Been reading Joan Didion all year, most recently her account of her husband's death and daughter's illness. Like in all her writing, it's the honesty that I'm enjoying. The precision, the exploration of deep emotional subject matter without being maudlin, the big leaps between internal and external subjects. Normally I can flip through a book in a week or so, but this one's taking awhile. I'm reading it in German.
Scattered among the stack of papers in my desk, stuffed into the dictionary, jumbled on the kitchen table with the broken necklace and the grocery receipts are word lists. Lists jotted down at opera rehearsals listening to the director - notes made talking to my friend and sometime german teacher - scribbled translations of words I searched for earlier in the day - and lists I made while reading.
Most of them I forget almost immediately. Some of them, by the time I find the list again later, I've retained. Each list webs a moment, a conversation, the theme of a chapter, a rehearsal, my state of mind.
From Didion:
überwältigen / to be overwhelmed
ich traute mir nicht zu / i didn't think i was capable of
Bedaurn / regret
der Verlust / loss
From rehearsal:
beilaufig / incidental
besitz / posession
nüchternd / matter-of-fact
betont / emphasized
In conversation:
sachlicher / grounded
bescheuert / ridiculous
schritt für schritt / step by step
wir können gut miteinander / we get along
From my lists:
sich kümmern um / to take care of
es macht mir nichts aus / it's doesn't matter to me
der abfluss / the drain
auseinander gehen / to spread out in space
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