Tag: poetry

The Magic of Untranslatable Words

I’ve always believed that written or spoken words, with their ability to communicate our thoughts, wishes, discoveries, joys, and sorrows — sometimes across time and space — carry with them a bit of magic. On the printed page, whispered into a waiting ear, or shouted from the rooftops, language forms the bedrock upon which society and culture are built. 

I’m particularly captivated by words from other languages that cannot be easily translated into English. These often convey ideas and situations we’re all familiar with, but for some reason, when it came to creating English words to describe them, they never quite made the cut. 

For example, ya’arburnee, an Arabic word, expresses the hope that you will die before someone you love because you wouldn’t be able to bear living without them. Literally, it means “may you bury me.” The Japanese have boketto, which describes the act of staring blankly into the distance. From Yiddish there is luftmensch, which refers to someone who is not successful in life or business due to his or her unrealistic ideas and goals. The French have voisinages, a word that refers to the relationships among or between neighbors. And in Brazilian Portuguese, there’s cafuné, a word that describes the motion one makes when running their fingers through a lover’s hair. (Leave it to the Brazilians to require a word just for this.)

Perhaps one of my favorite, and I think one of the most beautiful “untranslatable” words, is saudade, a Portuguese term that conveys a longing for a person, place or time you recollect fondly but know you will very likely never be able to experience again. Derived from the Latin solitate, or “solitude,” saudade acknowledges, mourns, even celebrates the discarded bits of ourselves that lie scattered across the landscape of our lives. 

Saudade also implies a feeling of gratefulness, the glow we feel in our hearts when we remember how lucky we are to have had particular experiences and people in our lives. Like an empty chair at the family dinner table that reminds us of the person who once filled it, the empty spaces within us take on the silhouettes of those who left them behind.

Saudade is different than nostalgia or reminiscences, which are often about remembering with a sort of affection occurrences and relationships no longer relevant in our lives. Even if it’s rooted in the past, saudade lives in the present.

Portuguese art, literature and traditional fado music, which literally means “fate” or “destiny,” are all heavily informed by the concept of saudade. The Portuguese, along with the people living in Portugal’s former colonies, such as Cape Verde and Brazil, have built an entire culture around their unapologetic, deep and passionate feelings about just about everything, from romantic love to sports teams. They approach life with the notion that all emotions, happy or sad, are worth experiencing because collectively they are what make us human. 

Since my daughter moved into her own condo, I’ve come to know saudade well. Madelaine’s absence from our house has often been difficult, as her absence is often a presence all its own. I sometimes find myself thinking about the days before she started kindergarten, when I was a stay-at-home mom. Back then, we were together all the time, sometimes 24 hours a day for weeks on end when my husband was traveling for work. We ate all our meals together. I helped her get dressed every morning. We shopped together and went for walks around the neighborhood. In the wintertime, we snuggled on the couch under a blanket while we watched her favorite show, “Arthur,” on TV. Some days I longed to get away, to have another adult to talk to. There were times when I lost my patience and did things I now regret. 

I grieve the loss of the baby that Madelaine was, and the loss of myself as a young mother. But these memories also bring with them a powerful and bittersweet happiness. I’m grateful I was able to spend so much time with her when she was young, and I believe the time we spent together helped her become the intelligent, thoughtful, successful young woman she is today. The sadness my memories bring helps me better appreciate the time she and I spend together now. Because I know someday I’ll look back at these moments with longing, too.

ENP

Crossroads

The beginning of 2025 finds my life at a crossroads. I’m very close to finishing my third novel, a project on which I’ve been working for years and desperately want to complete. At the same time, I seem unable to focus on it. My husband was laid off from his job at the end of September, leaving us adrift in a gulf of uncertainty.

Do I sequester myself in some quiet place where I won’t be distracted for a couple of weeks to finish my book? Should I put the book aside for the time being and look for steady nine-to-five work? Or should I try to find more freelance jobs so I can have a flexible schedule and make more money at the same time, allowing me to still work on the novel? If I do this, will I be too tired to work on the book anyway?

Perhaps I should try to bushwhack my own path, combining these options in such a way that I’ll be able to accomplish most of what I want?

I’ve been stuck, waiting for a sign, for some sort of messenger to point the way, getting nothing done in the meantime.

In Western folklore, crossroads often symbolize liminal spaces, places between worlds, middle passages that are neither in one realm nor another. In medieval Europe, the bodies of executed criminals and people who had committed suicide were often buried at crossroads as they were considered a sort of no man’s land, places set apart from the world from which the souls of the dead would be unable to escape.

Lacking a map or any sense of direction, I’ve discovered that exiting a crossroads, where no path is clearly defined, can be almost as difficult for the living.

In many cultures, crossroads are places where demons and spirits appear unexpectedly. In the early 20th century American South, many African Americans believed visiting a crossroads at certain times of day meant encountering the Devil. It brings to mind the frequently covered song, Cross Road Blues, by blues guitar pioneer Robert Johnson, originally released in 1937. According to legend, Johnson, who died mysteriously at age 27, acquired his impressive musical skills after selling his soul to the Devil at a crossroads.

Robert Frost’s famous poem The Road Not Taken, published in 1916, also comes to mind, as crossroads often symbolize indecision, uncertainty, or even regret in literature.

But crossroads can also be places of opportunity. By their nature, they are places where chance meetings are likely to occur, perhaps allowing favorable circumstances to unexpectedly manifest themselves.

Modern psychology says when we find ourselves at a crossroads, unable to decide which direction to take, it often means we are preparing to let go of something to which we are emotionally attached. I often feel this way lately. Whichever direction I choose to go, I’ll be leaving something behind. And because whatever I stand to potentially gain remains undefined, the risk involved in taking any one road seems great.

Robert Frost felt called to take the road “less traveled by,” knowing he’d probably never learn what he might have discovered had he chosen the other path. One of these days, the voice of wisdom will prevail and I’ll know what I should do, too. In the meantime, I’ll be keeping an eye out for the Devil.

ENP