thugainn

[raven]

I'm having slightly better days. I am not fond of the whole recovery-is-not-linear rhetoric - while true it's not helpful; it also presupposes that recovery is a thing that will ever happen to me, which won't and ought not to and I would not want it, etc - but it feels terrible and maybe it is terrible but in the meantime the tracker is showing that I genuinely am having better days, more of them, closer together. Sleeping is not happening very well but is happening better. And I am definitely not hypomanic any more. Depressed in significant patches, but not the other thing. My tag for bipolar concerns is "ad lucem" - which acknowledges that sometimes it's a dazzling brightness and other times a citronella-scented bug-catcher, but all better than dark.

A. and I came off the sleeper this morning after a week in the islands (him) and a week at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig (me) which was difficult in some ways because I love the place and I always will and it's not nice to think, if I am depressed here I would be depressed anywhere in the world. And yet: get up in the morning, eat breakfast, go to class, eat lunch, go to class, walk out into the bright afternoon down to the water, come back, eat dinner, listen to some music, go to bed, every day for a week. It's exactly the sort of thing that's good for me and it did do me good. And - bonus - my Gaelic is much better for the week. I was feeling rotten and sad and like I'd lost more than I'd gained, but around about Wednesday I woke up and started participating? And speaking and listening and muddling my way through my various interactions, and that was all ok.

Things I've managed this week:

-Conditionals! Round of applause please. Mura càr luchdaicheadh tu a-nuas! Not that I could pull one of these off the top of my head and that one probably isn't right, but I got somewhere.

-Genitives (but not plurals). I suddenly figured out that "fad an latha" and "fad na maidne" are extremely useful to remember the difference between masculine and feminine nouns. (The other trick: am balach, ris a' bhalach, taigh a' bhalaich; a' chaileag, ris a' chaileig, taigh na chaileige - summarised as "girls a step ahead of boys".) Why, why does a language need four extant cases and a full complement of prepositions. No one needs that.

-Dealing with racists! (One of these things is not like the others, yep.) My fave was the one who, upon hearing that I'm from India, looked surprised. "Wow, I'd never have known," she said. "You speak good English."

Which - ok, is definitely my all-time greatest-hits racist comment, it's the one I've heard the most, in the broadest range of circumstances. But it's the Courtney Love of racist comments? Very nineties. A little surprising in this year of our Lord 2018. Every time I ran into her after that (my racist, not Courtney Love) I forgot she didn't have any Gaelic and spoke to her without space for interruption for a reasonable amount of time before I remembered she wouldn't be able to understand it.

(There was also the woman who wondered why India doesn't divide itself into states for ease of administration. Not states, she clarified, when I pointed out India does have a great number of state governments. Countries. Different countries. After all, we did that once before and it went fine. (Everything's fine.))

And, while we're on the subject of my marvellously racist week. I despise the double takes I get from strangers, when I speak Gaelic in a Gaelic-speaking community to Gaelic-speaking friends. I accept that this is my fate (an dàn dhomh!) as long as I do insist on speaking the language while brown. But I don't like it any more each time it happens.

Anyway. Sin mar a thacras. Given the givens, I had a nice time and the weather was glorious. The little book is not any further forwards on paper, but getting sharper in mind. I got several new books, of which the next is The Old Ways, Robert Macfarlane's study of paths and tracks and holloways across Britain, the one after that is The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, a high-concept murder mystery I'm quite looking forward to, and (in service of the little book), The Celtic Placenames of Scotland. I'm pretty sure I know how to live.

Comments

[goss]

But I don't like it any more each time it happens.

Heh, I feel you. The plight of the brown-skinned travelling abroad everywhere. :b Looking Indian and sounding not-Indian tends to confuse people everywhere I travel.

Although I am also guilty of something like that at times. My favourite unexpected culture mash-up was a couple years ago, sitting in the subway in Toronto, and all of a sudden hearing a Chinese dude with a really strong Jamaican accent. Such an unexpected delight, being from the Caribbean myself.

[raven]

See, I don't think that's the same thing at all! It sounds like you were charmed but didn't make the guy uncomfortable, which is the difference.

[goss]

Yeah, I know how that can feel, so I didn't outwardly react to him. But I can imagine how many offensive comments the poor guy's probably gotten. :b

[soupytwist]

I would change some of those givens if I could, but I am glad your week did bring some of those good things.

And I am excited to hear any opinions you may wish to share on Seven Deaths!

