Sonntag, 25. Januar 2009

interpreting

My husband edited my letter of intent.

Do you see? My expression of desire for a job and my qualities for that job were read and corrected by my husband.
I have to go to an interview and present a self to a perspective employer.

I've been mistaken for other people. I've reminded people of someone who they used to know. I can translate words on paper but have trouble doing simultaneous translation. I interpret what I am feeling to my husband. I presented my understanding of things to small children for over a year.

One day in a train, a Deaf man was trying to get information for why we had stopped. The conductor was not able to explain it to him. She was busy. She needed to inform the car that we were going to need to switch to another train. I turned to the man and asked if I should sign to him what was going on. I wished that I would be asked to interpret for the conductor. I didn't want to simply answer his questions myself. I was afraid that I would be tempted to lie or not tell the full truth. I couldn't, though. I had a friend who was Deaf and I knew the importance that I give him the most accurate information I had. So I didn't say that there was a technical problem. I signed. "She has informed us that someone has jumped from the bridge. She said that the person is on the track and that Police and Ambulance are here. She's just made an announcement that we will need to transfer to another train, which is coming." I found the man later when the conductors were telling us to fully step down from one train before stepping onto the next. That we were not to touch both trains at the same time.

I've been going to a meditation class that is in four parts. I want to have the honesty of interpreting for a Deaf man on a train when I am interpreting what my body is capable of and what my reality is right now.
I want to be that clear when I am at an interview. I want to present the facts. But my husband has edited my intentions.

Montag, 5. Januar 2009

that one time

When I was in the states this winter it snowed. It snowed and snowed and that snow coincided with a car trip, which was scary. I held my breath when we slowly crested hills with the car downshifted. (I say we, but I mean my brother-in-law, who volunteered to hold all of our lives in his hands so that my sister and I could make it to a yoga retreat.) I kept thining about the one big accident that I had had. My car slid down a snowy slope and underneath a schoolbus. I thought of it ALOT!
I thought mostly about the still weirdness that happens before the crash, the blood rushing in my ears, I thought about the fear and the futility.

Just now, not in a car, not in the snow, I thought of the other, the better, parts of crashing. Let me tell you now that this was a bloodless affair and everyone was fine. One part  was the great cheer the children in the bus let out when the hood of my car slid under the bus' rump and shattered in a fun way (it was a saturn). The best part, however, was the part that I wanted to share:
I got on my cell phone (a new addition to my previously analogue life)  and called my good friend and neighbor, a woman with whom I was apartment-hunting, Dacia. Her boyfriend answered her phone.
"Tyler, I had a crash!" I screamed
"I know! We watched you through the window!" (the crash happened when I tried to not crest a hill ; hoping instead to slide into my road before momentum built up)
"Look behind you!"
I did. Luckily it wasn't another car coming to hit my car, which was next to two smashed cars and under a bus which had crushed a car into a telephone pole. It was Dacia, sliding down the hill on her  toward my car; propelling herself forward on mittened hands. I would have an incredible and essential relationship with this woman. We would live together and support one another and care for one another. Before moving in with her, I lived with a cold woman who was my complete opposite. After living with her I was a better woman and could give myself more of what I needed. And the moment that most clearly defines that wonderful experience is watching this caring, loving grown woman, paddle herself down a hill on her ass to come and sit in my broken ass car and drink my travel mug coffee and hold me while I laughed and on to the time when I would need  to have a big scream - when the adrenaline wore off.)

We watched the cops slip and fall on their bums, we watched a cop car and a snow plow spin down the hill - one after the other - the snowplow spinning down and landing on my back-bumper and unloading sand all over it.

better memory, I think

Sonntag, 4. Januar 2009

New Year

It is a New Year!
Like the last 5 years, I rang in 2009 in on a mountaintop with a small group and with Churches chiming (the church in the next town over always a bit prematurely), pretending that I am not afraid of my brother-in-law setting off fireworks.
Crashes and booms meant to scare off the baddies of last year were not enough, so Ivo and I turned ourselves around to 2008 and screamed at the tops of our lungs. Very cathartic. I screamed at the bad parts of the growing pains in our marriage this year. I screamed at anything medical. I screamed at all the frustrations and stumbling blocks. And yet.......

When I look in the future and imagine myself an old lady, I wonder what I will think of this time in my life. What will I tell my grandchildren? Will I be jealous of them? WHO STARTS THEIR MARRIED LIFE AS AN ABSOLUTE BEGINNER AT ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING?!?!?! German, Swiss German, Swiss culture, Accordian, being a daughter-in-law, Kick-boxing, Snowboarding, Eating meals with other people, Yoga.....

So, the past couple of years I have been a beginner and not so good at things. I've needed to be patient, I've needed to be humble, I've needed to be be an adult learner. What are my plans for the New Year? More of the God damned SAME!
I guess I wasn't shouting at being a beginner, cuz I've got beginner-plans for 2009. Adult swim classes, French lessons and french school in Paris, leaving the confidence that comes from working a job that I know how to do and have done for more than a decade for a job that I have studied for but never actually done, jumping in the adult pool metaphorically as well and gettin' me a hearing aid.

I'm all about figuring out how I want to identify myself. I guess I never figured that I would be a beginner, that I would CHOOSE to.