I was busily deleting e-mails, when one from Nita Hearn gave me pause. I have absolutely no idea of whom she is, but her subject "duck rant cart bout barrow" piqued my interest. Could it be that she's from my tribe? (Before I knew what a Blue Tooth was, I thought that those people chattering away into thin air were definitely of my tribe). So I opened the mail and here's what I saw:

kafka brumidi pelham? jimmie, rant vulpine.
storyboard felt jensen reverent poncho jensen, identify
jensen poncho vulpine poncho trajectory.


neptune jimmie storyboard


pelham vain lomb? jimmie, isocline heavenward.
peg bout movie movie baltimore rumen, arthur
infuriate reverent duck lomb neptune.


prometheus dendritic rant


stocky protozoa isocline? poncho, rumen ut.


lomb baltimore.

How fabulous is that?  I like to consider myself pretty savvy with languages, especially the Romantics, but this has me stumped.  I mean, there are all those English words and others where Latin roots may apply.  Is it the "Universal Language" that I've heard tell of?  I feel like an illiterate adult who knows that a stop sign means "stop", but has yet to crack the code of the alphabet.  If I were any good at those coded word scrambles, I might have a crack at it.  But the mystery is rather nice.  I bet the real translation is far more pedestrian than where my mind takes it.  

A couple of years ago, I took a class in American Sign Language. It's actually very different from British Sign and Canadian Sign: to the point that those speaking each language need an interpretor of sorts. I have heard a few good stories about that and the mis-signing of words.

Me, I'd picked up a sign-language book, which literally translated the spoken (as in, basic American) word to sign-language, and I had practiced for hours. Then I went to the class. Turns out, this book was wrong. American Sign Language (ASL) has it's own rules. I messed up in class; not because I wasn't trying (which I am.....deeply trying), but because I was literally translating from spoken word to ASL. I understood the whole visual thing and the facial expressions. But I kept forgetting that I didn't need to add "is", or "and".

ASL is it's own language, complete with regional "slang". Oddly enough, I lost my voice a short time after the class. I had not realized how much I used it. I had been a soloist, moons ago, and I still love singing despite my rusty pipes. While my mental mind may play many tricks on me, I know that if I can hum, I will be alright. (When my house-mate Cricket's away, I'll belt out songs, which is something that I'm sure my neighbours hate!).

So one night, I wandered down to the local bar to buy a pack of smokes. (Yes, I know! Awful, nasty and takes several years off, to boot!) Anyway, my voice was shot, but I had an absolutely fabulous walk. I had on a hat from a Tibetan Hill Tribe, which clicked and clinked from the hanging seed-beads and bits of metal. This hat makes me happy in so many ways. It was a warm and breezy night, and as I couldn't sing, I signed my songs.

The wind, the clinking and clicking hat and the fact that I was free; that I will remember. I was in a space that was completely perfect. Perhaps, for that moment, I may have touched the divine within.