Dual Pilgrim

Last month I traveled to Japan. The first time I was five years old, when we flew from our home in New York to visit Manila, Dumaguete, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Honolulu, and LA. I’ve wanted to return to Japan for many many years, because I have specific childhood memories: walking the grounds of the Imperial Palace and seeing geishas made-up and dressed in kimonos; staying at the Imperial Hotel, where we watched sumo on the television while Dad received a massage; eating tempura for the first time on the recommendation of the concierge; and, unlike anywhere else we visited, being surrounded by words I could not comprehend with my eyes or ears.

On my most recent trip I tried food I’d never had before and often found myself in places where the language was beyond me. But as Heraclitus says, you can’t step in the same river twice.

Within my journey, I completed the pilgrimage of the Kumano Kodo:

2025 1 24WILLIAM ALBA HP

When I visited the office in Tanabe on January 24, they told me I was the first person this year to be certified as a Dual Pilgrim in their office. I think most people elect to complete their journey formally at Kumano Hongu Taisha, but I was traveling west to east and my plan didn’t take me that way. I hold that I actually completed the journey on the 23rd, after visiting the three Shinto Grand Shrines, but then again what is time when crossing the International Date Line, and anyhow the process of certification can happen on a different date: a student doesn’t graduate until Commencement, even if all requirements are completed beforehand.

When I asked for my Philippine nationality to be recognized in their records in addition to the US, the clerk in Tanabe asked me which passport I had used to enter the country. Fair enough — Japanese law disallows their own citizens from holding multiple nationalities. So even though I am a dual citizen, my listing on this website as a Dual Pilgrim of the Camino de Santiago and of the Kumano Kodo shows only one nationality.

This photo links to the Dual Pilgrim website. The URL and text refer to “Willam Alba”, although the photo and certificate spell my first name correctly. Personally, I think this adds to the charm, reminding me how the person who took my picture and wrote my certificate struggled with the spelling of such a common name as mine, even though she could speak English far better than I can Japanese. There’s also something a bit poetic about it, taking the “I” out of my name, a removal of ego from the sign.

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taking time

In one of the last chapters of one of the books I’ve been reading, Meditations for Mortals, the author Oliver Burkeman indicates

When it comes to confronting the myriad problems large and small that life throws at us, we have a standard operating procedure for how we try to respond, one so fundamental it can be hard to perceive that it even is a procedure, or that there might be any alternative. It goes like this: first, you try to work out exactly what the hell is going on. Then and only then, once you’re confident you’ve got a handle on the situation, you take action.

However, Burkeman points out, this is only one strategy. It is a modern illusion that we should first attempt to understand how a system operates before taking any action.

Imagine how things might have felt for a medieval peasant – or, really, for anyone at any time in history when people experienced life as radically more uncertain than today, yet were perhaps more clear-headed on the topic of human limitation.

While I have only a passing understanding of the work of Nobel laureate Herb Simon, I wonder whether Burkeman is suggesting that we moderns should make decisions about our actions in a satisficing way. That is, we should take action once we discover a sufficiently satisfactory solution, because when we delay a decision we could incur costs such as lost time, wasted resources, divided attention, and lost opportunities .

…

I am someone who can err on the side of analysis paralysis. For example, over the past day I’ve been considering whether to buy a travel backpack on a big discount that I saw last night at REI. Because it’s a Re/Supply item, it’s non-returnable, so I’ve been thinking about how much it costs, where I would store it, how often and under what circumstances I would use it, alternative items that I already own or could instead purchase that serve the same function, and so forth. While this process entertains me to a certain extent, there is an opportunity cost to my time. Likewise, I have been thinking about buying a MagSafe-compatible power bank for my upcoming trip to Mexico, because too often on last month’s trip to Japan I found myself constrained when the battery on my smartphone was low. But for me this involves reading reviews, comparing dimensions and weights, learning about battery capacities, etc.

I think both Burkeman and Simon would suggest that I should lower my mental threshold for how much information and consideration I need to do before making these purchases.

…

On the other hand, there is the question of how to know whether a proposed action is sufficiently satisfactory. In the case of my purchasing an item like a backpack or power bank, the stakes are not that high for each individual item. But there are other very real human situations where we would be better off to take more time rather than make a decision hastily. For example, Elon Musk, an unelected billionaire with fascist tendencies who holds the imprimatur of Donald Trump, is dismantling entire government agencies and threatening to destroy more. He is operating under the strategy of breaking things, with the idea that maybe they will get patched up afterwards. You can get away with this in a company, where you are responsible only to a board and shareholders, and failure means bankruptcy. But to act in such a hasty manner is a foolish way to run a country, especially the world’s most powerful country, where breaking things means endangering the safety and livelihood of citizens as well as people around the globe.

