If Facebook photos are any indication, there are a fair number of men out there whose car (or motorcycle) occupies the position of leading lady in their life. Do you see those pictures too? The ones they post of their hot rods unironically captioned My girl! or My girlfriendwith nary a woman in sight. I get car love, kind of. My little Corolla is shiny and winsome and always looks happy to see me. Still, I liked the buses, taxis, metro and old-fashioned walking in Colombia far better.
I’ve never called anything my boyfriend except, well, boyfriends, but if I absolutely had to think of a runner-up who vies for my affection, the choice would be as plain as the nose on my face: that’s right, Spanish. Don’t tell me you can’t see that I’m head over heels in love with him. If this blog isn’t an ongoing love letter to the Spanish language, what is? Anyone who knows me would tell you that I’m inordinately, passionately, obsessively enamored of Spanish. And I have been for almost two decades now. My true love–surprise, surprise–is Colombian Spanish. Yeah yeah, so I once wrote a post about breaking up with Colombian Spanish (it’s called metonymy, folks), but I didn’t mean it for a second–Colombian Spanish and I are still thick as thieves. So, yes, until I find another half orange (a media naranja), it’s Spanish that’s the one and only apple of my eye. If you’re smitten with Spanish like I am, surely you joined me and the rest of the Spanish-speaking world today in celebrating el Día del Idioma– Language Day. ¡Un brindis por el castellano!
How do I love thee, Spanish? Well, I’ve been blogging the ways for over a year and a half now, 120 posts and counting. You all know that I’m anti-cursi, so don’t expect any blubbering professions of adoration or a bathtub filled with rose petals from me. I’ll just say this: With every fiber in me, I truly love, love, love speaking, listening to, reading and writing in Spanish. In Spanish, I see everything color de rosa, and that’s just the way I like it. Spoken like a true tortolito, of course. I don’t even care how ridiculous I probably sound right now. I become a blabbering, yammering fool with a huge gleam in my eye when I talk about Spanish, and I’ll blabber and yammer to my heart’s content.
Back to el Día del Idioma–The Día del Idioma is generally celebrated April 23 because on this day Cervantes–the famed author of Don Quijote–died. The comic above imagines that if he were still around to see how Spanish has been “perverted” through chat services like MSN Messenger, he’d have some harsh words. I guess nobody ever told him not to shoot the messenger–like it’s his fault people type on there as if they’d declared an all-out war on proper spelling and grammar. If only he could chill out and realize that Spanish is still as groovy as ever. If Cervantes met someone like me, he’d probably be moved to tears by my passion for his language. I’d have to do my best to keep the fact that I still haven’t read Don Quijote under wraps, though. Whoops. It’s at the top of my to-read list, I swear.
Anyone else out there who will confess to loving Spanish beyond all reasonable limits? What are people like us to do? Well, a very happy Language Day to everyone! Happy Spanishing.
It’s a red-letter day here on Vocabat–I’ve just been Freshly Pressed! ¡Yupi! ¡Estoy que brinco! The cool people behind the scenes at WordPress picked the post that I wrote on all things cursi a few weeks back to feature on their home page. What an honor and encouragement! I look forward to receiving what I hope will be some interesting comments (and maybe even ideas for future posts) and getting to know other rad bloggers out there. Thanks to all of my long-time loyal readers for sticking with me and supporting this strange, directionless blog over the last year and a half. It’s been an interesting flight for our little Vocabat.
Fui por lana y no salí trasquilada–¡yupi!
How would I say freshly pressed in Spanish? Above, you’ll see my completely non-kosher version, and–don’t worry–I know it’s causing a great deal of consternation, pena ajena, and serious eyebrow-raising regarding my Spanish abilities among my readers. You see, espichar is a super Colombian way of saying to press as in to press a button (oprimir, pulsar). Frescamente . . . pues, obvio. The context is all kinds of wrong, though. This may be the kind of shoddy translation we’ve come to expect from machine translation and second-rate translators who are willing to work practically for free, but hopefully you know by now that you can expect a little more from Vocabat. OK, a lot more!
