Distances, Languages and Thoughts

I often think about distances:  Between one place and another (t/here); between one time or generation and another (now/then); between one idea or concept and another (microcosm/cosmos); between one belief and another (God/no God).

Distances Between T/here, Microcosm/Cosmos:  Long ago, as my toddler son spoke his first word, while pointing at the object he wanted to name, saying “mooooon,” didn’t he already know and recognize moonlight – its shape, qualities, the relative difference between it and the darkness surrounding it, the difference between here, where we stood, and there, the object he was pointing at?  Probably so.  Yet, until he said the word, “moon,” we weren’t aware that he knew either the word or the object.  Had he spoken in another language, or been unable to speak at all, or had he used his own brand of sounds, maybe “ookle” or “shallah” or “zibbee,” I’d still probably have known that he had noticed and knew that bright object in the night sky.

Distances Between Times, Eras and Generations: Once upon a time, on a certain day of her life, my little daughter came home from second grade and said, “guess what, mommy, we played jump rope today.”  On another particular day, she said, “I know how to play jacks now,” and on another day it was, “I learned how to play hop-scotch today.”  For a few moments my daughter’s childhood and mine overlapped.  She awakened some forgotten childhood memories, made them come alive again, and preserved, for another generation, a microcosm of childhood culture.  Though separated by decades of time, her era and mine had become, momentarily, sewn together by a cultural thread, by some childhood games, which we shared in common.

Distances Between Then and Now:
On the day my grown-up daughter first asked if I’d like to write a monthly essay for this website, a thunderstorm was passing directly overhead.  Each bolt threatened to knock out the power supply to our computer, and/or, as happened a few years ago, to blow up the computer’s whole operating system and hard drive.  So I shut off the computer, “battened down the hatches,”* sought and found a good old-fashioned pencil and a piece of paper, then curled up, all comfy and cozy in a corner of our couch, and began to write.  In terms of technological historical eras, I traveled the distance between two eras, within the space of a few minutes -- from using a modern, home electronic communication system, to a type much closer to ancient Sumerian cuneiform, a system more akin to Sappho’s** pen and papyrus***.  (What a miraculous journey each of us humans makes in a single lifetime; from hopscotch, jump rope and jacks, to writing essays and creating this website; from “moooon” and wooden building blocks, to building complex software programs out of complex programming languages.) 

Distances Between Concepts and Beliefs:
Though today is sunny and bright, I see cumulonimbus clouds piled up on the eastern horizon and hear thunderbolts in the Sierra peaks east of here. The rumblings and kinds of clouds warn me to be prepared, if necessary, to jump up from this cozy corner of our couch and shut down the computer.  If my grandchildren were here, I might be assuring them that they are, and will continue to be, safe from those loud rumbles in the higher mountains.  Then I might also tell them the names of those kinds of clouds: cumulonimbus.  What is more likely, though, I’d probably be listening to their comments, questions and reactions to what they were hearing.  If they asked, “grammy what are those sounds coming from the mountains?” would I tell them they were hearing thunderbolts from Zeus, rumblings from Thor, or sounds of Prometheus still stealing fire from heaven?  Probably not.  Would I say, “God created thunder and lightning when God created heaven and earth?”  Would I try to explain the phenomenon created by earth’s heating and cooling processes, by relative changes in earth and air temperatures?  Probably not.  Most likely, I’d just listen and take delight in hearing whatever sounds of their own they chose to use, in response to a distant high Sierra thunderstorm.

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*Idiom, “batten down the hatches “Prepare for trouble, as in ‘here comes the boss—batten down the hatches.’ This term originated in the navy, where it signified preparing for a storm by fastening down canvas over doorways and hatches (openings) with strips of wood called battens. [Late 1800s]” (Definition From: http://www.answers.com/topic/batten-down-the-hatches) 

**Sappho:  early 6th century B.C., greatest of the early Greek lyric poets…..her love lyrics, characterized by passion and simplicity, greatly influenced Catullus, Ovid, and Swinburne. (From “The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia,” First Avon Printing, August 1983)
***Papyrus:  papyrus, plant (Cyperus papyrus) of the sedge family, now almost extinct in Egypt but universally used there in antiquity.  The roots were used as fuel; the pith was eaten.  The stem was used for sandals, boats, twine, mats and cloth, and, most notably, in a paperlike writing material. (From “The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia,” First Avon Printing, August 1983)

© Sharon K. Cook-Gordon-Spellman - May 3rd 2006

Sharon K. Cook-Gordon-Spellman has been a year-round resident of the western slopes of the Sierra foothills, near Nevada City, California, since 1972. Her monthly column for the BBFN newsletter is about the joys, trials and tribulations involved with being a grandmother of three bilingual children.