It also takes time to know people as individuals, to avoid stereotyping and prejudice. All of us use mental shortcuts when we meet someone, to understand how to conduct ourselves in their presence and to predict how they will behave. But we should have some awareness of these cognitive biases. Furthermore, these heuristics should fade as we become better acquainted with a person.

Both in magnitude and in kind, these two circumstances — running a functioning government and conducting interpersonal relations — are vastly different than individual purchase decisions. And both of them illustrate an inadequate threshold for satisficing. Herb Simon also used the term bounded rationality. Musk’s decisions are rational in the sense of satisfying his and Trump’s political grudges and their own economic interests. For many people, their actions do not seem to be about government efficiency, but rather about settling personal scores.

…

Originally this was going to be a blog entry on taking time in an entirely different realm — taking time to make food. After reheating pieces of Domino’s pizza in an air fryer and on the stove, I realized that the ingredients and arrangement Domino’s uses are good enough quality, it’s just that the dough was simply undercooked. The bottom of the pan pizza wasn’t crispy enough on arrival, but with additional heating time it gained a crispy crunch, and the middle of the crust lost its raw chewiness. I guess the Domino’s model has always been to make things fast (“30 minutes or it’s free”), to satisfy customers’ hunger and to maximize the throughput of their ovens. However, the outcome is a less satisfactory product.

Some things do take time.

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expectations

According to Duolingo, I’ve reached a high intermediate level in Spanish (CEFR B2). I do believe it’s true. The day before yesterday, when Marissa asked me to translate some attention-getting phrases for her class, I immediately saw when Google Translate had mistakenly substituted “hablar” for “decir”; knew as if it were second nature the use cases for those two verbs as well as “contar”; understood her intention to use the affirmative imperative in the second-person plural and corrected the machine translation even with an irregular conjugation; suggested an alternate second line so the lines would rhyme; and removed an unnecessary definite article from the vocative. As an example, I suggested

Alumnos, denme:
A, B, C, D, E

in place of the machine translation:

Los estudiantes me dan
cinco cuatro tres dos uno

Then yesterday at the laundromat (one of my projects this weekend is to determine which thermal fuse or solenoid needs to be replaced inside our dryer at home), I understood what other people were saying to each other in Spanish. In the afternoon, when I read the label on the bag of corn chips I bought from a Mexican grocery store, I simply read the paragraph of text in Spanish, not bothering to look at the English until afterwards, reading everything con fluidez, pausing only once at “totopos”, which I learned from context as the Mexican word for corn chips. 

…

Still, I have much to learn. For example, I believe I don’t fully understand how Spanish speakers distinguish among the meanings for “esperar”. I know it can mean “to hope” or “to wait for” or “to expect”. While these concepts are similar, they are rendered quite distinctly in English. In contrast, in Spanish, these blur one into the other.

I get that a single word can serve many functions in a language, and that often you just know which one is intended from situational or grammatical context. It just seems to me, as a native English speaker, that these three concepts are more ambiguous than they ought to be, when rendered by a single word.

…

The other day I ordered four pizzas from Domino’s, one for each of us, in whatever style we fancied. Our eldest child complained that Domino’s is not great, and their “New York style” is certainly nothing like a slice of pie you’d get at a shop in the city. I absolutely agree, there are better pizza joints in Vegas, even accounting for the general rule that pizza gets worse going from east to west in the US. But the point, I said, is to have a reasonable expectation. Don’t think of it as a pizza from New York. Just accept the food on its own terms, enjoy it for what it is.

I relearned that lesson for myself this morning. I had picked up a Too Good to Go bag from Whole Foods last night. It was my first time trying one here in the States; I had them last fall in London and in Dublin. Getting home, I was disappointed on opening the bag that they were salted caramel and plain brownies, as well as cake donuts, because at my age I avoid chocolate late at night and I much prefer yeast donuts. But after popping a sour cream donut in the air fryer for breakfast, I realized that if I think of a cake donut not as an inferior substitute for a raised donut, but simply as a kind of cake, it’s actually enjoyable. It’s cake, made even better without the usual excess of icing.