WordPress would be Prensa palabras, just as we can have a prensa ajos (garlic press). The most literal and succinct translation, then, of Freshly Pressed would be recién prensado. Or recién publicado. Another possibility to connote hot off the press could be con la tinta fresca. The ink hasn’t even dried on this bad boy. The ink is so fresh it glistens. Maybe for online writing we’ll have to tweak it to con los píxels frescos. Got any better suggestions for Freshly Pressed in Spanish? In the name of professionalism and translation integrity, frescamente espichada obviously will not do. Since this award kind of makes me queen for a day, though, I’m going to milk this oh-so-fleeting distinction for all it’s worth and give frescamente espichada the A-OK. Any would-be pedantic quibblers can take it up with me in private.
So, long story short, I’ve been seriously considering moving back to Latin America for a spell. Believe it or not, this is a wholly new idea for me: it never even occurred to me over the last year, which–of course–says something. And then one day I just woke up with the strong, deep, compelling desire to do so. I wish I could pinpoint exactly what planted the idea in my mind, but I don’t remember. Something in the last few weeks. In fact, a lot’s been going on the last few weeks, new winds blowing through and old ones finally leaving. At this point, I really just need to decide if this is a wise or addle-headed decision and then get on with it already–either take off or take another direction in my life here. I can’t live with the ambivalence–I must make a decision! And I must stop caring about what other people think and learn to trust myself.
Depending on whether another opportunity works out for me, I could go around October, or it could be as soon as May.
In related news, I’ve decided that the perfect life for me would be to work as a teacher and travel every summer. So, the ideal partner would be either another teacher or someone who can work remotely. This setup is so perfect for me that I can’t understand why it never dawned on me earlier or why I resisted it. Of course, I will keep on translating and interpreting as well. And lots of dancing, cooking, and reading. And I will study more languages. Yes, this would be a life of bliss and meaning for me. Still, there are many questions. High school or college? City or countryside? Live in the U.S. and spend three months every year abroad or live abroad and spend three months every year in the U.S., periodically switching things around? Cats or dogs? But I don’t fret; everything will be made clear with time.
I thought for a long time about how to incorporate Valentine’s Day into a post. Last year I wrote about an anti-Valentine’s Day backlash in Colombia, and that old post has been peered at by many fresh pairs of eyes in the last week or so. If you want to learn Valentine’s Day or love vocabulary, I’m certain that lists abound on the internet. The world doesn’t need another post on any of that, though. I suppose, then, that I wanted to say something explicit and non-evasive for once about love. The fact is that there is love brimming over in every one of my posts here; each one is an encrypted love letter, some of those valentines more thinly veiled than others. You probably just don’t catch the allusions, quotes, or entreaties. Raised very religiously, I always find myself wanting to confess. I guess I wanted to come clean with my motives. Maybe all writers, though, have their secret reasons for writing. Perhaps a great deal of us write to many what we wish we had the courage to say to one. Like Gabriel García Márquez, soy escritora por timidez.
Speaking of García Márquez, I started to reread El amor en los tiempos del cólera (Love in the Time of Cholera) yesterday. Does there exist a book that is more romantic than this one? No? I rest my case. Not that I’ve read every book out there ni mucho menos, but I still feel secure in making that bold statement. For me, its romanticism can’t be topped. To be sure, I mean all the meanings of romantic, both good and bad. However, I don’t mean romantic as in mushy, kiss-kiss, chocolate and flowers and stuffed animals and all that other cursilería. For better or for worse, this book is romance par excellence. If you’re the romantic type like I am, it may be somewhat of a dangerous read. Of course, I discovered that when it was already far too late. In any case, I already had all of those silly notions safely dwelling in me, so it’s not like the book put them there. It certainly didn’t disabuse me of any of them, though. Ojo, let no one read it as a how-to on love or happiness unless you’re content to wait several decades.
