{"id":5025,"date":"2023-11-17T06:39:09","date_gmt":"2023-11-17T10:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/a-tender-illustrated-celebration-of-the-many-languages-of-love-the-marginalian\/"},"modified":"2023-11-17T06:39:09","modified_gmt":"2023-11-17T10:39:09","slug":"a-tender-illustrated-celebration-of-the-many-languages-of-love-the-marginalian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/a-tender-illustrated-celebration-of-the-many-languages-of-love-the-marginalian\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tender Illustrated Celebration of the Many Languages of Love \u2013 The Marginalian"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Profit<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n

\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

That one mind can reach out from its lonely cave of bone and touch another, express its joys and sorrows to another \u2014 this is the great miracle of being alive together. The object of human communication is not the exchange of information but the exchange of understanding. If we are lucky enough, if we are attentive enough, communication then becomes a system for the transfer of tenderness. That we have invented so many forms of it \u2014 the language of words, the language of music, the language of flowers \u2014 is a testament to our elemental need for this exchange.<\/p>\n

A bright and immeasurably tender celebration of that need comes from French author \u00c9lise Fontenaille and Spanish artist Violeta L\u00f3piz<\/a> in their lovely collaboration At the Drop of a Cat<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (public library<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"\"

We meet a six-year-old boy just learning to read and write in his grandfather Luis\u2019s house \u2014 a house Luis has built with his own hands, surrounded by a garden full of artichokes the size of heads and green beans climbing into the sky \u2014 a garden that \u201cfeels like a whole other world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

\"\"

Through the little boy\u2019s unjudging eyes, in illustrations as textured and layered as a life well lived, a loving portrait of Luis emerges \u2014 his green thumb and the way he \u201cspeaks bird language,\u201d his gifts for painting and cooking, his many tattoos, his thick Spanish accent and his charming misuse of idioms: He calls his grandson \u201cthe apple of his pie\u201d and loves the expression \u201cat the drop of a cat,\u201d of which the little boy is so fond that he continues using it in school despite his teacher\u2019s correction. <\/p>\n

As the portrait unfolds, we realize that Luis misuses idioms because he has only ever heard them spoken, in a foreign tongue: When he was a little boy himself, having spent his childhood working in the fields, he fled war-torn Spain and \u201ccrossed mountains and hills and the countryside until he got to France.\u201d He never went to school, never learned to write. Instead, he developed his own language of belonging \u2014 a living lexicon for feeling at home in the living world.<\/p>\n

\"\"

And that is how Luis communicates with his grandson \u2014 in the language of plants, in the language of paintings, in the language of love. <\/p>\n

They draw together in the garden, forage in the meadow, and luxuriate in each other\u2019s light as Luis plays his guitar under the cherry tree. <\/p>\n

\"\"

\"\"

Radiating from the pages is the great tenderness that blooms between the young boy and the old man as they try to understand each other, to inhabit each other\u2019s inner garden.<\/p>\n

\"\"

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The day comes when the child reads a poem to his grandfather \u2014 he has finally learned to read and write, but he has also learned something else: that there are many languages of connection, each with its own dignity and delight, each an outstretched hand reaching for another.<\/p>\n

\"\"

\"\"

Couple At the Drop of a Cat<\/em><\/strong><\/a> with What Is Love?<\/em><\/a> \u2014 a kindred reckoning with the consolations of connection, told through the tender relationship between a child and a grandparent \u2014 then revisit The Forest<\/em><\/a> \u2014 a love letter to our bond with the wilderness, also illustrated by Violeta L\u00f3piz.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Profit<\/a>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That one mind can reach out from its lonely cave of bone and touch another, express its joys and sorrows to another \u2014 this is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-purpose"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}