Dear Lovestar,
I am doing something new (I am constantly looking for new thoughts or new things to do by the way). I am writing a Spanish post where I am sharing my Spanish poetry. Now I will share the things I discovered about the compartmentalization of my Spanish – English conversation of Love.
I now think in English
Background information: I am Cuban and lived there for the first 18 years of my life (Funny that this year marks my 18 years in USA, and I should probably write about it before my 19 years). When I moved to the USA as an 18-year-old, I immediately started learning English (it was my beloved, an American man who would finish “teach me” English). As I started speaking in English and especially when I moved in with the hot American and my conversations with him were always in English, I also started thinking in English. I never expected that to happen, and I would like to know what other bilingual people think about this.
The reason I started thinking in English was because when I was first learning English, I would think in Spanish, then had to translate that thought to English, also in my head, and there would be a delay in any conversation for me to figure out the next thing to say. Eventually, I started thinking in English and it saved me time to not have to translate in my head and also, I had adapted to the American way of speaking, translating doesn’t feel original. Now the opposite happens when I speak Spanish, I am thinking in English, and I have to translate, and this is difficult because there are words and idioms that have no translation.
Something new happened when I was flying to my mom’s house for the Thanksgiving holiday, I started thinking in Spanish. I notice and celebrate a new thought or a new discovery of myself, I cherished the moment, and I started writing poems in Spanish. After having several Spanish poems, I decided I would share them here and maybe find bilingual readers who are lovers like myself.
My Spanish poetry background
Before I started blogging here, I used to try to translate my English poetry to Spanish. I learned that translated poetry is not the same, and translating poetry is very hard. I might be wrong, and I only speak two languages, but I believe there is a bigger interest in poetry and especially romantic poetry within Spanish communities and, I mean no offense but the best poetry I know have been written in Spanish. We have excellent poets like Neruda, Benedetti, and Jose Marti who have influenced me big time. I have been into poetry since childhood, then as a fan of those great, typically male poets. I recited a Jose Marti poem (“La bailarina Espanola”: The Spanish dancer) for years. I was the romanticized experience of watching the Spanish dancer dance the fabulous Flamenco with an anti-Spain sentiment because it was a time of Spanish invasion in Cuba (FYI my first big idea of a job was a Flamenco dancer and Jose Marti was born in Cuba and was the son of a Spanish couple, he would die in battle against Spain).
With such a rich poetry background and such a romantic bleeding heart, it’s no wonder I turned out how I did, also because a divine lover was fated. When I started writing poetry, I aspired to become the female Neruda of the present writing in English as his poetry feeds the soul and I should write about the poetry that influenced me, Shouldn’t I? I channel those great poets, but my art comes out from the feminine which has been sleeping for a while, but we are waking her up. She is coming up strong after her beauty sleep. I know there have been female poets, simply far less and I am here to represent.
My Spanish poetry has a different flavor than my English poetry
What I learned analyzing my recent Spanish poetry was that they have a different flavor than my current English poetry and this long post is me trying to explain why. I have been thinking in English for the last 16 years and during those years there have been a lot of changes in my life and within me: falling deeply in love, having 5 children, several dark nights of the soul, self-discovery, the awakening of my divine feminine, the birth of my authenticity, self-growth, writing success (I said so), the birth of my spirituality, finding union, having certain mysterious conversations with unseen beings…
In short, the last 18 years have been of enriching my life, learning about myself, and learning to deeply connect. The previous 18 years were important too and were rich in their own way. The first 18 years of my life, in Cuba, I now see as the unconscious/ subconscious parts of me. Not at all do I look down on my experiences in Cuba thought it rained inside my house, lived in the control of communism, and I didn’t learn love.
