Inexplicable Lingua Espanol

The Lady of the Cakes (Jan 2016 blog) highlights the 5 main bits of useless advice about learning a language and asks for contributions along the same lines. While no additional advice springs to mind ,here are some thoughts from an intermediate Spanish learner about learning Spanish .According to Duolingo,the free language learning app, I am now 45% proficient,and I would like to acknowledge my gratitude to the program which forms the cornerstone of my learning.Examples are taken from Duolingo but all interpretations and mistakes are mine.Also I ask for your indulgence ,gentle reader,for any errors in spelling,translation and meaning.

I only have a few notes at the moment .When I have my earphones on and am waiting for that success sound at the end of a section-
“DA …AH …A…A …. “ ,and watch my SP rise(that is the time spent that day on Duolingo),I am loathe to stop and record.Then there is the notification that I have ,finally,gone up one stage (am stage 13 at moment,feels like I have been on 13 for ever and ever).Mostly I cannot afford to be distracted by recording the strange combinations of nouns and verbs I have encountered. However today I managed to record some of the phrases that fascinate,puzzle and sometimes scare.

First category :Scary/Sinister
The knives and razors -razuradora.The word itself is a combination of a harsh slashing sound and a soft ,homely “dora “ at end .Cucharas (knives) is all soft .Ok lets concentrate on the razors.Someone is always shaving :dad ,doctors , lawyers.Is there something sinister about this ? Is it a sign that Spanish guys like to go without facial hair?I guess the other question is why do I have to learn this .Knives alright,I might need to ask for one in restuarant ,but razors ,no.
Into this fits “sotano”(basement) -“yo duermo-en el sotano….Why am I sleeping in the basement ? And why would I ever want to read there? My Anglo view of basements is linked to darkness and confinement:my grandfather in a freezing English winter long ago escaping to the basement to collect coal for the kitchen boiler,a hunchback aunt who would spring out of her damp ,evil smelling basement rooms as soon as one of us children went downstairs on the way to the miniscule garden outside the lower ground floor of the terraced house .Certainly creepy.
In this category too falls the “comandante” y “coronel” sentences .Why do they always have to Hablen together ? One wonders what they are up too ,especially as the coronel”has such a rounded and soft sound .Moreover there is one phrase later on about “el commandante tiene una bomba”(the commandant has a bomb)Bombs?and a feminine ending too.

Category2 :Cleanliness,Clothes and Capability
Is Spain obsessed with cleaning and bathrooms ?Someone,usually feminine,is always cleaning the bathroom ,and the bathroom and kitchen have to be “limpia”.As a visitor I always ask if the room has a bathroom (tiene un dormitorio con bano?) ,not if the bathroom is clean .On my travels I have always cared more about the toilet than the bathroom ,like how far away is it in the night and how many beds do I have to stumble over before I get there.
Perhaps I am one of those who simply do not fit -Tu no capes,-and it seems like fit does not just mean because of size ,but just don’t fit in.A lot of sentences have a he or a she who do not fit.Or else not capable .
And why is the shirt (“camisa””)so important ,for males as well as females ? “Camisa” and “ropa” are recurring first words on Duolingo.next to greetings .I wonder if Spanish youth go round unclothed ,or have in the past ,or are shirts symbolic of states ? “Yo tengo suficiente ropa” The word ropa..is singular and plural ,and has a feminine ending .Certainly I have learned about red (roja)shirts and green(verde) shirts.Also about being dressed.

Category 3 Madres
Spanish guys love their mothers, and of course the Madonna is omnipresent even though Franco has long since gone .Personally I love this about Spain ,and the fact that the sons-always the sons -,“ayudan” (help)their mothers .But my feminist side does ask about the whereabouts of the daughters(who in my experience always end up caring for their grouchy or ungrateful mothers ) and the mothers’ partners( who seem to escape). On the other hand there is a certain equality in the language in relation to gender.I don’t know enough about gender and that has been discussed in another Lady of the Cakes blog-but there seems an equal,some might say random, distribution of male and female endings.

Why I love Spanish-Enamorado
I love the Spanish language precisely because of its puzzles and ambiguity ,at least in this still quite ignorant learners eyes
But most of all I love Spanish for the richness of its metaphors and the stream of yearning that runs throughout.Yearning and ambivalence .Madrugada ( the dawn ),todo el dia (all day)The dawn of the new day does not sound as poetic as” La madrugada del nuevo dia” Similarly Anoche-through the night ,conveys a night of possibiities and variations .Spanish nights full of music and food and interaction ,long long nights that stretch beyond the ten o’clock curfew of us organised Anglos .Nights are for adventures and romance,as well as for strange “aparace”:It appears ,it seems .Not is .
”And nothing is but what is not “ (Macbeth,Act,Sc3.)Perhaps an unfortunate quotation,as neither I nor the Spaniards are contemplating murder.However to those of us who in our daily life contemplate the blurred distinctions between reality and imagination ,the increasing ambiguity of existence,Spanish affords great comfort.The Spanish language offers the opportunity to merge into another life,even to temporarily adopt another persona .

