Be it ever so humble

-Não estou eu junto de ti?

-Aren't I here with you?

-Teu corpo está aqui; mas tua alma voa à terra de teus pais...

-Your body is here, but your sould flies to the land of your fathers...

Iracema chapter 28

Like I mentioned last week, this week's quote is about how we can be so attached to a place that we yearn for it.  Even when we have a lot of good things and are surrounded by good people our dreams long to sail us back there and our thoughts sometimes stray to fond memories.

We talked in class about what those who live outside of Utah think of this state.  There were many differing answers but the common theme throughout the enitre class period was an attachment to our homeland, a love for what we grew up with.  We also talked about a certain, almost tangible feeling that we get in certain places and I would definitely say that most everyone has such a feeling when they go home. 

Though Martin has a beautiful wife and a child, he still longs to go home, he longs for his birthplace, for his family and friends there. 

I love this song about Hawaii, I lived there for 8 months and this really brings back some good memories, but for the singers, this is their home, when they leave they get the same nostalgic feelings, the same desire to go back that we have been talking about. 

I have travelled to many different countries and seen some amazing things.  I can honestly say that the world has some amazing things to offer, ancient pyramids and lands full of history, volcanoes to climb, and jungles to explore.  You can go swim with the pink dolphins in the amazon, take an adventursome zipline through the jungles in Guatemala, feed the kangaroos and koalas in Australia or take a train ride through the beautiful countryside in Romania.  All of these adventures are breathtaking, exciting and really cool to talk about, yet I am just as excited if not more so, everytime I come home from one of those trips.  As I get closer to Salt Lake City and my family the excitement grows!  Knowing that they are so close and that I am almost home, wow, it makes me excited just thinking about it.  Another fun example to drive this home, just think of Christmas time and how excited almost all of your roomates and fellow students are to go home for the holidays.  There is something wonderful and magical about home.  While we are there we might take it for granted and even be excited to get away, but most everyone gets a little bit giddy when it is time to go home again.

I love the way that Lonestar says it,

 "I've traveled here and everywhere
Following my job
I've seen the paintings from the air
Brushed by the hand of God
The mountains and the canyons reach from sea to shining sea
But I can't wait to get back home
To the one he made for me
It's anywhere I'll ever go and everywhere I've been
Nothing takes my breath away
Like my front porch looking in"

Like the old saying goes "Home is where the heart is" and in this case it does not simply mean that home can be anywhere we make it, but it means that we leave a piece of our heart behind when we leave home and there is a part of us that will always long for the home that we remember. 

"Iracema" and Saudade

"The young warrior, leaning against the mast, raises his eyes, which are fixed upon the fleeting outline of the shadowy shore.  From time to time his sight becomes dim, and a tear fall upon the Giráo bnech, where frolic the two innocents, the companions of his misfortune.

But whilst thou sailest thus at the mercy of the winds, graceful barque, waft back to that white beach some of the yearning (saudade) that accompanies thee, but which may not leave the land to which it returns" (Iracema pg 7-8)

This part of the story, though at the very beginning, really spoke to me of some very strong emotions.  Not knowing exactly what the story was about when I read this I put my own experiences to it and translated those emotions as being: regret, a yearning to go back to happier days, a terrible longing, and admitted defeat-that going back is not possible and all that is left is for one to move on with the next stage in life.

This first took my mind to a poem that we recently read and discussed in my Portuguese literature class by Gonçalves Dia called, "Canção do Exílio".  He wrote it through the eyes of Dom Pedro II.  I am not going to include all of it (mainly because I don't think that most of you speak Portuguese, and it goes kind of long...) but here goes:

Minha terra tem palmeiras,

Onde canta o Sabiá;

As aves, que aqui gorjeiam,

Não gorjeiam como lá.

Não permita Deus que eu morra,

Sem que eu volte para lá;

Sem que desfrute of primores

Que não encontro por cá;

Sem qu'inda aviste as palmeiras,

Onde canta o Sabiá.

So this is the first and last of the poem, and basically it is just him comparing where he is now to where he used to be-which in this case is comparing the beautiful and wonderful Brazil, to Portugal.  The poem goes on to describe how the birds don't sing in Portugal like they do in Brazil, and that Brazil has more stars, more trees, more flowers and more love than Portugal.  In the end he is saying that God will not let him die without returning to his land, he land that has palm trees and where the Sabiá (the bird to the right) sings.

This is a video that records the sound that the Sabiá makes as it sings if you are interested in hearing what it sounds like.

