WRITING AS MIND WEAVING: I love this idea shared in an essay by Yoko Tawada, who writes so beautifully about language and translation. She lives between German and Japanese worlds and writes within both. I’m always astonished by writers who can move fluently between languages.
I tried with Swahili, I really did. I started learning the language when I was in my early twenties, young enough to weave its words into consciousness and work with it. But I always felt like I was standing on the porch outside the big Swahili house, waiting to be let inside and never knowing the right password. Maybe that’s too convenient a feeling to explain how far away I feel from the language now, even though I long to hear it woven into my day with the call to prayer.
These days, my breakfast contains smart choices like nonfat yogurt cups with real fruit on the bottom and a sprinkle of toasted almonds for indulgent crunch. During my Swahili days, it was all fried fish and potato cutlets, buttery chapati rolled up in flaky layers of hot goodness, perhaps a deep fried egg or two stuffed with spicy meat. I wrote a whole essay about Mama Jamila’s curbside breakfasts of sweet and salty porridge with fresh sesame bread that felt like a warm pillow. The best part about eating with her was the wild array of company kept on the curb.
To write is to weave with strands of the everyday. Before we know it, the page is a full loom of new understanding. It’s nearly impossible NOT to discover some previously unknown part of yourself if you write long enough without getting in the way and asking why—or worse—criticizing the why. Once our thoughts are out there or on the page, they take on a life of their own—attitude—sense—feeling—and they’re suddenly in full-on relationships with readers that have nothing to do with us, anyway!
The stranger often notices what the locals tend to ignore, whether we like it or not. The stranger can be told not to write what they see or make any comment on it, but when the stranger does those things, the local then sees what the stranger saw and perhaps writes a thing or two about it, in defense or explanation. In this way we are always holding up mirrors for one another and if we allow it, we look. Sometimes the stranger does not like what she sees. Sometimes the local resents what they’ve been shown.
I will never forget learning about how local Swahili women learned to trick the researchers who came from faraway universities to “mine” the minds of rural Africans for their wisdom on all things related to raising children, making money, health and wellness, love and sex.
The women agreed to sit with these earnest young-folk for hours answering their questions with a smile on their faces and a twinkle in their eye—with one secret fueling their response: never tell them the truth. Yes, the women confided in me more than once that they’d learned to tell the researchers what they wanted to hear—and wove them tales fit for their dissertations.
To wear a scarf in these villages was a sign of respect. Who would let their long silver hair fly in the salty wind like that anyway, what was I thinking, they asked me with a look of disdain and wonder all at once. Let me show you how to wear a scarf, more than one offered. So I sat in dark rooms with these women as the bright sun beat down on the scorched sand at midday, and they taught me how to tie the scarf around my head and neck for full coverage, tucking in the tail-ends underneath my chin.
One once handed me a mirror on such an occasion—ideally to admire her work—but when I looked at myself I felt like crying. I didn’t recognize myself, the scarf had been wrapped too tightly around my freckled, sunburnt face and all I saw were chin rolls and lies—this wasn’t me and I wanted to unravel her work and let my hair down. Instead, I thanked her and told her I loved it, weaving a temporary truth the two of us could share.
I took the scarf off as soon as I was back home and though I can’t remember if any part of this story is true, I probably did write about this feeling, as it’s coming up for me now as I type. What matters is not exactly what happened, but how memory reshapes what could have happened through the feelings we attach to it. I continued to wear scarves nearly every day during my Swahili years, but they got looser and looser as the years went on and I learned to tie them in a way that made me feel a bit more like myself.
I tried with Swahili, I really did. I started learning the language when I was in my early twenties, young enough to weave its words into consciousness and work with it. But I always felt like I was standing on the porch outside the big Swahili house, waiting to be let inside and never knowing the right password. Maybe that’s too convenient a feeling to explain how far away I feel from the language now, even though I long to hear it woven into my day with the call to prayer.
These days, my breakfast contains smart choices like nonfat yogurt cups with real fruit on the bottom and a sprinkle of toasted almonds for indulgent crunch. During my Swahili days, it was all fried fish and potato cutlets, buttery chapati rolled up in flaky layers of hot goodness, perhaps a deep fried egg or two stuffed with spicy meat. I wrote a whole essay about Mama Jamila’s curbside breakfasts of sweet and salty porridge with fresh sesame bread that felt like a warm pillow. The best part about eating with her was the wild array of company kept on the curb.
To write is to weave with strands of the everyday. Before we know it, the page is a full loom of new understanding. It’s nearly impossible NOT to discover some previously unknown part of yourself if you write long enough without getting in the way and asking why—or worse—criticizing the why. Once our thoughts are out there or on the page, they take on a life of their own—attitude—sense—feeling—and they’re suddenly in full-on relationships with readers that have nothing to do with us, anyway!
The stranger often notices what the locals tend to ignore, whether we like it or not. The stranger can be told not to write what they see or make any comment on it, but when the stranger does those things, the local then sees what the stranger saw and perhaps writes a thing or two about it, in defense or explanation. In this way we are always holding up mirrors for one another and if we allow it, we look. Sometimes the stranger does not like what she sees. Sometimes the local resents what they’ve been shown.
I will never forget learning about how local Swahili women learned to trick the researchers who came from faraway universities to “mine” the minds of rural Africans for their wisdom on all things related to raising children, making money, health and wellness, love and sex.
The women agreed to sit with these earnest young-folk for hours answering their questions with a smile on their faces and a twinkle in their eye—with one secret fueling their response: never tell them the truth. Yes, the women confided in me more than once that they’d learned to tell the researchers what they wanted to hear—and wove them tales fit for their dissertations.
To wear a scarf in these villages was a sign of respect. Who would let their long silver hair fly in the salty wind like that anyway, what was I thinking, they asked me with a look of disdain and wonder all at once. Let me show you how to wear a scarf, more than one offered. So I sat in dark rooms with these women as the bright sun beat down on the scorched sand at midday, and they taught me how to tie the scarf around my head and neck for full coverage, tucking in the tail-ends underneath my chin.
One once handed me a mirror on such an occasion—ideally to admire her work—but when I looked at myself I felt like crying. I didn’t recognize myself, the scarf had been wrapped too tightly around my freckled, sunburnt face and all I saw were chin rolls and lies—this wasn’t me and I wanted to unravel her work and let my hair down. Instead, I thanked her and told her I loved it, weaving a temporary truth the two of us could share.
I took the scarf off as soon as I was back home and though I can’t remember if any part of this story is true, I probably did write about this feeling, as it’s coming up for me now as I type. What matters is not exactly what happened, but how memory reshapes what could have happened through the feelings we attach to it. I continued to wear scarves nearly every day during my Swahili years, but they got looser and looser as the years went on and I learned to tie them in a way that made me feel a bit more like myself.
