Como Un Abrazo
9/5/05
Emilio approached me as I sat at the computer.
“Can I tell you something?” He asked me, his eyes looking into mine with a directness that had intrigued since the first time he had spoken; which happened to be the first time I had really noticed his presence. During our introductions he told us about his experiences as an exchange student in the United States when he was 17, “many years ago”. At that time he knew almost no English, and his family no Spanish. Some days he was moved to come home and exclaim loudly to his family, either in joyful excitement or frustration, in Spanish. They couldn’t understand these outbursts and therefore couldn’t really respond, and yet he needed to burst anyway. His best friends became a little neighbor boy from up the street, and an older man of 60 who loved table tennis. These companions sought him out and he accepted their friendship gratefully.
At dinner I sat between Emilio and Oscar, and we had our first conversation. “Puede hablar Espanol, Eva?” He asked.
“Yo intiendo mas que lo hablo,” I replied, to which he said, “Ah, but you said it correctly, pues si esta bien.” And then he asked me about my work. How do I like to study, and how do I present myself in my portfolio? I told him that I enjoy writing. I think research is important, but I am also constantly looking for the balance between the academic and the creative sides of my personality. He looked at me, directly in the eye, paused for a moment to see what was there and said,
“If you have a passion, a romance with the words, it is enough.” I felt that in just a few moments he had seen my tendency to expect more than enough from myself. He uses words with eloquence, when he speaks in Spanish and English. I don’t sense that he speaks merely out of necessity or survival, but rather so that beauty and symbolism can enter the ear and materialize in the vision of the mind. If I can love the words, that is enough.
Today he approached as I sat, with furrowed brow, trying to remember how to post pictures onto my blog.
“Can I tell you something?” He asked.
“Por su puesto,” I said, of course.
“Yesterday you said that the symbol you held in your mind of your experience of Costa Rica is an image of yourself cradled in the base of the Tamarind tree. I wanted to tell you that the people of the forest say that the base of the tree es como un abrazo, like an embrace. Your thoughts are like those. That is what I was thinking yesterday.”
Emilio approached me as I sat at the computer.
“Can I tell you something?” He asked me, his eyes looking into mine with a directness that had intrigued since the first time he had spoken; which happened to be the first time I had really noticed his presence. During our introductions he told us about his experiences as an exchange student in the United States when he was 17, “many years ago”. At that time he knew almost no English, and his family no Spanish. Some days he was moved to come home and exclaim loudly to his family, either in joyful excitement or frustration, in Spanish. They couldn’t understand these outbursts and therefore couldn’t really respond, and yet he needed to burst anyway. His best friends became a little neighbor boy from up the street, and an older man of 60 who loved table tennis. These companions sought him out and he accepted their friendship gratefully.
At dinner I sat between Emilio and Oscar, and we had our first conversation. “Puede hablar Espanol, Eva?” He asked.
“Yo intiendo mas que lo hablo,” I replied, to which he said, “Ah, but you said it correctly, pues si esta bien.” And then he asked me about my work. How do I like to study, and how do I present myself in my portfolio? I told him that I enjoy writing. I think research is important, but I am also constantly looking for the balance between the academic and the creative sides of my personality. He looked at me, directly in the eye, paused for a moment to see what was there and said,
“If you have a passion, a romance with the words, it is enough.” I felt that in just a few moments he had seen my tendency to expect more than enough from myself. He uses words with eloquence, when he speaks in Spanish and English. I don’t sense that he speaks merely out of necessity or survival, but rather so that beauty and symbolism can enter the ear and materialize in the vision of the mind. If I can love the words, that is enough.
Today he approached as I sat, with furrowed brow, trying to remember how to post pictures onto my blog.
“Can I tell you something?” He asked.
“Por su puesto,” I said, of course.
“Yesterday you said that the symbol you held in your mind of your experience of Costa Rica is an image of yourself cradled in the base of the Tamarind tree. I wanted to tell you that the people of the forest say that the base of the tree es como un abrazo, like an embrace. Your thoughts are like those. That is what I was thinking yesterday.”
posted by Eva Hathaway at 9:30 AM
2 Comments:
Tamarind fruit
Sweet and sour
Rich brown fiberous
Saucy and willing to harmonize
To know the tree as well,
a gift
It is a lovely thing to be held in embrace by something as wonderful as a tamarind tree. You can picture yourself there, held with that strength -
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