A Rumination on running with a sling

IMG_0163.JPG
Rottnest Island ,Western Australia

A Rumination on Running with a Sling

I am running along a path on Rottnest Island ,Western Australia ,my left arm secure in a black sling .I have become attached to that sling ,my shoulder and wrist are safe.I also feel like I stand out from the walkers and runners along this way .I am not just another old woman stumbling along ,red in the face and short of breath ,pumping my arms and leaning forward as I have been told in training so as to get maximum benefit from the running movement ,shoulders back ( that in itself creates problems .I fear that the lean forward will tip my precarious balance so that I topple over onto the already injured arm .How do I lean forward ,look ahead and keep shoulders back while moving at a pace past a stumble ?)

Age and falling are much on my mind today .My mother after countless falls has a frame ,which she uses just to toddle around the house.She never goes out the front door ,not even into the garden.Her days are spent sitting on the same chair around the dining room table staring into space,rinsing out undies and boiling some rice at 3:30 pm on the dot .She comes to the door after a few rings and if she cannot get the visitor to go away she grudgingly lets them sit in the chair opposite her for a bit ,peering constantly at the clock and saying that she has to get her tea done .This as well as being almost stone deaf ,so it’s an exhausting process talking with her ,even when she wants to hear. My favourite aunt ,my mums sister,is in the hospital with a serious lung problem .She cannot breathe properly ,and has stopped moving too .My mother-in-law,always self sufficient , has organised her daughter to move her into high care.Older friends have started dying .Even some not so old friends have died from assorted causes .I am back running as far and fast as I can.But falling is always on the cards.

The writer David Sedaris in his collection Lets Explore Diabetes with Owls describes his fall during a tour of some ruins .A man yells “Don’t move him”.Sedaris recounts as he moves stiffly around the next morning that it was not the impact of the fall that caused most hurt ,but the embarrassment of that remark-he felt not only stupid but “stupid and old “.I confess right now that after reading the Sedaris essays I thought ,well he is old.He is a writer ,he has written about the mostly muddled ,accident prone and much travelled existence he leads ,and he gets away with it.People read him-why not me ?So David Sedaris if you read this ,thank you .I have finally come out as a writer,and although I may not emerge as amusing and touching a writer as you ,I can have a go in the short time remaining before I fall off another chair and stop running .This blog starts with my fall from a chair at Rottnest holiday island off the coast from Fremantle.

Actually I had just got back from the mainland ,returned to the cottage my husband and I were renting for a long term stay and I panicked (another thing that old people do more often ).Where was my computer ? It was not on the shelf I usually leave it on ( old people have to leave objects in the same place each time they put them away or they forget firstly that they ever had the object and secondly they spend hours in a fruitless ,increasingly panic stricken search before retreating into a stupor .This leads to a recurrence of depressive symptoms if not halted immediately by some action like a run ,or rushing to the wine bottle and the cake or nuts .Or, the least harmful reaction ,if the partner is around, a blend of blame ,wistfulness and indirect threats slung at the partner)

I was on my own and had been warned by aforesaid partner about standing on chairs .Nevertheless,in an unthinking moment I grabbed a curvy surfaced chair ,dragged it to the shelf up above the cupboard in the bedroom and leapt up on it with both feet.No computer.Rising heartbeat.In my haste to get down one walking boot tangled with other as the curved chair surface rose to meet the sides of the boots and a hurriedly tied lace .I felt the snag and foresaw the fall the second before it happened .I saw my self hurtling through the air to the tiled floor and hitting the shoulder that I have already injured twice from assorted falls,but my body was already in freefall.Fortunately I managed to fling my left hand out in front of my shoulder so that the wrist took the impact as my arm bent back with a loud click .Pain shot through my whole arm as I lay there thinking ,well thats a broken wrist now,how stupid ( and my computer was where I had put it ,but disguised under my jacket )
The bandage and the brace from the island clinic plus some panadol raised my spirits a little.It was a black ,leathery looking brace . My hand fitted in it like a glove ,and I could still run.

