When I was 15, I decided I was going to learn Spanish. I studied hard in school and lived in Peru for four months to make that happen, and learning (and more or less retaining) Spanish remains one of the life accomplishments I’m most proud of and thankful for.
Language is a dazzlingly gorgeous thing.
Held within any language is an entire universe. I quickly found that learning Spanish was not a simple acquisition of skill. It was a newfound connection to millions of people and many more throughout time. Entire lives and civilizations lived and died inside this container of words.
Language holds so much. Power. History. Culture. Connection.
As I learned, I was incrementally granted access to whole new schemas of meaning and frameworks of reality. My brain sprouted new pathways. There were also Spanish-induced changes to my embodied self. The muscle memory of my mouth, cheeks, and tongue shifted so much while I was in Peru that when I return to the states, I stuttered and stammered for awhile in the aftermath of the abrupt transition from Romantic to Germanic, as English came less easily out of my face.
We need languages, all sorts of them, including those beyond words to express, create, connect, and decipher. They are the “ways in” to what we know, feel, experience, and desire.
I’m learning that art is one of those essential languages. It conveys what is wordless but real, formless but present. It opens dimensions and perspectives words cannot.
I suddenly became fascinated with art a few months ago when I was introduced to the idea of art as talisman (h/t Fabeku Fatunmise) - an object that holds and transmits power, meaning, and possibility. Inspired, I commissioned a piece and purchased another, and then I wondered: wait, could I do this?
The answer is yes. We can all do this.
So I did, and I am, and it is changing me and my world as much as Spanish did.
Just as there is power in our words, there is power in our art. There is power in expression and creation of all kinds.
So what wants to become fluent within you? Which languages want to be spoken through you? And what bridges between self and world will you construct next?