…

It’s as though I continually have to wake up to this notion, to relearn the lesson expressed by sayings such as

You get what you get, and you don’t get upset (a phrase I learned when the children were about the age of the ones Marissa now teaches)

Happiness = Reality/Expectations (I believe I first heard this expressed aloud by my friend Marc when were in college. Less commonly I’ve seen: Happiness = Reality – Expectations, but whether expressed as a ratio or difference or more complicated algebraic expression isn’t the point)

Comparison is the thief of joy (in this case, comparison not to what others have or do, but to what you wanted or expected)

This does not imply fatalism nor blind acceptance to one’s situation when seen as as a portion of the Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me
the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference

…

Today I will finish reading Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals, which describes the inner peace that comes with accepting that we have mortal limitations. Being the sort of person who needs to wake up every day, I will immediately begin re-reading the book, perhaps on a regular basis.

And I will not be disappointed by how much more Spanish I want to learn. I will continue to enjoy the process in the hope, though I suppose not necessarily with the expectation, that one day I may achieve CEFR C2 proficiency.

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avocados …

I visited Doug and Esta last week on Friday, during my day-long layover at LAX as I flew between Narita and Harry Reid. When they graciously invited me to rest at their house, I had notions of starting a journal about my trip to Japan. But after an hour of preparing to do just that, I flopped sideways on the living room couch. I slept the day away, physically and mentally exhausted from traveling in Japan, where I understand so little: how to navigate inside and between cities on foot and by public transit, how to understand an address when it’s written, let alone how to express the location of my hostel for an Amazon delivery. It takes a toll, to understand basic everyday customs and language — how to use a toilet, to bathe, to order food — in a country where people seem particularly mindful about customs and language.

Seeing the two of them was an enormous pleasure and a great comfort, doubly because only a week earlier we had met in Kyoto. I had been to their home in Culver City only once, and remarked how the city design and architecture of LA being a bit jarring after staying in Japan for 17 days. So my sense of ease wasn’t about being back in California or in the US. It was about being with lifelong friends. Although we see each other all too infrequently, we’ve known each other for over three decades.

They have an avocado tree in their backyard. An avocado tree! Doug wraps each one in its own little silk bag, to protect the fruit from squirrels. Squirrels are clever, I don’t know why they don’t just gnaw away at the stem so they can carry off the fruit to remove the gift wrapping at their own leisure, but the method does work. He wrapped up a few for me to take on my flight, and they had ripened enough for me to enjoy on Thursday and Friday. I wrote:

This Is Just to Say

I have eaten
the avocados
that were in
my luggage

and which
you had generously
packed
away for me

Thank you
they were luscious
so ripe
and so smooth

Doug sent a haiku as a rejoinder:

I ate the creamy
Avocados with scars from
A hungry squirrel

The avocado, aguacate, alligator pear — I never had one as a child except as a thin green gruel in Taco Bell, but when I went to Berkeley for grad school I discovered I loved them in sandwiches and of course as guacamole. The best store-bought ones most reliably seem to come from Mexico. So many of my favorite foods originate or became popular there — vanilla, chocolate, chili peppers of every variety. Each time I visit Mexico I find more dishes to love, or simply to enjoy well-prepared street foods: tacos de pescado, aguachile, huaraches, huitlacoche.

The generous bounty of Mexico.

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freewriting in a time of unfreedom

I have not blogged regularly for more than six months. As time passes, I got in the habit of not writing, just as much as I had been in the habit of writing just about every day for a stretch earlier last year. And then I froze up, thinking that I would have to be ready to express something significant in order to start up again, and then I blocked myself.

So here we are.

I’ve decided to unblock myself by expressing myself more freely, including in whatever language I fancy at the moment, perhaps even switching in the middle of an entry. But I won’t do that here, that would be a cheap trick.

So much has happened in the past half year that I could write about. Where to begin, how to start? Right here, right now, I’m simply freewriting. It’s a practice that is central to the L&T (Language and Thinking) Program, a writing-intensive cross-disciplinary small-workshop academic orientation for undergraduates matriculating into Bard College. I taught in L&T for four summers starting in 1995, and also in similar programs geared towards high-school students at Kenyon and Lake Forest, and then started my own workshop program in Santa Fe, New Mexico at St. John’s College when I taught there. But when I left Bard High School Early College in 2003 and joined Carnegie Mellon, I gave all of that up, because of my extensive year-long responsibilities at CMU. It was a joy to return to Bard, to be with Bard students, to see some old friends and engage once again with them. I did not give myself enough time to enjoy the Hudson Valley. For years I’ve felt that Upstate New York, ranging from the Finger Lakes over to the Adirondacks and then down the Hudson, that Upstate is God’s Country.

But then in September and October I visited England, Sweden, and Ireland. I will write more later about this trip, but this is just to say that Ireland, in particular driving along the Wild Atlantic Way, took my breath away.

And last month I took an 18-day trip to Japan, my first time since briefly visiting Tokyo as a child, and there is so much still bouncing in my head about that visit.

I’ll write about each of these trips on this blog, so some of my upcoming reflections will be anchored in Place. But I also have a lot of thoughts about retranslating José Rizal’s “Mi último adiós”, reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano, volunteering as a poll worker during the General Election, touring colleges, preserving time capsules, mitigating the risk of communicating with potential extraterrestrials, and so many other things that will come to me as they do.

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gather ye rose-buds

En unas de mis clases de español a veces hablamos de nuestras vidas, a veces hablamos de palabrotas.

Anoche al principio nuestro maestro nos preguntó sobre cualquier chisme, es decir, las noticias en nuestras vidas. Un compañero estaba disfrutando un cono de hielo y pregunté cómo se dice la acción de comerlo. La respuesta fue “chupar” pero ahora me pregunto sobre la palabra “lamer”. Entonces mencioné que acabo de celebrar el aniversario de mis padres y hablamos de la salud de nuestros propios padres y abuelos. Después conversamos de los problemas con la memoria y de las discapacidades físicas como ser ciego, sordo y mudo. Hablando de lenguaje de señas, dije que mi hijo menor usaba un gesto que significa leche mientras diciendo “babu” (que significa “botella” en inglés). Además, mostré un gesto que quiere decir, pues, literalmente “caca de toro”.

Resulta que hay muchas maneras para decir este concepto de decir tonterías o mentiras, depende en el país. El maestro dijo que “hablar paja” es común en Latinoamérica y la palabra “paja” puede ser una palabrota, depende en el contexto. Una de nosotros mencionó que “hacer paja” es un ejemplo que significa una acción sexual con la mano.

Me pregunté sobre esto. “La paja” es comida para caballos y otros animales en una granja. Por eso, “hacer paja” en inglés literalmente puede significar to make hay.

¡Ninguno de mis compañeros angloparlantes había escuchado este dicho! Una dijo que hay una frase “to make haste” — de hecho, no me había dado cuenta de que los sonidos de “to make hay” y de “to make haste” y los significados de estas frases inglesas, los dos son muy similares. Pero “to make hay” es distinto, es una parte de la expresión completa “to make hay while the sun shines” (que significa “apurarse para aprovecharse una oportunidad”). Me gusta esta frase en español — apurarse para aprovecharse — por el sonido. 

Acabo de darme cuenta de la frase “hacer paja mientras el sol brilla” puede tener dos significados. Puede significar “apurarse para aprovecharse una oportunidad” que es neutral. Pero puede significar “tener relaciones sexuales durante el día”, es decir, ahora mismo. Y los dos significados existen en el poema de Robert Herrick “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” (“Para las virgenes, para aprovecharse el tiempo”). 

En resumen, “haz paja mientras el sol brilla” es literalmente un consejo con una metáfora botánica (“make hay while the sun shines”). Pero también puede significar algo sexual y más crudo que un poeta inglesa expresó por una metáfora botánica y hermosa (“gather ye rose-buds, while ye may”).

Un gesto en lenguaje corporal, una frase en lenguaje hablado. Cada puede ser inocente o crudo. La frontera no siempre está definida bien. Así es la vida, esta mezcla de ideas y cuerpos, encontrado en la lengua, se encuentran en la lengua.

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transacciones humanas

Presta atención. En español, se dice presta atención. Esta frase no es igual en inglés, en que se dice paga atención.

Pasemos tiempo juntos. En español, se dice pasemos tiempo. Esta frase no es igual en inglés tampoco, en que se dice gastemos tiempo.

Tal vez los anglohablantes son demasiado devotos del dinero. Se puede discutir que prestar atención también es una frase con el concepto de deudas, pero para mí la palabra prestar es más suave que pagar. En inglés es poco común: “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.”

También se puede escuchar en inglés “Let’s pass the time together” pero es un poco raro y solo en el contexto de pasar tiempo con alguien o algo agradable. Más a menudo escuchamos “Let’s spend time together” or “I spent too much time on this project”. En español, se puede usar pasar en todos los contextos.

Me pregunto si diferencias así entre español y inglés reflejan o incluso causan diferencias entre las culturas de los hispanohablantes y los anglohablantes. ¿Cuál vino primero, la lengua o la cultura?

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un regreso al hogar

La semana pasada regresé a Bard College para familiarizarme con la currículo del “Language & Thinking Program”, es decir, un programa del lenguaje y pensamiento. La semana que viene regresaré a Nueva York de nuevo.

