The sky trying to fit into a tunnel

Imagine / the sky trying to fit into a tunnel carved into a hill.
- Marie Howe, Easter



Last night, while sitting in the theater watching Figaro, I was reminded of a multicultural experience that I had several months ago. In both instances, I was trying to filter three different languages at the same time, attempting to understanding the nuances of each tongue, and trying as best I can to process and appreciate, deeply appreciate, everything that was happening. In both instances, I was watching different kinds of performance.

In the first instance, I was facing the silver screen -- that is, I was watching a feature film. The movie was unforgettable -- something about a band of gangsters that hid in a Buddhist monastery and thus underwent a spiritual transformation. The experience of watching the movie, however, was impressionable. The film was a Korean film, so all the actors were speaking in some Korean dialect. But, alas, the movie was dubbed in Vietnamese. In fact, the voice-overs were done by some woman whose clipped monotone played about 1.5 seconds after the Korean actors actually spoke. But because the Vietnamese translations were so poorly done (and the dubbing was edited poorly as well), I turned on the English subtitles. So, the movie was transmitted to me in three different ways: I was straining to listen for Korean to understand the nuances of the actors' voices, to catch their emotions; I was also trying to listen to the Vietnamese voice-over to hear how the translation was done; and I was also trying to read the subtitles that flashed by with lightning speed. On top of all that, I was trying to watch the action to actually see what was really happening in an attempt to decipher the plot -- if there was any.

In the second of these two experiences, I was facing a stage watching the actors play out Figaro. I was keeping tabs on which characters were "ghosts" from the past and which were from the "present" Paris. Trying to discern how the past characters behaved was difficult b/c I kept trying to find the subtext in everything, and the shifts and interactions between past & present was mind-boggling. Then, the opera parts were sung in Latin, so I was listening to the emotions and subtle expressions in each of the sung parts. But to understand what the songs mean, I had to read the screen in the background on which the surtitles flashed in white. In addition to all processing all that was happening with the easily/quickly shifting stage props, I was drawn again and again to the large white screen on which the actors' images were projected, opening up another dimension to the play/opera being enacted on stage.

Truly, both experiences were rich and powerful in different ways. But, I was so mentally exhausted, and at the same time so exhilarated, by the end that I could hardly hold my head up on my shoulders.

Reflecting on these two experiences have repeated to me a familiar sort of truth: our lives are entwined in languages of all varieties, and I revel in such rich complexity. Despite the periodic overwhelming sensation of drowning in information (which sometimes drives me toward silent movies), I still appreciate and prefer such experiences b/c they make me feel alive. I may not be the hill trying to squeeze the sky through it's tunnel, trying to process the expansiveness of the heavens into my imperfect, human mind, but these encounters embolden me with a sense of possibility -- with hope. It feels as if I could, in a small way, internalize a bit of sky by reflecting it in a puddle on the road. It feels as if I can do anything life offers my way because I'm capable of making meaning in the midst of ordered chaos.