In Translation

The desire to sift through images and solidify them into words does not constitute an ability to do so effectively.  Words are not always effective translations for the actions and images around us.  Nor is it always possible to push and mold the words into minor, faded representations of what we see without our eyes.  Perhaps this is the starting point that we all need to run our hands over and understand.

Our experiences have different textures for us all.  Hand one person a bitter memory and, with eyes blindfolded, they feel acidic juices that when tasted pucker their mouth shut.  Another person may feel weeping clay and realize that it only needs a bit of time before they are able to mold something beautiful out of what used to be ugly.  Still another person may run their hands through the memory and be met by course denim, scrapping and immobile.  But that same person may choose to work with the memory, running water through it, soaping it up, drying it and beating the cloth with wizened hands – tanning the toughened memory with patience and attention.  Soon, they have soft worn cotton.  Soon, they have a cloth that anyone can touch and relish.

The one thing that we all share is an attempt to translate ourselves daily into a spoken and written language.  We all stumble over words, trying to find the precise term that will convey the deepest meaning with the most clarity.   We all are in translation.  We all hope that our minds can translate quick enough and clear enough that our audience will understand what we so desperately want them to understand.  Each person feels, not in words, but in stirrings and flashes that come with no letters.  Each soul vibrates, curls inwards, glows colors never seen, hollows out, fills to over flowing.  Each touch is not done in letters – no combination of the alphabet will ever feel the same sliding over our wrist.  There is no formation of the tongue that can accurately shape our experience of breathing in and out in utter happiness and contentment. 

We all, each of us, pour ourselves into translation.  Trying to fit our daily shakes and shivers into words that let others know that we are scared – that we swell beyond our skin with happiness – that we feel quiet green filling our limbs with languid contentment. 

We are all in translation.  I only hope that some of us can get it right.