Truly foreign things that resonate, long after exposure.

Every once in a while, I find myself becoming attached to a place. I'm not necessarily in that place, and 99% of the time I wouldn't have even set foot in that place, but whatever triggers that attachment is powerful enough to get me to find out everything about where that triggering device came from.

This has happened several times, and if you must know, right now I'm attached to Paris, but that was an easy sell, considering that I was just there a little over two months ago. But before visiting Paris, before I even dreamed of going anywhere beyond Mexico, I became attached to odd places-- a little off the beaten path, if you will. I will explain to you what I mean by becoming attached to a place I've never been.

It started in 2005, with China. The trigger was a movie that was not Chinese, nor was it set there. It was an English movie with a Chinese character in it. That one character got me all riled up about everything Chinese: movies, people, history, culture, food-- everything. It was an obssession that even made me go so far as to try to learn a little bit of Mandarin so that when I would make my dream of going there come true I would be able to at least say thank you. I did a lot of reading in that time and learned a lot of things that I still to this day use to educate people about China and get them to see beyond the smog that envelopes the image of that country in the western psyche.

You're probably wondering what the heck the title of this post has to do with what I'm talking about at this point, and here is where it will come together for you. In the summer of 2006, the FIFA World Cup took place, and Portugal's team was one of the many highlights of that event. They were in the spotlight for being the rookies who took the show away, so to speak. I became very intrigued, especially after watching a game they played against a former African colony of theirs, Angola, and what started as a mere curiosity turned into a full-fledged attachment, or obssession, that lead me down the same path as that Chinese character led me to China.

I watched movies, documentaries, read the history of the place, listened to Fado, filled my music collection with Portuguese music and made great headway on learning Portuguese. In the midst of all this immersion in everything Portuguese, I came across a list of idioms, expressions that the people of the country use to make life a little easier to understand. Given that the entire western and southern part of the country are neighbors to nothing but the ocean, naturally, it is a culture that relies heavily on the sea and what it brings, native or otherwise. Due to this a lot of the idioms are related to the sea. Here are a few that paint the picture:

Fish don't pull wagons.
[Peixe não puxa carroça]

You're letting water in...
[Estás a meter água...]

This is too much sand for my truck.
[É muita areia para a minha camioneta]

Women and sardines, you want them to be small.
[A mulher e a sardinha querem-se da mais pequenina]

He's like a racing mackerel.
[Armar-se em carapau de corrida]

They use other topics to simplify life in Portugal, but they're clearly sea people. My favorite idiom, which acted as a trigger for me to write this in the first place is one I haven't written out yet, but like the ones I did list, it is linked to the sea and what it brings. This idiom is used during the sweetest of times, despite the subject matter, which if taken at face value is anything but sweet. The idiom is as follows:

There's a Moor on the coast...
[Há Mouro na costa...]

This idiom is used when one feels they are falling in love, that someone is about to invade their heart. A Moor is not good news, if taken at face value. The Moors were the archenemies of the Portuguese, because they were Muslims from North Africa-- a threat to the Catholic Portuguese. Despite such a war-related context if taken at face value, the expression is beautiful in that it illustrates perfectly what the prospect of falling in love feels like, right at the beginning, when it is the unknown. I think it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard.

So, you see, it's foreign, and although I came across it over two years ago, it is still fresh in my mind, especially at this time. I can't think of a better way to tour and really see the world than to know the little nuances that are as simple as an idiom, and I certainly can't think of a better way to describe the jitters that come when love looms, too close for comfort....

How my brain works and how the library oils this ol' engine

This morning I got an e-mail notification from the library alerting me I had two overdue items. I have been checking out materials at the library, despite how busy I am, but I haven't been checking my account or renewing anything. Today was the day I decided to log on and renew what I could renew and find out what needs to go back ASAP. Now, I know that I have pretty high fines in the neighborhood of $21 and some odd cents. I know this because the last time I tried to check out something I couldn't because of my really high balance. I paid a little bit of the fine that day and went about my merry way. My fines have gone up considerably now, because the library seems to think that two overdue books are just plain lost, so they're charging me their full price, plus the late fines. That makes the $21 jump to a whopping $82.61.

