disfrutar el español

I attended a poetry reading and some amazing films (Peruvian, Chilean, Colombian) this past month, usually with Colombian friends. The Colombian film was especially moving – not only was it beautifully made, but I realized partway through that it was shot at a lake where my family went for vacation twice when I was a small child! I haven’t been there since I was seven years old. Now I can’t wait to go back, and to learn more about the lives of the people who are struggling to survive in that area.

Spent the evening tweaking some Colombia photos that my CVC friends are going to get duplicated for our art show/sale in March. We’re also going to offer most of the chalk-pastel portraits I made of members of the community I visited in 2003-4. And some lovely handcrafted Colombian jewelry.

The Thursday before the show, my public-radio producer friend has happily agreed to interview one or two other CVC members and me, to provide an update on the women’s organization we support (the news is great! they are gaining confidence and economic self-sufficiency) and put out an invite to the event. The interview will be in English, but much of the prep – and generally all the communication I do with my CVC friends – is in Spanish. And there will be lots of Spanish on the night of the show.

I was elected secretary of the organization. I’ll have to take meeting notes in Spanish – a challenge! The biggest challenge will be in late January, when we have a half-day planning/celebrating retreat.

It’s to read in the wedding of my brother and his Colombian fiancee.

Others I’ve written in recent years have been free verse. This one is metered in the style of much Spanish-language poetry: a regular syllable count in each line. My sister who teaches Spanish language and literature has helped with suggested tweaks that smooth out a few rough spots. She and my other sisters really like it – and I do too. It feels like I’ve taken another small step into deeper Spanish facility.

Yay!

Recently I reconnected with a Colombian friend through her invitation to dinner and the very warm conversation that ensued. I learned that she and her daughter very much like classical and baroque music! So today I called about adding a third ticket to attend the first concert in the Music of the Baroque series, Monday evening Nov. 19. No problem, as it turned out – so the three of us will meet for a light dinner beforehand and then proceed to float on the music of Bach for a couple of hours.

I posted about my interest in translating the work of a particular Mexican poet in collaboration with my professor sister. Since then she has gotten a more comprehensive collection of his poetry than the one I have, and she really really loves it. This project would nurture us both, I think.

On FB I just found and liked the poet’s page, which allows me to send private messages to him (or his screener). I’ve drafted a message and sent it to my sister for editing. We ask permission to send a sample and a proposed work plan – so if he says yes, we’ll have to get right on it! I think it wouldn’t be too difficult to find a US-based publisher, as he’s becoming pretty well known. Oh, I SO hope that this works out!

I spent last night and all day today with my Colombian friends, making tamales as a fundraiser. There were seven of us last night, I think, and a slightly different group of eight today. So many steps to the process – chopping the meats and veggies, cleaning and cutting the banana leaves, preparing many sheets of aluminum foil, making the masa (cornmeal mixture), laying out the ingredients and folding the tamales, wrapping each tightly in foil, cooking in huge pots over wood fires (which involves keeping the fires going and periodically pouring warm water into the pots so the tamales didn’t dry out and burn) . . . Each potful had to cook for three hours, and we made six potfuls! It was GREAT fun.

And Spanish was the language in which all of this was accomplished. Delicioso.

My soon-to-be-sister-in-law has a beautiful voice and has often performed professionally over the years (she teaches music pedagogy at the university level). She has an opportunity to perform with a national group this fall, and she’s supposed to choose four songs that are new to her repertoire.

One of those she’d like to sing is “What a Wonderful Life” (so memorably performed by Louis Armstrong), but my brother researched it and can’t find a singable version in Spanish. There’s one on Youtube but it isn’t crafted to match the meter of the original, just to allow Spanish speakers to enjoy the meaning of the words.

So my brother proposed that we sibs try our hand at it, and one sister and I have already come up with singable translations! I really like them both. The final version will probably incorporate ideas from all of us.

It’s SO much fun, and brain-challenging in good ways. I want to do more of this.

I ate a quick supper and scurried off to a neighborhood bar I had never visited, to hear a friend perform jazz songs with a guitarist and bassist. They were really great! And an unexpected bonus: a Colombian friend I hadn’t seen in a year or more came in for the gig. Turns out the singer is a mutual friend. So the Colombian and I had some great catching-up time during the intermission, and she’s going to come for the house blessing I’m planning for this fall (see my “consciously choose newness” goal).

Such a happy night.

My sister sent me a book by a Spanish poet from my wish list, and I like it even more than I expected to. Now I have to find out whether someone is planning to translate it into English – because if not, I want to call dibs! I’d like to do it as a project with another sister, the one who has taught Spanish language/literature all her adult life.

We shall see!

I’ve been struggling with writer’s block in recent months, no doubt because of the recent trauma regarding X. But on Monday I wrote a new poem – and it came in Spanish. I translated it later, quickly, and sent it to my wonderful, discerning critique group.

We just had our monthly meeting, and they loved my poem!