on cortázar and letting go
julio cortázar sits pretty on my nightstand. i bought this copy of 'bestiario' a year and a half ago, before i could read higher than a 1st grade level in spanish. it was ambitious, something i rarely am, and so it got packed away in a box and placed in the garage, destined to rot.
i found it yesterday, helping my dad organize the items he's hoarded for the past seven years in our once empty, now jam-packed garage. adding it to the bag of possessions i'd later bring upstairs to reclaim, i thought it'd remain unusable for another year and a half. but i peeled it open last night and began on page 1, as readers are known to do.
and i could understand it. not bits and pieces, but all of it; its nuances, its adjectives, its tenses. the strings of words were as reachable as those i read in my native tongue.
this is to say, that, maybe, when we let go of the rigid steps we assume should lead us to our goals, the path there feels shorter, easier, more intuitive. i've conversed, gossiped, made endless humiliating mistakes my way to understanding cortázar without picking up a textbook or drilling grammar.
maybe learning is letting go.