Sometimes I know I cant get my feelings and thoughts out the way I would like to in my writing. Therefore when I hear a song or read a book that speaks to my heart I like to share it. Right now I am reading the serious Out of the Silent planet by C.S. Lewis. In the first book he visits a new world and at one point is trying to fit in. When I read the section I'm going to put in this post I seriously almost cried and I had to read it out loud to my husband. I did this because sometimes I think he forgets or really just cant understand. You see when he went to the US although it was a whole new country and culture he at least had the language down. I know it was still hard and confusing for him at times but even he says he had it easier than I did when I came. So here is a visit inside my heart and mind through the words of C.S. Lewis.
Chapter 11
"Ever since he awoke on the Space-ship Ransom had been thinking about the amazing adventure of going to another planet, and about his chances of returning from it. What he had not thought about was being on it. It was with a kind of stupefaction each morning that he found himself neither arriving in, nor escaping from, but simply living on, Malacandra; waking, sleeping, eating, swimming and even, as the days passed, talking. The wonder of it smote him most strongly when he found himself, about three weeks after his arrival, actually going for a walk. A few weeks later he had his favorite walks, and his favorite foods; he was beginning to develop habits...
But the real revolution in his understanding of the hrossa began when he had learned enough of their language to attempt some satisfaction of their curiosity about himself..."
And here is my favorite
"naturally his conversations with the hrossa did not all turn on Malacandra. He had to repay them with information about Earth. He was hampered in this both by the humiliation discoveries which he was constantly making of his own ignorance about his native planet, and partly by his determination to conceal some of the truth...
A sensation akin to that of physical nakedness came over him whenever they questioned him too closely about man- the hmana as they called them. Moreover, he was determined not to let them know that he had bee brought there to be given to the sorns;..."
I'm actually not sure now that I have typed this all up that you can really get the idea unless you read the whole text. But at any rate I wanted to share this with you. Thankfully I am out of the stupor he spoke of in the first paragraph but that did take time.
"...thinking about the amazing adventure of going to another planet, and about his chances of returning from it. What he had not thought about was being on it. It was with a kind of stupefaction each morning that he found himself neither arriving in, nor escaping from, but simply living on, Malacandra; waking, sleeping, eating, swimming and even, as the days passed, talking. The wonder of it smote him most strongly when he found himself, about three weeks after his arrival, actually going for a walk. A few weeks later he had his favorite walks, and his favorite foods; he was beginning to develop habits."
ReplyDeleteEVERY sentance in that speaks to me. EVERY ONE. It's nice to read other blogs where people are going through the same thing as us - and really cool to see a book where the author understands as well. I'd like to check that book out for sure - thank you for sharing :)
For me the second part speaks to me more than the first. I was able to dive right in (probably bc I already knew the language pretty well, plus I was in school.)
ReplyDeleteThe whole thing about feeling ignorant about where you come from... been there! I think most Mexicans know more about the USA than Americans do. Fascinating.
Thanks so much for sharing!! This was awesome.
Oh my goodness--this is exactly how it feels! I want to read this book too.
ReplyDeleteMy kids (4 adult children in the US) say that I live on Mars. When they say good-bye to me at airports in the US, it's like I'm getting on a space shuttle and blasting off to Mars, where there is no mail service, very sketchy phone service, and the lights go out all the time. And the internet randomly goes up and down all day long. And....well then, you're out of contact with the outside world, sometimes for a really long time, at least that's the case where we live. The internet goes down because it's too windy, too rainy, or barely windy, or barely raining, or....it just goes down and who knows why.
Whenever my kids visit us here, I tell them the whole time, if you forget something here, like if you don't pack up all your stuff when you fly back, well, you know, I can't mail it back to you! You know that slogan for Las Vegas, "whatever you do here stays here" (something like that), so I tell my kids all the time "remember---whatever you forget here stays here."
Like the previous three, thanks for sharing that, Amanda! It gave me goose bumps. Did CS Lewis ever live abroad? I didn't think so, but he sure seems to understand how it is.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to check out the book sometime. Thanks again!
Gringa I wholeheartedly agree
ReplyDeleteGringation- this is so true and yet at the same time they have so many wrong ideas also.
Gail to funny about your kids.
And Jill- That was my exact question. When I read this I asked my husband if he had read anything about him living abroad because its so right on. He really likes C.S Lewis but wasnt sure. Ill have to look it up sometime.