Notes 3
Daria has a need to understand things, like the way she has a hard time looking at one of Janey's abstracts without finding something there that she can identify. She's not one to easily accept something simply for what it is; but she recognizes that aspect of her nature and accepts that, being human, she cannot understand everything. She's learned to accept the existence of mystery, but still searches for the key that unlocks it.
She's struggling with the why of us. I know she doesn't doubt it, she's told me that when she's with me, she feels whole. I know exactly what she means by that.
In some ways we're polar opposites, and so we compliment each other. She's analytical, I'm intuitive. I kind of think we're learning from each other; I know we both value the other's point of view. I know I do, and she's always curious about what I think about something. When we talk about things, I come away with a broader view. Her perspective always shows me a slightly different side of things, but maybe it's because she's a little twisted- in a good way.
Late last night something really cool happened. She's into this Mexican poet, Octavio Paz. She fell asleep reading a book of his poems, the original Spanish on the left pages, an English translation on the right. I start to put it away, but then I began reading it. I guess I sat there for a long time, reading the English text, and trying out the shape and sounds of the Spanish in my head. I don't understand Spanish, but you could sense the beauty and rhythm in the original work.
Finally, I look up, and she's half awake, rolled over on her side, watching me read, with that little smile on her face.
"Do you read Spanish?" I ask her.
"A little," she tells me. She reaches for the book, finds a particular passage, and reads aloud from the left side. As she does, her voice shifts from that tightly controlled, habitual way she has of speaking, and opens up. Emotion begins to surface, and I find myself enjoying the texture and timbre of her voice. She really has a beautiful contralto.
She stops reading, and hands the book back to me. "Do you read English?" she smiles. I begin reading aloud the translation, and she sits up next to me, leaning on me and reading silently along.
"…because two bodies, naked and entwined,
leap over time, they are invulnerable,
nothing can touch them, they return to the source.
there is no you, no I, no tomorrow,
no yesterday, no names, the truth of two
in a single body, a single soul,
oh total being…"
-Octavio Paz, Sunstone/Piedra De Sol, 1957
A/N: Octavio Paz Lozano was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990 and is one of the greatest poets of all time, IMHO. Check out his work, it dazzles even in translation. I've heard him described as an Existential Nihilist, something that I suspect Daria can appreciate; but being a young woman, she's still trying to figure out what she is.