Gold in the Sunset, or, Won't You Be My Neighbor

I'm sitting down to write responses to the list you made not too long ago. It's not that I have been avoiding it. I just can't seem to harness my mind in these weeks of sunshine and warmed flesh.

Springtime focus is not my strong suit. I will be just about to cross the T of a perfect thought, when a sundress and perfectly pedicured pink-painted toes go stepping by- my mind distracted wondering how hot and hard the sidewalk is beneath her feet.

(pause)

Regarding Item #4 of the list; Page 1:

When I was in interpreting school, they used to tell us to say what we were interpreting with certainty. If you are wrong, you are wrong, but what good is saying "My name is....Justin?" because it makes no sense. Obviously the person you are voicing for knows what their name is and would not be saying it like a question. If you as the interpreter didn't catch it, you must get clarity until you have something to say with certainty. 

The problem with this is that, over the years, this skill has absorbed into how I speak when I'm not interpreting, as well. It's not because I am certain of what I say all of the time. It is because there is a cadence that has seeped into me and become habit. I notice more often these years that people seem to act like I know what I'm doing more than I think I know what I'm doing in particular situations, and it freaks me out sometimes. I am not stating immovable facts. It is simply a tic of my profession. 

(pause)

Do I want to hear what you have to say; do I want to hear your take on things? Do I crave a thousand opinions and new mindsets and sweet redirection and correction?

Of course I do. 

I am as lost as any kid left to fend for himself, and there's nothing stronger than these nets of understanding that we build together. 

These nets hold us 

as much as cradle us 

and

as they do with weird fish from the sea: 

They lift us up.

(pause)

This evening, Carlos and I stood outside on cracked blacktop. He asked me how my Spanish was so good, and I said if there was anything good about it, it was because of the people in my life that I've learned from. He told me of his recent trip to the mountains and how, having just arrived back home from the trip, his soul was full. He talked to me about family. He talked to me about how people take water for granted. He talked to me about his satisfaction with the rental car deal he came across to drive to the mountains and camp there. He told me I should go there sometime. That it would fill my soul like it filled his. The sun was going down. He studied my eyes for a long time. It was the first time in over a year that someone, upon meeting me, shook my hand. 

k.

 

(image via tmpls tumblr)

(Thank you, A., for the prompt.)