perspective
The other day I ran into an old acquaintance who had studied in Spain last quarter and whom I had seen maybe once or twice in the past 2 years. She started speaking to me in Spanish and I was a little surprised because I hadn't been expecting it but nonetheless, we carried on our conversation in Spanish.
Afterward I was wondering why it bothers me so much to speak in Spanish with native English speakers. I came to the conclusion that what I most desire in human relationships is connection and that there are already enough barriers between people that we don't need to add on top of those an unecessary language barrier. Language is an essential part of identity and speaking in a non-native language does wierd things (in my experience) to the mind and identity of the speaker. Granted, the whole reason I learn other languages is to make connections to people-but obviously to people who don't speak English. A person speaking in his/her native language can draw on all sorts of social and historical connotations with which a non-native speaker may not be familiar. I learn Spanish in order to make Spanish speakers feel more comfortable talking to a foreigner, but in order to connect to English speakers, I obviously speak in English. We have so much in our shared language that can connect us, why would we speak anything else?
A friend, R, later pointed out to me that my acquaintance probably associates me with all things Spanish and so by speaking to me in Spanish, she in fact was trying to connect to me. This had not occurred to me.
I ran into my acquaintance again today, and again we spoke in Spanish. At the end of our conversation she told me she was so happy she ran into me so we could practice Spanish. Afterward I realized that she is going through exactly what I went through when I returned from Ecuador: the simple depression at not being in a Spanish-speaking country where Spanish IS life, and not just a part of life. With this understanding, I realize that actually the best way for me to connect to her is to speak in Spanish. Thank you, R, for giving me perspective.
apologies
I did something terrible today and I feel like an awful person. So, I would like to send out this apology into space, knowing that it may never reach the person but hoping that if I apologize somewhere, she will feel forgiveness from some collective consciousness.
Today it rained very hard and the streets were full of puddles. I was driving home and after veering to avoid a huge puddle, I naturally began to veer back to the appropriate lane. I did not make the connection that the girl walking on the sidewalk would be splashed by the car as I passed and I realized it a second too late. I splashed her, and a feeling of remorse swept over me as I looked back at her staring after my car, indignant, angry and annoyed. I fully understand the girl's frustration since I am a pedestrian myself (the car was borrowed) and I detest it when cars drive by with no regard to the splash they make on those on the sidewalk.
I apologize with all my heart. Please forgive me.
abortion and the nature of the soul
in a class we have been discussing abortion and contraception. with the premise that i do believe in the soul (whatever that means-i apologize for not setting up a definition), a question of mine has been, when is the soul created? is it at conception, is it when the embryo takes on a gender, when that group of cells passes from being a group of cells into a group of human cells, when the baby leaves the womb?
i suppose in reality that the answer (if there is one) hinges on the definition of a soul. however the attempt to define soul is so daunting that i will save it for a rainy day.
on that note, i will still pursue the question of when. true to my inherited Western individualism, i previously thought of the soul as an individual-as in i, Leah, have a soul and you, reader, have your own soul and never the twain shall meet except in bodily contact.
this may be an erroneous view of the soul. consider the doctrine of reincarnation in Buddhism in the context of abortion: "a being was going to be born. for reasons judged good by the would-be parents, that birthing was stopped, but the being who would be born is put back in waiting. the 'life' that was rejected or that died through miscarriage or infant death is called a mizuko [in Japan] and parents pray for its well-being in the sacred realms to which it has been returned." (from Sacred Choices)
let's say that "soul" does not refer to my soul but instead to the collective soul, this spiritual one-ness in which we are all part. and maybe our personal souls are simply unique expressions of this collective soul. in this way, the soul of an individual would never be created, as if it weren't there and then it was; it would just always have existed.
the question is: when an embryo or fetus is aborted, what dies, what is killed? all of us eat, and therefore all of us are guilty of killing, either animal or plant. those who are upset about abortion must be upset because they see an injustice. so, what is the injustice they perceive about abortion? in other words, what is being killed by an abortion? is it a group of cells? because we do that everyday when we eat our vegetables and meatballs. or is it a soul? how is it possible to kill a soul? the perceived injustice must be, then, that this soul did not have a chance to manifest a unique expression of the Soul lived out here on earth.
in order to understand abortion, it is necessary to understand the perceived injustice about it. doing this could 1. get more people to agree, 2. help us to understand what the real argument is and 3. help us move forward in finding a solution.
because it is certainly not as simple as saying "abortion stops a beating heart," as i hope this post shows.
by the way, i used to think it was as simple as this. the more i learn, the more i see that it is not. please post views, perspectives, and responses so we can help each other understand a debate that has been recyclying the same discourse for a couple decades now.
life.
this is what i experienced between 1 pm and 3:45 pm today:
in religion class we watched two videos, one was a documentary on the Women's March in Wash DC that was esteemed for presenting both sides of the issue (abortion/women's rights) but was clearly biased toward the women who were marching; the second video was called "Abortion Diaries" and presented in a very real way the stories of 10 or so different women who had all had abortions.
after class i walked by the central part of campus where i observed for 5 minutes an evangelical preacher and the crowd of students that were gathered around him.
