This left a half hour of time for Ricardo and I to converse in what I'm sure would be a very interesting Spanglish exchange for someone else to hear. Just like all of the teachers at my school (except the one 55-year-old woman who refuses to address me as a human being), Ricardo is amazing. Whenever he and I teach together our conversations venture towards personal topics from relationships to our love of the outdoors.
Thursday our conversation ventured to relationships all because I asked him where he had learned English. He told me he had learned from people like myself, the "giddies" of La Costa del Sol. A giddy, as I've been told, is a vacationer or non-native to this region of Spain. Many people only live here in the summer on the Mediterranean and then venture back to their homelands for the winter.
Ricardo, born and raised here, told me he had played his own version of the game "Risk" by dating different girls from different European countries. I laughed, but he told me when he told one of his German girlfriends the same thing he had gotten a slap across the face. I still think it's funny. Either way, these girls and Ricardo had only had English to communicate with one another, so this is the way he learned the language so well. I didn't expect him to get introspective with me about love and relationships, but I ended up getting some words of advice from this Spaniard and work partner.
Throughout his dating career, he told me he had dated three girls similar to himself. I must tell you that Ricardo is an extremely low-key, surfer/guitarist in a band who sports Converse All Stars, a plaid shirt and worn leather jacket to work everyday. He's never in a hurry and is the definition of relaxed, intuitive and artistic. I think he knows I understand the type of guy he is, and I think I do too. Anyways, he told me he had dated these previous girls similar to himself in relationships full of passion, and that each had ended in disaster. In fact after he went to live with one of the German girlfriends for a month there, he left after only five days (not the same girl who slapped him). This is where his words of advice, or more correctly put, personal observation, came in. He tried to explain that relationships like this just couldn't last and then he looked to an old adage to describe it better. This was the funny part as he and I battled back and forth in English and Spanish to try to come up with the phrase that he said had to do with candles. On the bus ride home I finally remembered it.
"The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long."
When I got home on Thursday from my last day of work beginning my ten day vacation I decided to look into this little saying. I found some very interesting information and famous metaphors and similes relating to candles. My search led me to an American poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay, who wrote a famous poem on the topic of "candles" as well. Her life story as a bi-sexual, swinger wife in the early 1900's is a testament of a bright light if you feel like reading and hitting up the ever-trustworthy Wikipedia page about her.
My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay
- "A Few Figs from Thistles", 1920
Oh yes, I leave for Prague and Budapest tomorrow for what is bound to be an interesting trip of night trains and odd flights. Wish me luck!
Besitos (kisses),
Kenz
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