[raven]

<3 <3 I'm about 20% into Seven Deaths right now and I am GRIPPED. I will report back!

[longwhitecoats]

I'm pretty sure I know how to live.

That's a beautiful sentence, and I'm glad you're feeling it.

[raven]

<3 <3 <3

[lemon_badgeress]

You got another week at band camp^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HSabhal Mòr Ostaig! I am glad the new posting didn’t make it calendricully impossible. I hope things you love and drips of sleep steady into a pool of calm for your center.

(I swear I’m not drunk I’m just like this now apparently)

[raven]

<3 <3 <3

[toft]

I'm sorry you were subjected to racist stupidity, and I'm glad you got to bathe in language and routine and are having more good days.

[raven]

Thanks, friend. <3

[catwalksalone]

Ooh, ooh, ooh! I am just about to start The Old Ways too! You’ll be done long before me, I suspect, as it’s my new Sunday self-date book. I am very much looking forward to it. I stole Mountains of the Mind from mum when I was at home, so I suspect that might follow.

As for the rest, I am glad you had the beauty of the language and the place, and the rhythm of the days, but much less glad about the racism. They should have a fine for that. Oops, you dropped your racism over here and didn’t pick up after yourself. £1000 fine, please.

Here’s to more good days closer together.

[raven]

I swapped the order of them in the end, so I still have it to come! Let's exchange notes when we're done. :)

And, thank you. I think the racism-fine fund should go for tree-planting initiatives.

[mirabile]

Oh, I loved The Old Ways so much! One of my all-time favorite books, but really, his writing is marvelous. And Seven Deaths sounds fascinating; I hope you'll post about it when you've read it (i.e., should I get it?)

Your week sounds fantastic, to be in that beautiful place, and your Gaelic improved. I am so, so impressed that you're continuing to work on the language. I keep telling myself I need to get back to Spanish, but do I? I do not. At least I'm keeping up the ukulele lessons.

Thank you for posting. It's so good to hear from you.

[raven]

I am about halfway through Seven Deaths, and it is incredibly gothic and way more violent than something I'd usually read, but I am so gripped. I'll report back when I'm done. I haven't read The Old Ways yet but I have read Landmarks which is one of my favourite books of all time - I'll report back on that one too. :)

It was very lovely, yes! Gaelic does me good, often when other things don't, so I do keep on with it. Happy birthday, also! so sorry for being late-- I hope it was excellent.

[greek_jester]

I've always hated the "you speak such good English!" thing, since the person saying it genuinely thinks they're giving you a compliment.

I admit to saying a variation of it once; one of the temps where I was working was from China, and she used to come up to some of us for help if she ran into a phrase she wasn't sure of, as she was learning most of her conversational English "on the job" as it were. She was aware she wasn't really fluent, so she'd run e-mails and the like past us first. I did compliment her on her written English skills as the grammar and spelling on her e-mails was usually better than those of native speakers, and so a pleasure for this nit-picker to read. It was phrased something along those lines, and I'm hoping now that I didn't offend her, although I did mean my admiration most sincerely.

I have frequently wished I could learn another language, but I haven't got the ear for it (possibly because I'm partially deaf and miss a lot of the nuances of English, let alone another language). I absolutely slogged my guts out to get my D in GCSE Spanish, and I'm prouder of it than I was for my A in GCSE maths, which I kind of forgot to revise for (it usually got pushed to the end of the evening behind other subjects I struggled more in, so I didn't really get much done). I have the greatest respect for anyone who can speak fluently in more than one tongue, since it usually seems to mean they can think in more than one language, which is incredible.

Also, I don't know if you've ever read the Boggle the Owl blog, but I've actually printed this out and put it on my wall where I can look at it if I'm having a bad day:

https://www.reddit.com/r/GetMotivated/comments/279i5a/from_a_therapists_office_wall_has_apparently/

I love owls anyway so the images usually get a twitch of my lips, but even when I'm at my lowest, keeping this near where I make the call when I need to ask for help helps me feel like I'm not really useless, just a bit battered.

[riverlight]

Have you read Old Ways before? I'll love to hear what you think about it. It's my favorite of his—some just exquisitely beautiful language that has stuck with me. There's one line—"cold like a wire in the nose"—that I repeat to myself every time I go out into sharp biting snowy weather.

[raven]

I haven't! I've only read Landmarks, which is about one of my favourite books of all time - also with lines that stick with me in that way. There's a bit about swimming in "gin-clear water", which, what a perfect jewel. I will report back on this one.