I’ve written once before about rereading Cien años de soledad. A difference with this reread, however, is that I’m reading the same copy of El amor en los tiempos del cólera that I read the first time. (I chose to leave my beautiful copy of Cien años de soledad in Colombia.) The book’s certainly seen its better days. It’s battered and stained, the spine has fallen off, and you can pluck certain pages right out, but it has love and character and a story. I bought it at a used bookstore in downtown Medellín the day before I decided to move back to the U.S. In fact, I bought two books that day, and it was directly because of one very specific word on the first page of the other book that my ex and I decided to call it quits. Of course, I left that book behind as well. We’d gone to that bookstore specifically to look for El amor en los tiempos del cólera, and I just chanced upon the other book while browsing solo in the very cramped and low-ceilinged upstairs section of the bookstore. Who knows, maybe I’d still be living in Colombia if I hadn’t decided to read GGM’s second most popular book or hadn’t wandered up that creaky staircase to curiosear. La curiosidad mató al gato; just like in English, curious cats in Latin America meet a very lamentable fate. What if, what if, what if . . .
Earlier today I reread a fabulous, prize-winning essay out there on rayar libros–writing in books. Do our marginal scribblings give us away? Are the passages that we passionately underline emblems of our souls? What can you learn about a person by reading a book they’ve read? Can you communicate with someone through a book? What about a blog? Why do we spill our hearts in the most ineffectual places? Vaya usted a saber . . .
I’ve always loved “Marginalia” by Billy Collins, a poem exalting the art of peripheral commentary. Here’s the last part:
Yet the one I think of most often, the one that dangles from me like a locket, was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye I borrowed from the local library one slow, hot summer. I was just beginning high school then, reading books on a davenport in my parents’ living room, and I cannot tell you how vastly my loneliness was deepened, how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed, when I found on one page
A few greasy looking smears and next to them, written in soft pencil- by a beautiful girl, I could tell, whom I would never meet- “Pardon the egg salad stains, but I’m in love.
“How vastly my loneliness was deepened, / how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed . . .” Yes. If this isn’t an effective apologia for marginalia, I don’t know what would be.
Sometimes people write in books to censor them, ostensibly to protect readers’ innocence. I remember reading And the Band Played On in high school, and then I must have carelessly left it around the house somewhere. When my mom came upon it and read the stark, non-euphemized references to homosexual sex acts inside (the book is about the AIDS outbreak), she took it upon herself to black out all the offending lines (thousands, surely) with a thick marker. I don’t think she made it very far before realizing how futile it was. Censoring is always a fool’s errand. What if I had blacked out that homewrecking word in the other book I bought that day, the one that became the straw that broke the camel’s back of my relationship? Should I have at least taped a piece of paper over it, warning future readers to exercise extreme caution in reading the word if they are in precarious relationships? Dripped some tears onto the page? I wonder.
My own oeuvre of marginalia has been pretty paltry. It wasn’t until I got to college and got to know my friend Anna Laura that I realized one could write in books, or, even, that they should. To thumb through a book that she has read is almost like reading her diary: her heart and brilliant mind are displayed right there on the page, often outshining the text they abut. I’ve always envied her her intellectual graffiti. I wish someone could pick up what few books I’ve read, sniff them, glance at the astute rejoinders in the white columns, and know that they had passed through the hands of literati. Or at least fall in love with me. What does one find in my books? If they’re in Spanish, hundreds of definitions. Are these the most representative messengers of who I am? Maybe so.
In El amor de los tiempos del cólera, here’s but a small selection:
runaway slaves’ hideout (palenque)
mule driver *arrieros somos y en el camino andamos (nos encontraremos) (arriero)
haberdashery, sewing goods store (mercería)
quadroon (cuarterona)
witches’ gathering (aquelarres)
embers; lingering feeling (rescoldo)
Why do I get the distinct feeling that I am the only person who has ever written the words quadroon and haberdashery in a book? Is that my soul, too? What kind of kooky old bat will my great-great-grandchildren or the strangers who acquire this through an estate sale think I was? Should I tell them? Express in my will that I wish for all my books to be cremated with me? Switch to a Kindle? See, writing in books is more eternal and compromising than one first realizes. You have to think these things through.
Besides vocabulary words, what did I underline? ¿Qué me movió muchas fibras? Where did I feel myself most compenetrada, most aludida?
–Aprovecha ahora que eres joven para sufrir todo lo que puedas–le decía–, que estas cosas no duran toda la vida.*
Hoy, al verlo, me di cuenta que lo nuestro no es más que una ilusión.
–Es feo y triste–le dijo a Fermina Daza–pero es todo amor.*
. . . se consagraba a la pérdida del tiempo.