The last thing that this quote makes me thing of is how we need to press forward and keep going in life.  Like I mentioned earlier, there is a sort of defeat admitted, the acknowledgement that you can't go back and so you need to press forward.  This reminded me the the song by Andy Grammar "Keep your Head up" because he mentions that no matter what life throws your way you need to keep going.  One line of his song says, "Only rainbows after rain, the sun will always come again," and that applies to life. 

 We will always have good times to look back on and to hold, but they are in the past and it does us no good to pine after them and long for them to come back.  Remembering and reminiscing are great, but do you want to miss the rainbows that have yet to come by dwelling in the past instead of paying attention to the future?

9/11/12 The Fall of Tenochtitlan

One night as the Spaniard armies were close enough to the city to see the human sacrifices that the Aztecs were making with the captured Spaniards and their allies an interesting parallel pops up.

The Spaniards are saying this: "thank God they are not carrying me off to be sacrificed...we were not far away from them, yet we could render them no help, and could only pray to God to guard us from such a death.

On the other hand the Aztecs were circling about them declaring this, "Look, that is the way in which you will all have to die, for our gods have promised it to us many times" (Victors and Vanquised pp 207).

This chapter reminded me of this song from "Pocahontas", both sides see the other as savages, people who must be killed and defeated.  The captain for the Virginia Company says that since the Indians are not like them it means they must be evil.  I think that a lot of the bad feelings between the Aztecs and the Spaniards is a lack of understanding between the two cultures.

"In addition to this, when the Christians were exhausted from the war, God saw fit to send the Indians smallpox, and there was a great pestilence in the city because there were so many people there, especially women, and they had nothing more to eat" (Victors and Vanquished pp 198).

Both sides have their religion which is supporting them and sustaining them throughout the conflict.  It is interesting that religion would be something to spur people on to battle, yet we see it time after time throughout history.  We all feel like we know what is best for one another and that no one else is right.

A super important life lesson that we all need to learn is to try and see from another perspective, take a look through their eyes as this song says.  There is a quote that says, "Before you get mad at someone walk a mile in their shoes" and I think it is a good thing to do.  We are all quick to judge, it is human nature to make a first impression of someone.  However, it is then our choice whether we let that cloud our judgement or if we try and really get to know the real them. 

Obviously with the Spaniards and the Aztecs there were a lot of factors coming into play such as religion, conquest, gold and power.  It is sad to see what happened to an entire civilization because of these things.  It was basically destroyed



9/5/12 Identity Crisis

"The details of the image formed of us often vary with the spectator, but it is always an ambiguous if not contradictory image: we are insecure, and our repsonses, like our silences are unexpected and unpredictable.  Treachery, loyalty, crime and love hide out in the depths of our glance.  We attract and repel" (Paz pg 65).

" The modern worker lacks individuality.  The class is stronger than the individual and his personality dissolves in the generic" (Paz pg 67).

One of our favorite Disney characters goes through this very identity crisis.  When we look in the mirror, what do we see?  How does the rest of the world view us?  Should we conform to what they expect or should we be who we are on the inside?

Who are we?  How are we really defined?  Are we the product of the stereotypes of others?  Are we defined by society?  Or do our personalities get lost in the group?  Paz goes on here to describe that the Mexicans of today all started from the 'rape' of Dona Malinche and that it has negative connotations.  He describes women as objects and then reveres them.  Then what is a woman?  What am I?

This song reminds me of the heartfelt question, "Who am I?"  This really brings me back to Octavio Paz's musings on solitude.  That point in time when we realize that other people actually have their own lives, when they are not with us they are able to have fun, they laugh, they create inside jokes and life goes on. 

In their song "Super Trooper" the group ABBA has a line that says "Facing 20,000 of your fans, how can anyone be so lonely?" We often feel our most lonely when we are surrounded by people.  How is that even possible?  Yet, somehow, it is and somehow we let ourselves feel excluded.

Throughout this chapter Paz describes the Mexican people as the sons of Malinche, and yet in class we had a few people speak up and mention that this was not their background, they felt that they had not come from this history.  Also Professor Mack mentioned the one group of Mexicans that still refuse to acknowledge any kind of defeat and take their own control by blocking the water supplies.

 

From these people we learn that we make or own destiny.  Yes, the past is, and always will be, a part of us.  It defines our societies and certain aspects of our lives.  At the same time, we are the masters of our own destiny, we choose who we are so it is up to us to shape the future.  Let us all "dream the impossible dream...[and] reach the unreachable star" in our lives and in our desires. 

From Walt Disney we learn that anything is possible, after all Disney Land and the Disney empire all started with a dream and a mouse.