Author Archives: bmackeen

What Language Can Say

I was in the back seat of the car with my mother at age 6, driving down a (more or less) major route in Eastern Massachusetts. For whatever reason, we pulled into a strip mall parking lot to get some things at CVS. I remember my mother’s voice on the way out of the parking lot, rambling on about something that I needed to do, obviously from a place of genuine care and love. But I remember specifically tuning out everything she was saying. The sounds kind of became randomized sound segments that receptors in my brain could not parse. I then thought about something for a second: English isn’t the only language out there, and most people in the world would have no idea what my mom was saying. Continue reading →

All In a Day’s Walk (El Camino de Santiago)

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I walked 500 miles.

I could spend time thinking of a more playful introduction, but the sentence above represents both the banality of my life at the time and the simplicity of the accomplishment itself. From May 4th, 2015, to June 15th, 2015, I was walking. Not running, not swimming; neither driving nor flying. Walking through little towns and big cities alike on the Northern coast of Spain, from the French border to a city in Galicia called Santiago de Compostela, in the West of the Iberian Peninsula. Looking back today, I’m skeptical that it even happened or that I did it. But I did, for what it’s worth. Continue reading →

The Power of Comfort

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“¿Esto es punto?” Waiting for a response, I remove a mechanical pencil from my left ear, open my field notebook, and rest it firmly on my forearm to create a sturdier writing surface. The answer “sí” comes from Emiliana Cruz, a linguistic anthropologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who is a native of the exact place we are in. I press a button on the bright yellow Garmin GPS unit, geographically marking the newest sacred area on our trek around the mountains of “Chatinolandia” in southern Oaxaca. My ears try their hardest to decipher the tonal contours of an indigenous Oto-Manguean language called Chatino. The variety being recorded on our equipment is San Juan Quiahije Chatino, the dialect that Emiliana grew up speaking. This is a minor glimpse into my life for the month of July in 2014, where I was invited to work on Emiliana Cruz’s project on language and landscape. We would hike a total of twelve days during this month, collecting countless hours of audio and hundreds of photos of ceremonial areas, types of plants, and sacred paths. Continue reading →