As I said, my poetry is my poetic influence from childhood mixed with my own feelings. n top of my poetry, my arts and crafts are also influences from my childhood, so is my writing, my faith, my love for God, my faith, and much more. A big part of me, my inability to accept poor leadership which manifests as a rebelliousness is Cuban (from my family being persecuted by the demonic communists and me getting it big time in the communist schools too). The basics of me is my Cuban upbringing, my upgrades are my American influences of Love which awakened my inner connection to God which was always there from Cuba. I have finally understood that many of these Cuban things are things which I brought to this world with me, inner gifts.
My Spanish poetry speaks of missing my beloved. To be fair, at the time of writing the poetry on my flight, I was flying away from my beloved and missed him, but I had started writing them during my last night with him and this is what I mostly write in Spanish. My Spanish poetry speaks of wishes of love, wishing to be loved, dating, expressing desire, wishing for reunion, deep feelings that I am discovering.
My Spanish poetry is written as if I was a 20-year-old, still learning who I am and what is deserving of love in me. My Spanish poetry is a bit insecure, to be honest and might lack the wisdom I have learned to channel in my English poetry with maturity and spirituality. My Spanish poetry talks of the beginning stages of a relationship while my English poetry has gotten deeper as I matured. I used to talk about developing a relationship and being in love and today, I write about Union.
What I learned about myself through my Spanish poetry
I spoke of the compartmentalization (and I did have to learn to spell the word) of my English vs Spanish conversation, especially in Love and poetry but now, I realized this is with everything. Parallel to my learning/ thinking in English was my falling in love with my twin flame which triggered healing and a spiritual awakening, and my English discourse developed with my consciousness. As I learned things about myself, I learned them, talked to my lover about them, wrote about them, and contemplated them in English, never really in Spanish. As a result, my Spanish discourse didn’t develop the same way. Only now do I see this as compartmentalization.
Compartmentalization has a negative connotation. I learned this when I looked the word up (researching for this not post, but rather article). And this is the missing piece of this let me call it entry of my journal. I do not know how this entry will end, this is automatic writing, trying to figure things out about myself to heal and become a better me who is an even better match for union and a better mother, and finally to be much more on my mission on Earth. My intention is to open the closed parts of me and let at least a stream of unconsciousness through and then decode it/ translate it through my mindless writing so I can understand the secret part of me which still guides me. It’s a skill and a very helpful one.
Compartmentalization (by now I can spell the word without autocorrect) is seen as being related to trauma, not surprised at all): Compartmentalization is a defense mechanism in which people mentally separate conflicting thoughts, emotions, or experiences to avoid the discomfort of contradiction. This definition is from Psychology today. This entry developed from me thinking of this word and then looking the meaning up to me connecting the dots to the realization of what always was obvious. The truth is that it was always difficult to speak of Love in Spanish. When I spoke/ thought in Spanish, I didn’t believe in Love. I thought love was a transaction where women accepted to give sex to men in exchange for men giving women attention. This was a trauma response because when I lived in Cuba, I never saw real love and I was missing a piece of the love puzzle, I didn’t know lovers could connect beyond sex and attention.
My contradiction was that as a romantic, bleeding heart, I didn’t believe in love and actually my heart had become damaged, and I was literally unable to love. However, though me came a great love and a great expectation of a deep connection with a male. The contradiction is that even though in my English vocabulary there are words like union and connection, and I can perfectly explain love and my feelings, in Spanish it’s not the same. I just remember another thing when it comes to my languages, I have never sworn in Spanish, was taught by my parents and I never started, so I don’t. Now, I think that swearing is ugly and unnecessary so I rather not, but I have sworn in English.
What can I learn/ how do I move on from this?
I will speak and write more in Spanish and when I do, I will be more authentic rather than trying to fit in with my parents for example. My parents are old school and no open-minded idea of mine will be accepted but I can influence in non-verbal ways too. I can talk to my sister in Spanish. I can finally teach my children Spanish. I can create Spanish writing prompts. I am starting to be conscious of the fact that upgrading my Spanish discourse will help me in some way.
I am not sure how to finish this, but I have written enough,
With warm hugs,
Eve
Lovestar Temple🔥 🔥 