. . . nunca hubiera admitido la realidad de que Florentino Ariza, para bien o para mal, era lo único que le había ocurrido en la vida.
–Rico no–dijo–: soy un pobre con plata, que no es lo mismo.*
Florentino Ariza escribía cualquier cosa con tanta pasión, que hasta los documentos oficiales parecían de amor. Los manifiestos de embarque le salían rimados por mucho que se esforzara en evitarlo . . .*
Fermina Daza había rechazado a Florentino Ariza en un destello de madurez que pagó de inmediato con una crisis de lástima, pero nunca dudó de que su decisión había sido certera.
. . . la seguridad, el orden, la felicidad, cifras inmediatas que una vez sumadas podrían tal vez parecerse al amor: casi el amor. Pero no lo eran . . .
Esta cuca es mía.
Quería ser otra vez ella misma, recuperar todo cuanto había tenido que ceder en medio siglo de una servidumbre que no la había hecho feliz, sin duda, pero que una vez muerto el esposo no le dejaba a ella ni los vestigios de su identidad . . . quién estaba más muerto: el que había muerto o la que se había quedado.
. . . aquel amor irreal.
¿Por qué te empeñas en hablar de lo que no existe?
I put stars next to my favorite lines. People, don’t you see that you need to drop everything and read this book as soon as humanly possible?
Previous owners of the book had written a few things as well. Doña Duque G. is written in neat, feminine cursive in the margin of page 73, and pages 173, 273, and 373 say D ² G. at the top. While this initially seemed bewildering, I now see that my copy of the book has 473 pages. I guess that from these mile markers, Doña Duque could say to herself, Only four hundred more pages to go . . . only three hundred more pages . . . only two hundred more pages, ¡ya casi! Was this a punishment meted out to her by someone? Doña Duque G., the state will pardon your crime if you read this horribly schmaltzy mamotreto. Or did she shed a tear every time she reached the 73 mark as she was forced to realize that her time with the amazing book was rapidly running out and, similarly, she would one day cease as well?
On the title page, you can see that a name was once written in pencil before being erased. Oh, what wretched instruments erasers are! The same goes for White-out. They should be banned, rounded up, and destroyed. The last name looks like Posaada. No idea about the rest of it. One of the pages has also been ripped out. Naturally, this literary vandalism also speaks volumes. On the back of the book is an old yellow sticker that $15000←SET. As you can see, I clearly need to go back to Medellín to claim the rest of the set that was never given to me. I also want to buy more books and find more stories tucked inside stories.
So many people travel from country to country and spend so much money on counseling to find themselves, but maybe they would discover just as much, if not more, were they to pore through the books they’ve read and loved and see what stirred them in lives past. Perhaps life is too short to reread books when there are so many wonderful books out there, but it’s also far too long not to remember. And if books can be revisited and relived, then maybe certain times of life can also be returned to and even edited and reissued. If nothing else, marginalia lets us speak out of our loneliness and possibly right into that of a stranger who may even have something to shyly say back to us. Will anyone ever find our navel-gazing blog posts or heated Facebook comment discussions in 3013? Most likely not. Instead, immortalize yourself and emblazon your being on the future with a book and a pen. Someone will tenderly scrutinize it, someone will wonder, surely someone will read your barbaric yawp and care.
What remains from my two years in Colombia? Memories, of course, as well as relationships. Physically, almost nothing. I was never one to accumulate souvenirs or mementos, and I forced myself to leave behind what I would have most liked to have kept. The most overwhelming tangible evidence of my time there and how I spent my days are the hundreds of little scraps of paper with words jotted down on them, revoloteando around me, alighting on surfaces, lodging themselves in my hair . . . The other day, one of the papers mysteriously made its way to my dresser. I don’t know how; I don’t know why. I thought I’d share it with you to give you an idea of the kind of Spanish you can learn on a typical day in Colombia, or at least a part of a day. For all I remember, I learned these words in five minutes of talking. It was one of my very last days in Medellín, in early December 2011. All of these words came from conversations.
1. arremedar- to imitate, copy; to ape, mimic, mock. The more standard version of the verb is remedar. As you can see, I first thought it was arremendar. So, who was it that aped me? I certainly gave people a lot of funny fodder to work with.
