Who was it that said: [i]Interpals[/i] is this big lottery which often pays you back with one penny for your dollar but gives an opportunity to win the jackpot — meaningful conversation, a laugh, a book idea, or a new song. Sometime a language partner or ... even a friend, if you become lucky enough.

You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know -- that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives; and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall -- you need me on that wall. We use words like "honor," "code," "loyalty." We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line. To a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it, I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself. I would rather that you just said "thank you" and went on your way.

"Because Noah could not save the entire world, he had to choose two of each....since only in the plural could the plurals survive for more than a generation. Translators, facing impossible choices too, could not bring everything in the great journey from Hebrew to another language. Beware the language of Arabic as if the foundation was laid by you. Facing impossible choices in impossible places, translators did not want to bring ... the so delicate precise sound, like laughter. Yes, translators, not allowed in the kitchen because they can come across as too smart.

Certainly there is much lost in translation, like in Times of plagues, if you tried to bridge CULTURES and ERAS. Some of their translations are unbearably painful, for a professor to see, about the way of viewing the world. There never has been a perfect translator, while keeping much of the complexity alive."

From a theory and practice of translation, so that The SPIRIT does not die, especially for a translator who really never prays, there is a feeling from the language of Arabic, in the differences between REACH and GRASP, connected to love --if there is the NO THERE- with the missing acknowledgement that you are reading a translation -not the original. Coming to hear another voice in the room, another mind at work, you as an Interpal translator failed. But you still are so young, keep trying.

Stretch marks. Mostly, stretch marks are the result of life-changing growth. I think that is what she was trying to say. Like Ann Patchett writes, it is like a big circle. "I've gone on a get-a-man crusade, but so far it's been a disaster and I'm feeling as bad about myself as I ever have. There are a few times in life when you leap up and the past that you'd been standing on falls away behind you, and the future you mean to land on is not yet in place, and for a moment you're suspended knowing nothing and no one, not even yourself. Hope is [not COVID] is a plague. Hope is like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and somebody just keeps pulling it and pulling it.”