Today’s Moment of Surrealism:

Just moments ago, I had the experience of trying to explain, to a Spanish-speaking person over at my house, the plot of the movie Harvey.

Try that sometime.

It wasn’t so much about knowing enough Spanish to do the job. While pointing to Jimmy Stewart on the video box, I babbled something along the lines of “Este hombre ve, todo el tiempo, un conejo gigante. Es su amigo.” Probably not perfect, but grammar or vocab or whatever wasn’t the issue here. She understood.

The issue was her boggled look of “That’s what the movie’s about? Are you gabachos on crack or something?”

How does one explain the total magic of Jimmy Stewart’s friendship with Harvey to another culture, the charm of his “I reject your reality and substitute my own!” attitude, when all you can say is “This guy sees all the time a giant rabbit?”

I tried to think of something to combat the look. After a moment I added “Pero el es mas intelligente que la gente creen.” More or less: “But he’s smarter than people think.”

Surprisingly, that got a change of look, a smile and a little eye-narrowing of understanding, and a nod of “Oh, I get it.”

Hmm. I guess that’s how.

*Where have I been? Oh… none of your business. And whatever story I came up with would be long and boring anyway.)