2. comisionista- an agent, someone working on commission. We were looking for a new apartment at the time.
3. farrear- to party–regional slang. This is the only word whose context I included, and I remember it well. I was in a taxi with my ex and his mom in Bello, and I saw some graffiti on a decrepit wall that said No farees, compre comida. (Don’t go out partying; buy food.) (Maybe I wrote it down wrong, seeing as the commands mix tú with usted.) I could easily guess what farrear meant (as I know farra), but I thought it was such an interesting and strange exhortation to the pueblo from what I imagine was some average citizen. Was that a big problem there, people squandering what little money they made on drinks and clubs and not providing for their families? Who was it that decided that enough was enough and that eloquent graffiti could move people to do the right thing? I don’t think my curiosity was ever satisfied. Wish I could show you a picture.
4. pensum- curriculum, course requirements, syllabus. Basically, everything that a course covers. It comes from Latin. I’ve never heard or seen it in English, but the dictionary says “a task assigned in school often as a punishment.” I was looking for (and finding) work as a teacher at the time– maybe someone had asked me what I’d have to cover in my classes.
5. sonda- catheter, tube. I blogged about it here before. Both my ex’s mom and sister worked in hospitals, and many family members were in poor health at the time.
6. postrado/a- bedridden, confined to bed, prostrate. Like I said, conversations about health were common. Probably good preparation for what I do now.
7. Nanay cucas – No way, José; not a chance–extremely Colombian. I was still in the taxi with my ex and his mom, and I want to say that someone on the radio said this phrase. It was a phrase that I had read before but never heard, so I was happy and asked my ex about it. I then taught him the phrase No way, José in English. I think he was surprised that we would use a very Hispanic name in a colloquial phrase, and I responded by drolly telling him that it’s because we Americans are so diverse, international, and inclusive. Nooo, he quickly countered, it was a blatant example of racism. Just think about it. Oh, whatever you want, Kevin; absolutely, Derek; of course you may, Brandon; you didn’t even need to ask, Steve; NO WAY, JOSÉ. His comic timing and mock earnestness were perfect. It’s been an extremely long time since I’ve laughed that uproariously. There was no point in trying to explain my side-splitting laughter or the tears in my eyes to his mom; I’m sure I just told her that her son was muy charro and left it at that.
8. no estar ni tibio/a- to be way off the mark, to be crazy, to have another thing coming–Colombian phrase. I was way off the mark if I thought I still had much more time to be in Colombia.
9. lamber- to suck up, kiss up, be a teacher’s pet, be a brown noser–regional slang. Lambón/a and lambiscón/a are the noun forms. In some places, though, lamber is often used as lamer, and that’s why I put the star next to it, I think. Of course, I can’t be expected to remember the significance of every star.
Here’s the other side of the paper.
The first part appears to be either a brief shopping list or the ingredients for a recipe. APF is all-purpose flour. As there are no instructions, it’s probably a shopping list. Isn’t it funny to list that you need two eggs? (I don’t think I wrote that 2) Such a foreign, quaint concept to me now. Well, that was one of the great things about living in Colombia: huevos menudiados. Everything was close by, I walked everywhere within a 20-minute radius without even thinking about it, and I did most things on a smaller, simpler scale.
I’m guessing that the second part is a list of words that my ex learned that day. His English was very good, but sometimes we all forget basic words in the middle of conversation. I know he must have written that last word–I don’t dot my i’s. Unfortunately, I can’t piece together even the foggiest recollection of what we were doing when we said those words–it’s really only the Spanish that has stuck with me. Thankfully, almost everything was in Spanish.
God, I am missing Colombia today. Sorry to wax nostalgic. I love Spanish and words, but every one of those words is tethered to memories, emotions, and people for me. Speaking Spanish here just isn’t the same. I speak in Spanish, and for a minute there I recreate a world, reconjure up loved ones who are far away, and reembody someone I used to be. I know I was born into the wrong language; maybe I’m a fool to live so far away from it. Things that have been swirling around in my head lately.
If some stranger were to find this in the street, what ideas would they get? If I put this in a time capsule for someone to discover in 3013, what would they think they were looking at? What kinds of Spanish vocabulary relics do you have in your life? What sorts of stories do those words tell?
