Every morning I wake up and reality seems to push the reset button as I re-learn how to exist in another world. I wake up and realize I can´t speak the same way I did in my dream. I wake up and come to grips with a world that seems limited to my capacity to speak.
We started our 5 week long Spanish class this Monday, all 46 of us split into 15 or so different classes, 3 or 4 students to one professor, based on the verbal skill level we exhibited in our interview. After 3 days of class, I can definitely say the excitement of vast and immediate improvement because of our baller Costa Rican professors has worn off. Not to say I´m not learning, it´s just difficult to accept the reality that this desire to speak another language effectively is going to take a lot of time and effort.
Yes, for three months, I have a new family. I can hardly understand mi mama, but every once in a while I surprise her with clarity in comprehension and I seem to make her smile more than what her normal quota would be. Don Mario reminds me in stature of Albert Eistein and is one big child at heart. ¨Pura Vida¨ is his life philosophy and his rendition of the Costa Rican national anthem and our shared appreciation for Popeye proves my theory. Carmen, my 22 year old sister, is a ¨sweety,¨ if I may. I feel most comfortable talking to her in my broken Spanish... probably because she meets my feeble attempts with a smile and a nod. Her stuffed bear didn´t have a name, so I took the liberty and named it ¨Georgy Porgy¨. She found that hysterical. I plan to reimburse her for giving me a new anthology of Spanish music by making her a CD of classic, epic, tasteful American music, all carefully plotted of course, according to her musical tastes. Marito is the youth pastor of the church we go to and I told him he has the hair of Jesus. Apparently no one had told him that before:) He´s a good man. I have yet to connect with Alexis, mainly because he retreats to his the dungeon of the computer room immediately after all meals and encounters. His time is coming :)
While walking home in the pouring rain, I realized a definite struggle inside my heart. A struggle to find a place to set my feet and jump off the cliffs I pass by every day. You´d think being here, in and of itself, would be large cliff to fall from. And it was. But now I feel the strain of needing... of wanting desperately to keep falling, not just settling for another soft bed to land. I know I´m only here for a few months, however it seems like we´ve already been here for a lifetime and that we will have another lifetime to make up our dang minds. I´m coming to a point and I know I need to make this experience black and white asap. I can´t sit on the fence anymore with my thoughts, with my anxieties, with my inadequecies, with my affection, and most of all with my heart. I need to let go, swallow all the pride I have left and jump.... again. Again and again and again... Holding onto nothing while falling upwards into the open sky that I knew somehow this short season would be like. I understand something needs to change. And it can change in an instant. Yet its in those moments of change that make it a journey. The strain of it all is overwhelming at times. Overwhelming in a totally new way, a way I´ve never known before. Nothing comes easy. Yes. Rome was not built in a day. (thanks Beth...:)
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2 comments:
Your blog reminds me of that Freefalling song John Mayer sings on that CD you gave me. I hope that when you do let go you enjoy where you end up.
Andrew - Its great to hear about how you are doing. I felt the same way, especially in Germany, wanting to connect with the people, but not knowing how. I love ya bro!
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