As I go on, things just seem to get harder.
Already I know myself better. Already I know the world better... its people better.
But its been hard.
Especially this week. I have been missing home a lot. Its weird to know that everyone is living on, without me, and me without them, Its lonely.
Today is a month. A month away from home, a month lost, a month found.
I'm beginning to understand what people are talking about, which is the first step to speaking. I can say simple things, but I always feel like a complete mess when I'm trying to talk. I think that in 2 more months, I will speak well. I hope, because that is when my exchange year can finally start, and I think that I need to have some sort of intellectual connection...
I spend a lot of time here in solitude, trying to figure things out. There are so many feelings and so many thoughts going through me. I dont know what to do anymore. I am physically exhausted, as well as mentally, and sometimes I just want to give up. I dont want to try to understand anymore, I dont want any more newness, I just want to hold up in my room, lost in something familiar...a book or some music, but shutting myself up only prolongs the discomfort. So I tire myself with trying.
I dont think I knew how much strength this would take. But I've just got to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Its strange here, because I keep getting frusterated with the situation, I keep telling myself that I should be doing better, trying harder, that I'm failing. But now I'm discovering my limits. I feel like I'm losing my childish innocence. I'm realizing I am not able to do everything all the time, all though I know I can do a lot. I am realizing that things take time. Where in New Mexico things came easy..here things take so much work. everything takes so much work. and i'm getting stronger, I'm gaining perspective. Everyday. Getting stronger, learning..language, myself, the world.
Oh, its been so hard. But I would not trade this for anything. I know I'm going to look back on this year knowing that I spent my time in the best way possible even if it is not as fond of a memory as I had expected. Easy was the thing that I hated in New Mexico. Easy is nothing. This is something.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Hi, Sommer!
First things first: Wow, you write well, woman. You just keep that up, please.
What you describe sounds _so_ familiar. It really took me back to my early time in Mexico, before I could really speak well--before I got the "feel" of it. I found I could work away at speaking Spanish for about a five day stretch...then I just HAD to speak English, preferably to another person, but if I couldn't do that I'd journal or even (if I could find the privacy) talk to myself out loud.
I think one reason the process affects us so deeply is that it's actually physical, not intellectual. After all, babies learn to talk with their _bodies._ They put bread in their mouths, touch fuzzy cats, hear their mother's voice--it's all these things that get language labels later. The painfulness for someone who is learning by immersion, as you are, is that their body is learning, too: stretching and screeching and expanding and doubling to accommodate another set of _physical_ learnings. No wonder it made me want to curl up and suck my thumb!
The payoff, when it comes (it will come in bits, some of it sooner than you think, and never systematically) is that you'll slowly grow into having a body that is wise in Brazilian ways as well as American ways. (Note that I say "wise"--that doesn't mean either good or bad, just widely knowledgeable: that great old human burden.) In this world as it is, that particular wisdom is a HUGE asset. Unimaginable, really. But not lightly acquired, as we both have found.
Anyway. It's great to hear from you. If you feel like gabbing philosophically on the topic (or just gabbing), you know my email, I think (blog won't let me leave it). Or Maggie knows it.
Temporary measures: if you can, find an English speaker about every five days. (Huh! says Sommer. They don't grow on trees around here!)
Love, Betsy
Post a Comment