In the few days before I had to go back to the mainland to have an X-ray I felt really secure running along with my left hand in the new shiny leather black brace .
My feelings of euphoria ,the product of running ,enabled me to be quite writer-like about some reactions to female runners ,well older female runners .A reaction I have been wanting to document for years ,well,ever since I entered the veteran category .Its all in the tone of voice ,and usually spoken by older ,often potbellied ,men
“Well done “on a rising tone means surprise ,lower means the opposite ,like “silly bugger “,a flat tone means “hope I don’t have to pick you up of the road or call the ambulance “
“Hello” or “Hi”,ditto regarding the tones .This one word has many nuances though as it can mean “ don’t talk to me ,we know how old women look for any opportunity to talk and I am busy .”It often denotes complete disinterest ,like you are an invisible object crawling along the horizon ,not worthy of even a slight gaze
“Careful Now “is usually spoken by a man not moving ,probably at a roadside drinking point or leaning on a wall or propped up against something ,usually with a red face and other signs of high blood pressure.It may be that he wants to strike up a conversation as ,understandably ,his partner has left him .The addition of “love “,this is in Australia,enhances the annoying factor as it denotes a relationship and a caring which the speaker has no right to.Remember I am now at the END of the run ,highly coloured ,gasping for air ,legs buckling ,which means I cannot answer back.I am in no state to be charitable and take this comment at face value or even just as an Australian older male habitual phrase
Which leads me to my forthcoming blog entry ,to the hazards confronting older women runners ,or ,more engagingly,Vets .You will be surprised to discover that the principal,most enduring hazards come from within our own female ranks.Not from the slightingly daft comments made by old male passersby on the periphery of the running circuit .

 

Running lightly along the edge

Running is a sort of metaphor for life .Im sure that has been said before .To rephrase -the techniques of running  and the learning how to run using just enough energy ,caring enough while avoiding some of the pitfalls are mirrored in everyday living

Starting off after a longish break my body feels like a shapeless hulk being willed along the path ,each step hitting the ground with a resounding thump ,each knee bend hurting ,twinges in my back ,shoulders aching as I pull my heavy body forward with my arms .But i keep going ,keep putting one foot down and lifting the other up ,keep my head forward and my breath coming in and out .

If i go too fast i won’t last the distance ,if too slow then it takes so long that I question the reason to run  .Eventually my breathing becomes less rapid ,I can afford to think of things other than how tired I am and how hard it is and what a shit runner i am and how much i weigh ………I can start to think about how the sun is shining ,the view from the path across the bay ,the colour of the water ,how great it is that I’m here in this spot at this time and able to run .

i still have to check for potholes and unsuspected traps ,like bikes coming round the corner ,dear pets tripping me up , the sudden dip in the bend ,the gravel waiting for me to slip .As in The World According to Garp , always beware of the undertow .Forget the unfortunate possibilities  once and that can be an end of a running life .

Running ,really running rather than treading heavily on the ground ,is like a meditation without the  introspection .

 

Making new spaces ,what to keep and what to leave ?

This blog is to go with the photo ,and Ive just been trying to get some images into my writing .Even that is fraught with questions -which images ? why ? What is the theme or linking thread ? What should i delete from computer ,and how do i use the time i have ,to do what of the myriad things i want to do ( or tell myself i want to do ) Hence the title
How do we recreate spaces ?how do make something more liveable and beautiful out of what has become outworn .How do we manage the chaos ,the dirt and dust ,the muddle ,the noise ,which comes from that ,the intrusion on what small routines we have .Most important ,how do we know when to stop before the construction of other spaces twists round on itself ,bites its own tail so that we are back in the very space we were trying to leave ,but minus the bits that we wanted to keep .
Renovation is like the idea of relocation or travel .Somehow the move will transform ones soul ,will provide the direction and surroundings needed to become different ,to nurture all those skills and qualities that have been buried in the present surroundings .Be wary ,don’t dream too much ,invest too much in the future change ,the new spaces .Because wherever you place yourself ,all those beliefs ,attachments ,fears and inadequecies make a little mound around your feet .A smaller mound if you are lucky .
Have you looked at the questions before the making ,like what to get rid of and what to keep? on a purely physical level ,how have you sorted those old photos some of them lying in boxes or scattered around in drawers ? Have you tossed out the clothes you no longer wear or need ? What about that great pair of boots you bought at the op shop a few years ago and wore once ,but just know you might wear them again .Or that blue silk dressing gown you once bought your now buried father ,packed up and posted to him for his birthday .He wore it for 40 years and it was still with him at the end .You kept it when you sorted through his things .The drawings of children and grandchildren ,the special ones with hearts and i love you printed on them .Its easy to toss the school photos taken over the years spanning schooling of the five children ,its easy to toss away some of the memos and bits of writing that came to nothing ,its harder to toss away the shells gathered on different beaches during someones long illness ,a birth ,a depression ,a walk with a child ,each of them has a story ,but only to me .its harder to get rid of Rafs dog collar and tag ,the dog who spent most of his life wandering the neighbourhood and beyond in the days before fences kept us all safe and inside OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA