You Say Hello. I Say Adios.

I am happy to present this guest post from Lorraine Segal…

After surviving the ’50s and ’60s, as well as twenty years in toxic academia as a professor, Lorraine Segal was inspired to start her own business, Conflict Remedy, happily teaching, coaching, blogging, and consulting around workplace conflict transformation. She is addicted to reading novels and enjoys walking in beautiful Northern California, where she lives with her wife. Her cartoon muse, Bookie, insisted that she write her memoir, Angels and Earthworms. For more information go to https://BooklingPress.com

************************************************************

You Say Hello. I Say Adios.

I went to Mexico as part of a program called Women, Healing, and Social Change. This group of women from all over the United States came to study Spanish, herbs, feminism, and liberation.

One beautiful example of intercultural differences came when we took a day trip to a tiny pueblo (village) called Tlayacapan. While I was walking down a dusty back street, a slender local housewife, wearing a faded housedress and apron, hair in a bun, approached me from the far end. As we moved closer, we both smiled, and as she passed me she suddenly said, “Adios.”

Her remark disconcerted me. But I realized, after some thought, that our connection lasted for only a few seconds. So, saying “goodbye” logically made just as much sense as “hello.” And adios could also mean “go with God,” blessing me on my way. It had simply never occurred to me before that someone would address the end rather than the beginning of these extremely short interactions. And truthfully, if someone I walked past like this in the United States had said “goodbye” to me, I would have thought they were nuts. Being the “crazy gringa” in Mexico, where, despite my best efforts, I made frequent amusing or offensive mistakes in communication because of gaps in my cultural or linguistic knowledge, changed forever how I view these situations. I knew that different styles didn’t mean either of us was wrong!

©️Lorraine Segal 2022 Excerpted from her forthcoming memoir, Angels and Earthworms: an unexpected journey to love, joy, and miracles.