Sunday Musings- Languages
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about first and second languages. I am a native English speaker, but at a certain point in my history, I learned to speak Spanish. I lived for about a half year in Costa Rica and although I never became completely fluent, I became comfortable enough with the language that I would sometimes dream in Spanish. And yet, English will always be my first language and the one in which I think and write with the most facility. I love the nuances of the language in which I personally write poetry, but I’m also grateful to have learned that some things can be said so much more descriptively in spanish, and that some words cannot be translated directly and must be taken in context.
This leads me to consider the gift of personal context and gift of difference. For instance, I am one of the last generations to grow up completely analog. I grew up with tons of unsupervised outdoor time, I got bored and figured out something to do, I was encouraged to get good grades, but I was never concerned that a less than perfect performance on a high stakes standardized test, might effect my classmates, my teacher’s salary or my school’s designation. My husband and I wrote long letters to one another when we were first dating. A heart felt story or question took two or three days to arrive and at least two or three days to return with a response or answer. Sometimes it is helpful to get a quick response to a pressing question, but there is also something to be said for stories that unfold slowly.
For me, living in the digital realm a second language. I am fluent. I use digital tools (including Substack) every day, in my art form and in my communications. I do pretty well all things considered, even though I don’t have a Tic Toc account.
Side note: I do have to qualify this idea of emerging from a cultural container. There are so many individual differences to our experience. I’m just saying each generation swam in a general sociological ether. But how each person grew, changed, embraced or walked away from cultural norms was very individual. I mean, I became a folksinger, against the better judgement of …well, just about everyone. That said—
Even though the digital world is my second language, really appreciate the conversations I have with those who grew up either before me, or after me. There is a perspective that comes from those who experienced life before everyone had a television. Its really good to hear stories from those who grew up with 1 foot in both analog and digital world, or those raised completely in the digital world and for whom technology is their first language.
We have so much to offer one another. In spite of 24/7 media’s insistence that there are no bridges, there is still so much to learn from hearing the context of one another’s story. I’m not saying its always easy, in fact sometimes its crazy hard. Maybe that is the point of this post. We live in a time when political difference has become so contentious it is hard to find or see the possibility of something creative happening if we can pause and take a deep breath of wonder and curiosity. Because it is in that deep breath we might recognize a bit of ourselves in another’s human story.
This can still happen. I see it happen all the time in music. People come together regularly and often while sharing what lives at the heart of an honest song. We still experience awe and wonder, we still recognize ourselves in another’s stories within the context of art. That seems to be evidence that is possible to experience and somehow honor what is valuable in our differing and yet shared stories.
I’m part of a book group that reads and ponders spiritual literature together. Once we read the Anita Barrows/ Joanna Macy translation of Rainer Rilke’s Book of Hours. The Barrows/Macy translation presented each poem in the original German text, followed by the English version. I remember my friend, Julie, (a brilliant daughter of German immigrants, who knows and teaches german fluently) gave us beautiful insights into the small nuances of the German text. There were words that poetically pointed somewhere but could not be directly translated. There was something beautiful to experience in both languages.
Question: What does having a first or second language and appreciating the context for our stories mean to you? What have you learned from the story of someone older or younger than yourself, when you listened with curiosity and a willingness to hear?
Coming October 13, 2023 - A Great Wild Mercy
Notes from the studio…..
Well, I’m into the final stretch to mix and master the new album. I’m very happy with this work, and so excited to share it with you. The creative collaboration on this project has been beautiful, luminous, fun, challenging in good ways, professional, personal, kind of a true gathering of musical spirits! I’m utterly covered with gratitude!
I never know what an album about when I am writing recording. Most often it is in hindsight that I sense the threads running through the work. I have never written a song to give an answer. Instead, I am always writing myself into my next becoming. That said, this recording feels like integration, like a time to honor the stories that brought us here and to take this moment to consider what we’ve learned before we move forward. In the song, “ Great Wild Mercy”, I describe a summer storm that broke the heat, then watching a woman decide to close up her umbrella and step out into the cooling rain.
It feels like its been raining a long while (pandemic, toxic politics, concern about climate change, ect) and that we’ve been huddling beneath our umbrellas for such a long time. Maybe its time to close them up and step into the rain.
Anyway…it is nearly done and I’ll be sending out news about the 1st releases on Spotify Singles and Special Pre-release packages including Great Wild Mercy, ball cap, T-shirt, signed poster, and of course the CD itself!
Summer Shows & A Great Wild Mercy Fall Tour
For more dates and info visit my website tour page at www.carrienewcomer.com/tour
Tickets are now available for The Great Wild Mercy Album Release Show In Bloomington IN
For tickets and learn more about the show that will feature Gary Walters, Allie Summers, The Gathering of Spirits String Quartet and Special Guest Tommy Prine, visit the BCT Ticket Site
Bloomington Roots and The BCT are offering a limited number of special VIP Tickets with an artist meet and greet, a signed poster, and more….and they are going fast.
I too have always loved words. As an only child I grew up with older people..thus, a career in social work, working with the elderly, disabled, and marginalized. After college, I lived in a tiny village in Haiti with a minister, his wife, and 5 young children. It changed my life to say the least. Those 5 kids,( along with some college classes in Haitian Creole with a Haitian Linguistics professor at IU and a lot of help from God!) gave me a pretty good handle on the language. A new place, a new language, a different lifestyle, young children that I had never been around, certainly stretched my being. Then I have found the language of my pets stretches me as well. They communicate so effectively with absolutely no words, they are so much younger and yet so much older and wiser all at the same time! But, the point that seems so very obvious to me is that your music supersedes all that!!!! Thousands of people listen, hear, are touched, and moved along their life’s journey wherever they happen to be. The very same words you write, mean one thing to me, and another thing to the next person, and another thing to the next. “You can do this hard thing”....you can pass this test, you can survive this grief, you can solve this challenge of finances, you can make this pie crust, you can teach this child, you can grow this food, you can fight this disease, and a million more you can’s.....so, English may be your primary word language, but love, grace, acceptance, forgiveness, encouragement and however many other life giving adjectives exist, are your REAL primary language, and we are all so blessed by that gift!!!! I am anxiously awaiting the newest lessons to be learned with A Great Wild Mercy!!!!
Language, words and where they originated as well as their shades of meaning, has always fascinated me. I grew up in a place where English and Spanish were spoken...English being my primary language, the beauty of Spanish my joy to learn. In my twenties I found myself deep in religious language...totally English...with some Latin and German in my studies. In a spiritual practice shared by Todd Weir a few weeks ago I realized that all my experience had deepened my roots in relationship with that Spirit I think of as God, creator and guide. My languages have broadened my perspective...your music has touched the depth of many of those perspectives...I look forward to Wild Mercy!