Me gusta mucho el paisaje en el norte del estado de Nueva York. Para mí es el paisaje de Dios, de verdad, especialmente los lagos Finger alrededor de Ithaca y al lado del río Hudson cerca de Rhinebeck. Cuando mucha gente piensa en Nueva York, piensa en solo la ciudad. La ciudad sí es buena, me gusta también, es mi lugar de nacimiento, pero el resto del estado es tan precioso. Tengo muchos recuerdos como estudiante y profesor allí.

Regresar a Bard College fue algo así como un regreso al hogar. Es el primer lugar donde enseñaba mis propias clases en una universidad. Además, aprendí mucho del estilo de la enseñanza en el Instituto de la Escritura y Pensamiento. Está enfocado en usar el acto de la escritura para explorar y explotar textos y para recurrir tus propias experiencias. Tengo muchas ganas de enseñar en esta manera otra vez.

Hay un dicho que no se puede volver al hogar. Es verdad, con el tiempo hogar cambia y tú también. Hay edificios en el campus que no existió la última vez que estuve allí. El centro de estudiantes tiene una piedra angular con el año 1999 y recuerdo cuando se estaba construyendo frente a los dormitorios donde los profesores nos alojábamos. El edificio es antiguo ahora, se puede ver óxido y otros signos de desgaste. Antes fui uno de los más jovenes profesores, al principio de mi carrera, y la semana pasada fui el más mayor en la sala.

Sin embargo, los métodos siguen siendo los mismos. Hay un objetivo común ahora, un ensayo al final de las dos semanas y media, y pienso que esta tarea es buena. Sin duda será difícil y agotador, tanto para mí como para mis estudiantes, pero vale mucho la pena. Es un lugar para jugar con el lenguaje, es una comunidad verdadera de escribir y pensar.

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un prado

Llevo un mes estudiando en un curso autodidacta. Esta mañana en el video, al pasear el maestro usó la palabra “prado”. ¿Prado? ¿Qué? me pregunté. Él no está en El parque del Retiro en Madrid, acaba de decir que está en Inglaterra.

Aprendí que “prado” es una zona con césped. De hecho, todavía no entiendo las similitudes y las diferencias entre “prado”, “campo”, y “vega”. En mi experiencia limitada, “campo” es más común. Conozco “vega” solo porque vivimos cerca de Las Vegas y busqué el significado. Ahora hay “prado” también.

Para mí, El Prado es el hogar de Las Meninas, una de las pinturas más finas en todo el mundo. En abril me paré mucho tiempo en frente de esta imagen. Algún día debería escribir sobre mis experiencias en este museo …

En fin, “prado” es simplemente un lugar natural. Es como The Alamo o como Los Alamos. Un día más, una palabra más.

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dos partidos

Ayer fueron dos partidos de futbol — la Eurocopa con España contra Inglaterra, y la Copa América con Colombia contra Argentina. Quería que España y Colombia fueran los ganadores. Aunque tengo buenos recuerdos de los fans de futbol en un pub hace muchos años, España podría ser mi futuro hogar. Mis maestros de español viven en Colombia, así que la elección era clara.

Antes de y durante el primer partido, los presentadores hablaban solo de Inglaterra. Estaba muy decepcionado. Describieron a algunos jugadores ingleses en gran y heroico detalle, pero no dijeron nada sobre los españoles. Mostraron al rey de España varias veces, pero no dijeron quién era hasta el fin. Durante el entretiempo y después del fin, reconocieron que España es el mejor equipo, pero no dijeron ni cómo ni por qué. Es un asunto de discriminación lingüística. Qué vergüenza.

En el segundo partido, enmarcaron el encuentro como un partido entre el experimentado Messi y el enérgico equipo colombiano en una racha de victorias. No era una posibilidad de discriminación lingüística. Me dolía cuando dijeron palabras españolas. Una presentadora dijo “gracias” con tres sílabas, y el tercero sonó como “ass”. Entiendo que el nombre “Colombia” en inglés tiene dos vocales neutras, pero todavía me estremecí escuchar esta pronunciación. Un presentador dijo “Chile” una vez con la pronunciación correcta, así que es posible.

En fin, España y Argentina fueron los ganadores ayer. España fue muy eficiente, controló la pelota la gran mayoría del partido, y defendió bien la portería, incluyendo una secuencia cerca del fin. El partido comenzó tarde y hubo un espectáculo largo con Shakira durante entretiempo — después mucho tiempo, Argentina superó a Colombia en tiempo extra. Los dos equipos merecen sus campeonatos.

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