VIII

A couple of random thoughts from my Saturday:

One. I can walk for miles. It’s an insatiable need to walk and I always thought it was due to being a New Yorker, but now I’m not so sure. I have an inkling it might be a symptom of restlessness that sends me power-walking over long distances.

I visited a mechanic today on the south side of Winston—right off of Waughtown St—and after dropping the car off, instead of calling my brother or sister to pick me up, I decided to make the hour-long walk to Bailey Park. From Waughtown to Patterson on foot. Marble was so close.

Two. I’m grateful to understand Spanish. To be the romantic I am without the ability to understand one of the three love languages would be tragic at worst, and unfortunate at best. I was put on to a song recently and—like I always do—tried to see if I could translate the lyrics into English without losing meaning, but I couldn’t do it. You can translate the primary color of what’s being said, but you can’t translate the particular shade of what’s being said—as well as the way they’re saying it. The gulf lies in the nuances of Spanish that don’t cross over into English.

For example, “te extraño” translates to “I miss you”—fair enough; that’s a transliteration and it means the same thing. However, the more nuanced “me haces falta”, while also translated as “I miss you”, isn’t technically the same thing—even if the idea is the same. “Me haces falta” is saying more. How would you translate that?