walking home, i passed by the following: a man with wild hair and beard, head down searching the sidewalk for what i assumed were nickels and dimes; a girl who for unknown reasons has never been friendly toward me, i smiled and waved as usual, and was pleased that she actually acknowledged my presence by saying hi; a guy who 4 years ago asked me out on a date, even though i didn't realize that's what he was doing at the time and he has creeped me out ever since; a display in somebody's yard that included a sign with "Earth (does-not-equal symbol) Ash Tray" and various giant cigarette butts lying in front; and finally, a caterpillar that i saw alive this morning and had somehow gotten smashed during the day.
then, i voted. and thought it ironic that i was doing it in a church.
if i were to write a book, each of these events could be a chapter. that is why i am overwhelmed with life, or maybe i just think too much. women's rights deserve its own post(s); i will comment on the preacher.
the preacher had attracted a crowd to him. i later realized that while some middle-aged persons were there, it was only students who were engaging with him. no children or older persons were there (i assume they are both too wise to care). what i thought was sad was that while it seemed like these people were engaging in dialogue, we all know that the preacher is not really listening to what the students are saying, and the students are not really listening to the preacher. i wanted to gather them all, invite them over for tea, and say "so, what is the argument?" and once they realized they didn't even know what the argument is, i would say "well, we are all human beings who love and care about the people in our lives, right? let's go from there."
if the preacher saw the man that was scrounging the sidewalk for change, in what way would he be more acting like Jesus?
1. by opening his Bible and reading to him in a very animated and loud voice how all of his sins are forgiven and he now has eternal life through Jesus being raised from the dead -or-
2. by ushering him into the restaurant nearby and giving him a good meal, company, and a pair of ears to listen to his story.
a personal entry
This is an excerpt from a book called "Dear Exile," which is the one-year written correspondence between two women friends. One woman writes of her breakup:
"I hate the idea that he continues to pay his phone bills, to button his shirts, to age, to eat, to read or not read the newspaper. I hate that he lives in real time, that everything he does involves the decision that he didn't want to do it with me. Somewhere he's filling up his gas tank and I'm thinking about how I'd like to see the way his arm looks doing that[...]how his fingers looked, by themselves and against mine. How his sentences came slowly, for reasons I won't find out. How tired he was, how sad and tired all the time and determined to be well and good. How I wanted to heal him, not by helping him or carrying him but by huddling next to him. How I wanted to have his whole world, to move it in some way across my body, or to digest it, to have it be at once foreign and part of me. I wanted him to talk forever for the sound of his voice, for what he said and what made him think of it and what it made him think next, for how it sounded in the trees or in a room, for what the room said back."
No one told me life was fair; but I'm going to complain about its unfairness anyway. Why do men make women feel like fools? Note here that I say men, not love (I concede lust and infatuation must leave one feeling like a fool. Of course). Why do they pursue us, treat us well, pretend to be a friend and then disappear into their own lives? Were we wrong to hope that a person cared about us enough to want to be with us over a long period of time? Were we wrong to hope that this person wanted more than just fun and games? Were we wrong to believe him, to believe in him, to believe in a real relationship? And even at the end of it all, were we wrong to believe him when he said he wanted to still be friends? Left with feelings of frustration, disappointment, anger, hurt, disillusionment and foolishness, one is looking for someone to blame. I don't know where the blame falls although I know this post looks like I'm blaming men. And I know you (men and women) hate me for stereotyping (both men and women). But even if I weren't speaking from personal experience, in the past 6 months 11 women, that's right, 11 of the wonderful women I know have had uncannily similiar experiences; such that it's beginning to sound to me like all men have the same recipe for a relationship. And it's 12 women who have been hurt, but by 18 guys. These are not good statistics.
The pain could disappear instantly, if one could just erase all the memories. All I want is someone who wants to commit to me because he values me, who thinks being with me (not 24/7, certainly) is a joy and not a burden, someone who is my friend, someone whom I make a better person and who makes me a better person. This is love.
I realize that nothing is as it seems and that everything is more complicated than it appears. But the feelings I listed above remain, despite any understanding of the situation or of the guy, and I don't like feeling them. And I feel like such a fool for having believed that something beautiful could have lasted.
an update
as usual, I lied about getting back to blogging. The strange thing is that lately there has been so much on my mind, and much of it I have consciously wanted to blog about, for reasons unkown.
I have created another blog solely for the movie Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others). the link I'm sure is somewhere on this blog, maybe on my profile, but the address is www.daslebenthelives.blogspot.com. those who have not seen the movie are of course, welcome to participate in the discussion. i find this movie profound, i think, in that international sense of we human beings are all the same and all over the world people have similar ideals and people are beautiful. all over the world. i connected to this movie because i saw in it the ideas of Plato and the hope that a person can choose good over evil-and yet the brilliance of the movie was not that it was Good vs. Evil, like a Lord of the Rings motif, and for the main character things were not so black and white-i mean to say the choice was not so clear. When he was with the Stasi, he believed what he was doing was right. but his mind was opened and he choose to believe in something else, something else that was right.
i could just go on and on. i'll save it for the blog.
and hopefully i'll be posting more frequently.
peace out
