June 14 - lonely
in case anyone is wondering why some of these sound like they're written from site, it is because they are journal entries dredged up for the blog when i get to the capital:
June 14
Today was a lonely one in the small ways that are hard to explain to anyone who hasn't lived alone somewhere very far from their idea of home. Spending a few hours this afternoon with two sisters that I"m friends with -- maybe I should be flattered, but for whatever reason they have stopped speaking mostly in French when I am around. Certainly my Pulaar isn't good enough to follow most of or contribute to a normal conversation. Bouncing between earnestly listening for the fragments that I do understand and daydreaming when I lose the will to focus... Watching them talk and joke and laugh on a gray rainy day I wanted nothing more than to be somewhere with my own family talking and laughing Just relaxing and communicating without really trying. Sometimes laughing at the things they'e saying and sometimes at the incomparable way that they say them. And understanding each other without any barriers in between, not searching for words or ways to translate experiences while simultaneously censoring them or fishing for small talk that is worth the effort of pronouncing it. I would like to be talking to my brother in some kind of warmly-colored restaurant booth after dark, feeling cozy and companianable.
June 14
Today was a lonely one in the small ways that are hard to explain to anyone who hasn't lived alone somewhere very far from their idea of home. Spending a few hours this afternoon with two sisters that I"m friends with -- maybe I should be flattered, but for whatever reason they have stopped speaking mostly in French when I am around. Certainly my Pulaar isn't good enough to follow most of or contribute to a normal conversation. Bouncing between earnestly listening for the fragments that I do understand and daydreaming when I lose the will to focus... Watching them talk and joke and laugh on a gray rainy day I wanted nothing more than to be somewhere with my own family talking and laughing Just relaxing and communicating without really trying. Sometimes laughing at the things they'e saying and sometimes at the incomparable way that they say them. And understanding each other without any barriers in between, not searching for words or ways to translate experiences while simultaneously censoring them or fishing for small talk that is worth the effort of pronouncing it. I would like to be talking to my brother in some kind of warmly-colored restaurant booth after dark, feeling cozy and companianable.
posted by amandab at 4:33 AM
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