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Reading Dictée for this week was an enlightening struggle. I frequently felt myself reading, then rereading, then accepting that I just didn’t have time to dissect all the crevices and opaque deliveries of this work. That being said, I began to reflect a lot on the translation of written art  from page to speech to audience. 

It is one thing to read a piece and feel it resonate in your head, and another to listen to a performance and be blown away live. Trying to create art that can be read well and delivered impactfully through voice is a new challenge—two challenges in one, even. I found myself tripping along the run-on sentences and repetitions blindly at first, then slowly became accustomed to the sharp turns in form. It was definitely easier to digest when read aloud.

For my project, I’d like to take a similar approach where there is an exploration of form to some extent. Right now by big three contenders to include are biographical reflections on identity, historical(?) facts on my culture (iffy), and fantastical snippets of places or memories. How I move between these is still a mystery to me. 

Here are some rough drafts of rough drafts. OR Here are some ramblings and streams of consciousness:

— My beloved friend who takes more STEM classes than I ever could, conducted a survey for heritage Spanish speakers to fill out. All participants were nonbinary. None of them used gender-neutral language when writing out the day-to-day/self-referential translations requested of them. 

¿Cómo? ¿En serio?

Yo hablo de identidad y la importancia de educar a otros. Ni intente usar ‘elle.’

Hasta mi madre no toca esa palabra. And she gets it. Kind of. She tries.

— How does Spanish feel in my mouth? How does English feel? What about the other languages I’ve picked up and then placed back down?

— something something a night where I stayed up, foot to the wall, and told myself “I will remember this moment, I will remember this moment” and I still do. Is time travel my superpower? This moment wasn’t even important. I just know I wore a white oversized shirt to bed and was laying down. The yellow light of my lamp illuminating the white bedroom wall. I do remember that moment! Now what? What do can I do with memory?