"Travel is fatal to bigotry, prejudice, and narrow-mindedness. Broad, wholesome, and charitable views cannot be acquired by vegetating in one tiny corner of the globe."
- Mark Twain
Pablo Neruda and Words
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I found this today and wanted to share it. The writing is by one of my favorite, if not my favorite, Hispanic writers, Pablo Neruda. It deals with Latin America, but even more with language. As I think about pursuing a job without writing, I sort of mourn because I love words.
The Word
You can say anything you want, yessir, but it's the words that sing, they soar and descend . . . . . I bow to them . . l love them, I cling to them, I run them down, I bite into them, I melt them down . . . . . I love words so much . . . . . The unexpected ones . . . . . The ones I wait for greedily or stalk until, suddenly, they drop . . . . . Vowels I love . . . . . They glitter like colored stones, they leap like silver fish, they are foam, thread, metal, dew . . . . . I run after certain words. . . They are so beautiful that I want to fit them all into my poem . . . . . I catch them in mid-flight, as they buzz past, I trap them, clean them, peel them, I set myself in front of the dish, they have a crystalline texture to me, vibrant, ivory, vegetable, oily, like fruit, like algae, like agates, like olives . . . . . And then I stir them, I shake them, I drink them, I gulp them down, I mash them, I garnish them, I let them go . . . . . I leave them in my poem like stalactites, like slivers of polished wood, like coals, pickings from a shipwreck, gifts from the waves . . . . . Everything exists in the word . . . . . An idea goes through a complete change because one word shifted its place, or because another settled down like a spoiled little thing inside a phrase that was not expecting her but obeys her . . . . . They have shadow, transparence, weight, feathers, hair, and everything they gathered from so much rolling down the river, from so much wandering from country to country, from being roots so long . . . . . They are very ancient and very new . . . . . They live in the bier, hidden away, and in the budding flower . . . . . What a great language I have, it's a fine language we inherited from the fierce conquistadors . . . . . They strode over the giant cordilleras, over the rugged Americas, hunting for potatoes, sausages, beans, black tobacco, gold, corn, fried eggs, with a voracious appetite not found in the world since then . . . . . They swallowed up everything, religions, pyramids, tribes, idolatries just like the ones they brought along in their huge sacks . . . Wherever they went, they razed the land . . . But words fell like pebbles out of the boots of the barbarians, out of their beards, their helmets, their horseshoes, luminous words that were left glittering here . . . . . our language. We came up losers . . . We came up winners . . . They carried off the gold and left us the gold . . . . . They carried everything off and left us everything . . . They left us the words.
The Word
You can say anything you want, yessir, but it's the words that sing, they soar and descend . . . . . I bow to them . . l love them, I cling to them, I run them down, I bite into them, I melt them down . . . . . I love words so much . . . . . The unexpected ones . . . . . The ones I wait for greedily or stalk until, suddenly, they drop . . . . . Vowels I love . . . . . They glitter like colored stones, they leap like silver fish, they are foam, thread, metal, dew . . . . . I run after certain words. . . They are so beautiful that I want to fit them all into my poem . . . . . I catch them in mid-flight, as they buzz past, I trap them, clean them, peel them, I set myself in front of the dish, they have a crystalline texture to me, vibrant, ivory, vegetable, oily, like fruit, like algae, like agates, like olives . . . . . And then I stir them, I shake them, I drink them, I gulp them down, I mash them, I garnish them, I let them go . . . . . I leave them in my poem like stalactites, like slivers of polished wood, like coals, pickings from a shipwreck, gifts from the waves . . . . . Everything exists in the word . . . . . An idea goes through a complete change because one word shifted its place, or because another settled down like a spoiled little thing inside a phrase that was not expecting her but obeys her . . . . . They have shadow, transparence, weight, feathers, hair, and everything they gathered from so much rolling down the river, from so much wandering from country to country, from being roots so long . . . . . They are very ancient and very new . . . . . They live in the bier, hidden away, and in the budding flower . . . . . What a great language I have, it's a fine language we inherited from the fierce conquistadors . . . . . They strode over the giant cordilleras, over the rugged Americas, hunting for potatoes, sausages, beans, black tobacco, gold, corn, fried eggs, with a voracious appetite not found in the world since then . . . . . They swallowed up everything, religions, pyramids, tribes, idolatries just like the ones they brought along in their huge sacks . . . Wherever they went, they razed the land . . . But words fell like pebbles out of the boots of the barbarians, out of their beards, their helmets, their horseshoes, luminous words that were left glittering here . . . . . our language. We came up losers . . . We came up winners . . . They carried off the gold and left us the gold . . . . . They carried everything off and left us everything . . . They left us the words.
