The Halfway of Languages: The Art of Connection

It's morning. The sky is beautiful, and I am facing a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows in a cafe nowhere near the city in which I live. The music is just right. Guitars: not too country; not too folky.  Cement floors. Wooden tables. Small, bare light bulbs on thick wires strung across the room, above me.

Oatmeal and brown sugar to my left; an americano (with a dash of cinnamon) and a glass of water to my right.

I am waking up.

Thinking of the people in my life.  Thinking of something a good friend said about how being around other people who also use multiple languages somehow gives her a sense of belonging- even when the languages they use are not the ones she uses.  I understand this, somehow.  And it's strange to think about all of the people that have played a hand in me getting here- to this muti-language'd patchwork of connection.  It's awing for me to think about. I know a lot of people are brought up with multiple languages. I wasn't- minus the random scraps of my grandfather's language that was recited at birthday parties, in come-ons and in insults- so it means something to be here.  How much my life has changed.  How much people and language and culture and humor have changed it.

In any case: Back to these window panes. A bit more tracing the clouds with my eyes is due before I start my day.



Be well; be loved; be open: What is confining you may be yourself.



k.


(image: Poldi, 1914, Egon Schiele via giampixx tumblr)