It is no secret that I use my local library heavily. I'm sure that if some need arose for someone to investigate my interests and obssessions (and of course my ability to keep my accounts in order), the library would provide a perfect window and timeline into how my scattered brain works, even more so than the people I share my life with. Before I moved to where I live now libraries to me were the stereotypical old and dusty buildings with a musty smell in the air and old spinster librarians with lipstick on their teeth who love to shush you and glare at you over their bifocals. In high school, the library was the place I got into the most trouble, because I would go with friends with the intention of doing homework but end up doing anything but that and get kicked out by a librarian. As much as I enjoyed reading back then, I never checked out a book to read for pleasure. Required reading might've had a lot to do with that, but nonetheless, I still liked to read enough that I went out and bought whatever book I wanted to read, keeping the library in my psyche as just a quiet place with a reference section.

I never imagined that I would one day be a regular at the library with a tote full of hardback, plastic covered materials hanging from my arm as I browse and end up with a tall, chin skimming collection of books and other media to check out. More importantly, I never thought I'd be one to do this for pleasure. I honestly don't know whether this change in my reading habits (I read an insane amount more now than I did when I was younger) was brought on by my moving to a county that maintains an impressive library in my neighborhood, or if my growing passion for writing induced it; all I know is, between the ever-growing internet that has become a virtual and abundant reference section and my neighborhood library, I am always feeding my constant curiosity and teaching myself new things.

Just to give you an idea of what kinds of things interest(ed) me that I searched for and found at the library, here is a very mini and personal research project that began in a most unlikely place to inspire the use of a library. This is just how my brain works...

After watching the 2006 World Cup and seeing the Portuguese and Angolan teams surprise, wow and make history with their mad mad mad skills at football (soccer), I became intrigued with more than just the players from the teams. I was intrigued with these countries that incidentally shared a language and history. At first I used Google and Wikipedia to learn the basics of each country, but found that I wanted to know a lot more. And so, the search began for materials on Portugal, a power that took Africa by storm during the age of discovery, which I had read about in an illustrated history book when I was a kid and logged away in the recesses of my mind. Through my light research inspired by a game of football, I found out that in 1755 Portugal's capitol, Lisbon, had suffered a devastating earthquake that was then followed by a tsunami that nearly wiped out the city. I found this out shortly after the big tsunami disaster had hit southeast Asia, so the intrigue turned into an obssession with this country that sits on the western-most tip of Europe with the vast Atlantic Ocean in its horizon and Spain as its neighbor. During my reading immersion in everything Portuguese, from food to music, I remembered something that someone had told me about the Portuguese language-- that it was Spanish mixed with French. Well, I thought, let's take a look. The library had a great collection of books and DVDs about Portugal as well as, to my delight, several Portuguese langage aides, including the Teach Yourself series, a great resource for anything your heart desires to learn. Luckily, Teach Yourself also publishes books about countries that cover, with great detail, the social, cultural, religious and gastronomic elements of a place. It was through Teach Yourself that I found out about Portugal's rocky relationship with Spain, which goes a long way back in history and manifests itself still with proverbs inspired by historical rifts involving Spain wanting to take over Portugal and Portugal foiling such plans on several occassions. In other words, these two countries share a border, but though they are "friends" now, there are still echoes from the past heard through proverbs. Here is one proverb that stuck with me:

De Espanha, nem bom vento nem bom casamento.
From Spain, neither good wind nor good marriage.

Now, the wind part refers to the East winds coming from Spain that cause storms. The marriage part, however, has deeper historical roots than mere weather. It is a really interesting story and one that I read about in the Teach Yourself book about Portugal. I hate to say I can't remember the details, as the hunger pangs for all things Portuguese began in 2006 and have calmed down a bit. What I do remember is that the marriage bit of the proverb is in reference to a union between Portuguese and Spanish royalty and an awful case of separation anxiety involving the physical keeping of the queen's corpse on the throne.

Now, I don't remember every detail from my research obviously, but I know a lot of things about a lot of things and places that most people don't. First, because I've always been an arm chair historian and small-scale researcher to satsify personal curiosity, and second, because I know how to reap the benefits of my local library.

So, I said something about how my brain works and I believe I've woven quite the tapestry to demonstrate that it just keeps going on and on.