Hoarg!
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Well, I guess my peeps from World Mission Tour are coming home in March so...yeah...not really sure what I'm going to do now. I've got a lot to think about, I guess.
The Intensive
There is a little thing that I think every teacher tries to impart to his or her students before they get into the real world: self-discipline. Hopefully they did a good job for me, because during the next month I'm going to have to work my little fingers to the bone to try to finish a mound of homework. Barnes and Noble, the library--I leave Central America and the western United States in favor of you. You shall be my new home.
Anyways...I've returned home from Atlanta and North Carolina. I had a lovely time bonding with all of my fellow Outdoor Education students and the teachers. The first week we spent in Atlanta at a camp of a hundred-plus acres of land right within the urban sprawl of the city (who would have ever known?). During that time it was lecture after lecture after lecture starting from about eight in the morning until nine-thirty at night. We had various professors who came in from different parts of the South to impart their knowledge. One of my favorites was Petey who transformed our group into the fabulous singing sensation called "Mama Bass and the Mudsliders." We sang in pond animal costumes about things like watershed. I had a sequined orange dress with fins and an orange and white hood that had my face coming out a fish's mouth.
Another notable professor would repeatedly ask us, "Are you with me?" after every sentence. I wonder if he still wonders about that. We're still with ya, man!
Sometimes our marathon of lectures would be broken up by outings. We went, for example, to the Atlanta Zoo. Besides looking at the exhibits, we visited the zoo kitchen. Did you know that they feed primates things like Cliff Bars? Well, primates are amazing climbers!
After finishing a week in Atlanta, we went to North Carolina to help create a mobile outdoor education school for some of our good friends that lead an adventure based camp. The friends came to my first intensive and canoed with us in the Boundary Waters this past fall, so we've bonded with them and were excited to help them out.
Before we became ensconced in our work, we had part of the weekend off, so Monty came up to visit from Chattanooga. Carol, he, and I went hiking up to Looking Glass. It is a beautiful piece of granite that some of my friends have rock-climbed (someday I hope to join in their ranks). Then the three of us explored Asheville. We ate at a Thai restaurant and then wandered the streets. I went to high school near Asheville, so perusing it again brought back all sorts of memories of cruising Patton Avenue, the Mellow Mushroom, watching movies and eating pizza at the Asheville Brewery and Company, window shopping in the little hippie stores, looking at the art smattered everywhere, and sneaking off campus to Beanstreets for coffee on group dates, with friends, or with my boyfriend at the time. The latter place was especially dear to me, so I had Monty and Carol hunt with me to find it again. After searching in vain, I finally asked a fella on the street who told me that it had shut down. Wow, I was pretty bummed. The guy told me he had also gone to high school nearby and had loved the place as well. We wallowed in our sadness and nostalgia together.
Similarly, Monty and I discovered that a tea house in which we had spent hours reading and listening to live poetry after taking a rock-climbing anchors class last year had also shut down. The experience reminded me how transient places are and how important it is to remember (hence, one of the reasons I write so much). I love to travel, but it's the experiences with people that I have in various places that I treasure.
