was no apple pie. i did use your collage though
@ordinarybutloud -
As I get older I find a lot more common ground with people. When I was young it was hard. Took years in the US before I felt like I was hitting on all eight cylinders. But interesting people do see the world this way. Your sociocultural critique of Podville is a case in point.
@peacefulmeadow -
Thank you. I’m not sure I understand it myself.
@Roadkill_Spatula -
Did you just call me interesting?? I’m touched.
@ordinarybutloud -
I wouldn’t bother reading your writing if you weren’t interesting. Unless you consider yourself a drudge, in which case I wonder where the good writing comes from.
@anvilsandedelweiss - and a spectacular piece it is, too! Thanks for pairing it with my collage…muah
At first glance, it would seem that you were twice as lucky, being at home in two cultures, but I can see how having a foot in each would keep you from ever being wholely in one.
I too miss both Colombia and Costa Rica. But, if I were still in the traveling mode, I would prefer to see Nicaragua and France again.
Loving a lot of women at the same time is alright. But, you have to keep it to yourself. Most ladies would not understand.
@Inciteful -
Yeah, I think I might have put my foot in it with that poem the other day. I abruptly quit getting footprints from Colombia after the day I posted it… I loved France when I visited many years ago, and would enjoy seeing Nicaragua, but neither has any sense of “home” to me. The visit to Colombia was very therapeutic for me, like I had been hungering for it without even realizing.
@jacksoncroons -
I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but it is definitely bittersweet.
*Is there a place where I can be green*~ I think that hits home for a lot a folks. Totally digging this poetic side.
@WildWomanOfTheWest -
There are a lot of situations in the US that produce similar feelings: major moves, cross-cultural relationships, homeschooling, holding different values from those of the culture. I’m glad you liked this.
LOL~ our family relates to every single one of the examples you listed. I think my hardest place to be *green* was being a pastor’s wife.
@WildWomanOfTheWest -
Being a pastor’s wife is a tough gig. They should have a seminary track for it.
@Roadkill_Spatula - They (leadership) tried to groom/force me to be pink. I am not pink. LOL
@Roadkill_Spatula -
I don’t think I’m a drudge. Though, in fairness, a person who actually *is* a drudge probably doesn’t know it. I think I’m an interesting person trapped in an ordinary person’s life. A pilgrim through suburbia, if you will. A Big Box immigrant. A Rapunzel of the middle class. A Mad Max without the apocalypse.
@ordinarybutloud -
@ordinarybutloud -
Some British author referred to hanging on in quiet desperation. Oh, wait, that was Pink Floyd. I suspect that many, many people are trapped in the middle class.
@WildWomanOfTheWest -
I’m glad you were able to escape.
@Roadkill_Spatula - Meteorology Man is my hero. He moved me to Oklahoma, even though they “rebuked ” us for doing so. After ten years of service, not so much as a potluck dinner when we left. It feels good to be free from that manipulation.
@WildWomanOfTheWest -
Good man! Sounds like a nice place. I imagine they have made life tough for whoever succeeded you, too.
I really enjoyed reading this in Spanish. The meaning is so much more precise in Spanish I think. I grew up in rural Alabama – almost third world in many ways lol… but not – definitely not. I know it’s close because I can really relate to some of your outsider feelings. We had to grow or catch much of our food for a long time. We lived in a trailer park and didn’t see people much. Integrating into “society” was a bizarre experience. Wearing shoes and a shirt was really weird. In many ways, though, I think we’re all outsiders… trying to find ways to relate to all those other humans out there with their own individual cultures.
I would love it personally if you wrote more in Spanish. I only had to check a couple times for vocab and I felt that I understood much better what you were communicating through the Spanish than through the English. Of course my first language is English, but I’ve studied Spanish a great deal and feel a great affinity for it. I never speak it because there are so many dialects and I just feel like a pretentious ass for trying, but it’s a fantastic language with a lot more soul in some areas than English is capable of(I think). What’s your opinion on that?
@oceanstarr -
I’ve been translating my posts for the benefit of friends in Medellín. I think I write more carefully in Spanish; when I reread it the language looks more elegant. But when I’m exchanging e-mails with my friends down there, sometimes I feel like a hick; one girl in particular writes in very flowery language. Her sister’s language is more straightforward, and I feel less insecure when I respond. My buddy writes in ordinary street Spanish.
I suspect more of us feel like outsiders than we let on. Even within a family there are differences, and it’s only magnified when you compare families, social classes, neighborhoods, regions, subcultures, and so on. Ultimately nearly all communication is across cultures or boundaries.
@Roadkill_Spatula -
I have a theory that we all speak our own language. We all have our own attachments to every word we speak – our own concepts and memories for each word. Bosque, for example, means something quite different to me than forest. Does it to you? I like the word lengua much better than language… Maybe it’s because I learned Spanish as a second language and relate to the roots of the words more first. Language comes from the same “tongue” root as lengua does, but I think of the root more when I read or think or speak lengua.
Maybe one day we can have a face to face conversation. It’s really tedious to type it all… I think we could have a rather extended conversation in real life lol
@oceanstarr - Language is personal, for sure. I have favorite words and phrases, and some translate better than others, and often the roughly equivalent word or phrase doesn’t have the same scope of meaning. There are things that are easier to talk about in one language than the other. During this trip to Colombia I was struck once again with how foreign people’s worlds can be, like a Dr. Who parallel reality. It would be great to talk to you. Do you plan any shows in Dallas?