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In search of sfumatura

The average English speaker knows between 20,000 and 35,000 words and even at four years of age we have mastered about 5,000 words. Clearly it’s a lifetime of discovery. Avid readers, writers and students of grammar will naturally fall to the upper end of this range of words, and I’d like to think I’m somewhere in among them. So it’s been an awakening of sorts to start studying a new language and be back with the four year olds! 

This is my fourth full year of weekly Italian lessons. After a big start back in 1999 when I took a trip to foreign language school in Florence, Italy, for 3 months, I languished in learning from the minute I moved to the Yarra Valley – life, distance, distraction took over. It was due to the movement of so many classes to the online environment during COVID, and the overwhelming need I had to make the most of lockdowns, that I was able to return to study. And its been such a joy. 

I’m not sure how to quantify how many words I know but for the B1 level I am currently mastering, a little research indicates 5,000 seems about right. (Plus blessedly Italian is a familiar sounding language – the Latin base that is the foundation of Italian and English gives us much in common that I am forever grateful for.)

But there is one thing that truly frustrates me when I try to write and speak in this new language. The difference between knowing 5,000 words and 35,000 words can be summed up in one word! Sfumatura, which is the Italian word for nuance. 

Sfumatura is how we bring meaning to our words, how we find the depth of description, the carriage of emotion, the speakable and the unspeakable. Nuance is the difference between pedestrian and powerful. Nuance is the marker of a great writer and communicator. Nuance is what makes a life story resonate, inspire and move.

So I will persist in the search for sfumatura and this next chapter will be about me living in Comiso, in Sicily, for six weeks over the Italian winter; writing, studying and more importantly immersing myself in the subtleties of daily life and language.

And meanwhile, there have been so many ways that learning a language has been meaningful for me.

Learning a language has helped me to:

  1. Develop better listening skills.
  2. Understand the deep roots and nuances of my birth language.
  3. Gain a deeper appreciation for the lives of those who can’t communicate easily.
  4. Give myself to slow and incremental growth instead of fast and furious – slow learning is key.
  5. Authentically lean into a culture that represents all the values I appreciate for a good life.
  6. Meet so many gorgeous and generous people I would not usually encounter in life.
  7. Keep my mind curious, active and supple.
  8. Laugh at my own mistakes – there have been plenty.
  9. Hold true to my desire that in this lifetime I will be fluent.
  10. Drive my family crazy when I speak to myself in Italian at home, or anywhere.

In this lifetime I will master a second language. It makes me a better writer in English. And perhaps one day, an accomplished writer in Italian as well. 

So onwards I go, because there are moments when I think first in Italian, or something just magically drops in that makes it all so exquisitely pleasurable. I will find the nuance. Or perhaps it will find me. 

(I’ll be in Comiso 3.12.24-14.1.25)

Chi cerca, trova. Whoever seeks, finds.

 

#lifestoriesaustralia #inspiringlifestory #lifestoryinterviews #hearmystory #sharemystory #livetotell

#biography #therightwordchangeseverything #lindyschneiderwriter #memoir

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Breadcrumbs

Often clients will ask what the plan is for a life story I am writing. Every writer will have their own process for the gathering, sorting, arranging and writing of life material but I believe it is the material that suggests to us how we might best handle it.

So I am not the type of writer that sets up a chapter by chapter plan.

When I take on a story, I understand there is first the need for open listening and documenting without trying to prescribe any sort of format or outcome. 

I approach each story as an act of creative endeavour, an exploration that can only reveal itself as the project progresses. There is no way of knowing every intricacy or turn in a story when we first start. The process is a creative act shared between subject and writer that often follows an uncertain path, but nevertheless one with its own inherent wisdom and foundation.

I liken this to the gathering of breadcrumbs. Every story crumb drops at our feet to be considered and formed into a coherent thread. 

One breadcrumb leads you to the next…

And the next… 

And so the process unfolds.

Every story will reveal itself and for me the end result is richer and more nuanced. 

 

#lifestoriesaustralia #inspiringlifestory #lifestoryinterviews #hearmystory #sharemystory #livetotell #biography #therightwordchangeseverything #lindyschneiderwriter #memoir

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Life Story Writing

I have always preferred real stories to those of the imagination, but I don’t think I understood how important the imagination was in telling life stories until I dove deep into my first biography project.

I’ve always valued writing as a tool for healing and it is through this lens that I approach my life writing today. Every story, as we tell and retell, requires our imaginative forces to recreate the essence, the detail and feelings of the moment. And in constructing those moments in our lives using words, we are able to peer deeply into the subtleties of our experience.

In life writing we gather together the threads of a life and weave them into a tapestry that can be embraced by others. The opportunity to tell our story in our words is a legacy for others, and one of the greatest acts of faith in ourselves I can imagine.

My pathway into life writing has evolved out of many aspects of my life – writing articles about people as a professional writer and journalist, working with clients as a counsellor and art therapist and from my own practices in journal writing.

When I discovered life writing, I discovered a way to work that brought so many of these elements together. Empathetic listening, authentic questioning, skilful writing and imaginative scene setting all go toward a compelling read, and to write knowing that a story has the power to affect others is one of the most rewarding aspects of the work. But even more than that is the trusted place a life writer occupies in a subject’s world, even if only for a short time. It is work of great privilege and I am forever left with a deep sense of honour that I am invited into a life, a family and a story.

While many life stories are only captured on the page as a project of the twilight years, I encourage people to document their lives at any age or stage. A significant life event, illness or change, decade or transition from one life to another are all worthy of writing about. This means our life stories start right where we are and can companion us throughout our lives.  We all have something fascinating to share and our stories are never finished.

Lindy Schneider

 

 

 

Full Member – Life Stories Australia

www.lindyschneider.com.au

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