On Sunday Monty left and everyone in my intensive returned to get back to work. Our group built materials for and tried group initiatives. We also thought up and put together curriculum for the initiatives as well as for environmental education classes. On Wednesday night, we went to a church youth group and had kids try out a lot of the games and initiatives. Then on Thursday, we took the initiatives and environmental education to a school to do programs for three fourth grade classes. All the students and teachers seemed had a lot of fun and expressed desires for us to come back. I was just happy that our friends have a good start for beginning their program.
I acquired a new friend in North Carolina. She's black, furry, and currently has no name. She's in my garage right now harassing Ursa to no end. I should go see how she's doing. Have a happy week!
By the way, I highly recommend the book I'm currently reading.
Anyways...I've returned home from Atlanta and North Carolina. I had a lovely time bonding with all of my fellow Outdoor Education students and the teachers. The first week we spent in Atlanta at a camp of a hundred-plus acres of land right within the urban sprawl of the city (who would have ever known?). During that time it was lecture after lecture after lecture starting from about eight in the morning until nine-thirty at night. We had various professors who came in from different parts of the South to impart their knowledge. One of my favorites was Petey who transformed our group into the fabulous singing sensation called "Mama Bass and the Mudsliders." We sang in pond animal costumes about things like watershed. I had a sequined orange dress with fins and an orange and white hood that had my face coming out a fish's mouth.
Another notable professor would repeatedly ask us, "Are you with me?" after every sentence. I wonder if he still wonders about that. We're still with ya, man!
Sometimes our marathon of lectures would be broken up by outings. We went, for example, to the Atlanta Zoo. Besides looking at the exhibits, we visited the zoo kitchen. Did you know that they feed primates things like Cliff Bars? Well, primates are amazing climbers!
After finishing a week in Atlanta, we went to North Carolina to help create a mobile outdoor education school for some of our good friends that lead an adventure based camp. The friends came to my first intensive and canoed with us in the Boundary Waters this past fall, so we've bonded with them and were excited to help them out.
Before we became ensconced in our work, we had part of the weekend off, so Monty came up to visit from Chattanooga. Carol, he, and I went hiking up to Looking Glass. It is a beautiful piece of granite that some of my friends have rock-climbed (someday I hope to join in their ranks). Then the three of us explored Asheville. We ate at a Thai restaurant and then wandered the streets. I went to high school near Asheville, so perusing it again brought back all sorts of memories of cruising Patton Avenue, the Mellow Mushroom, watching movies and eating pizza at the Asheville Brewery and Company, window shopping in the little hippie stores, looking at the art smattered everywhere, and sneaking off campus to Beanstreets for coffee on group dates, with friends, or with my boyfriend at the time. The latter place was especially dear to me, so I had Monty and Carol hunt with me to find it again. After searching in vain, I finally asked a fella on the street who told me that it had shut down. Wow, I was pretty bummed. The guy told me he had also gone to high school nearby and had loved the place as well. We wallowed in our sadness and nostalgia together.
Similarly, Monty and I discovered that a tea house in which we had spent hours reading and listening to live poetry after taking a rock-climbing anchors class last year had also shut down. The experience reminded me how transient places are and how important it is to remember (hence, one of the reasons I write so much). I love to travel, but it's the experiences with people that I have in various places that I treasure.
On Sunday Monty left and everyone in my intensive returned to get back to work. Our group built materials for and tried group initiatives. We also thought up and put together curriculum for the initiatives as well as for environmental education classes. On Wednesday night, we went to a church youth group and had kids try out a lot of the games and initiatives. Then on Thursday, we took the initiatives and environmental education to a school to do programs for three fourth grade classes. All the students and teachers seemed had a lot of fun and expressed desires for us to come back. I was just happy that our friends have a good start for beginning their program.
I acquired a new friend in North Carolina. She's black, furry, and currently has no name. She's in my garage right now harassing Ursa to no end. I should go see how she's doing. Have a happy week!
By the way, I highly recommend the book I'm currently reading.
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