language and linguistics

HOME: Somewhere between John Denver and Eminem

~ Georgia Coats ~ 6 Comments

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It was midnight sometime B.C.E (Before Children Era) and I was walking the aisles of a nearly empty grocery store at Christmastime in east Dearborn. I had a breakdown in the canned food aisle as I became keenly aware of John Denver’s voice piping through the store…

And the Colorado Rocky Mountain high,
I’ve seen it raining fire in the sky,
You can talk to God and listen to the casual reply,
Rocky Mountain high, Colorado…

Home of 20+ years came rushing back as I imagined a Colorado sunset while selecting a can of beans.  My husband and I were alone in a new city, and our budget allowed us to go home for Christmas only in our dreams.

I didn’t even like John Denver. But in that moment, the power of a song lyric perfectly positioned in time and context stirred something deep in my heart.

There were countless dark days when I wanted to go running back to familiar and safe foods, friendships, traditions, scenery…

Home Sweet Home

It was my chronic leukemia treatments that routed us to the heart of Motown. One by one, each of our miracle Michiganders grounded us here.  Much of our tight budget was reserved for paying off three miracle pregnancies, treatments, and births—no regrets. It meant, though, that our young family of five embraced cozy Christmases in our little Dearborn home.

It was the adventure of diversity in east Dearborn that kept us persevering through grey skies and bone-chillingly cold winters.  It was the landscape of learning to love our neighbors and learning to be loved by them that made home here real.

It was in Motown I had learned about motherhood. Priority, ingenuity, perseverance, gratitude. The power of compelling song lyrics to draw depths of strength from a human heart. GRIT. It was driving into Detroit, scrounging for parking money at Wayne State as I pushed through five years of grad school that I knew the shift of “home” was real.

I was working towards a Master’s Degree in Language Learning.  My passion and research were in the heart of authentic song lyrics. Song lyrics are a great resource for gaining cultural perspectives and memorizing new language forms–the perfect blend of geeky and inspirational.

I was stuck in traffic heading east on the 94. Eminem came on the radio…

 Maybe that’s why I can’t leave Detroit
It’s the motivation that keeps me going
This is the inspiration I need.

Eminem’s rapped intensity stirred something in me. I had joined a collective of people struggling to survive, to push through, to succeed when the odds are against them.

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There’s No Place Like Home

Now, our sense of home is shaken.  We will say good-bye to Motown and imagine a Rocky Mountain high.  We will establish a new home.  Home—where loved ones are waiting for us—exuberantly.  There is nothing like having people you belong to… those who long for your homecoming.  aaeb3621-71f2-4989-a9b1-da8b760fe2c1In the craziness of moving, I crave the beauty of the Rockies—quiet solitude, the forest and the streams, seeking grace in every step (J.Denver).  A place where we will continue to follow Jesus’ compelling example of loving God and loving our neighbors.

Maybe that’s why I feel so strange,
Got it all, but I still won’t change. (Eminem)

I do have it all. My heart is expanded across thousands of miles.  Grief is real because love is abundant—17 years of cultivated relationships—birthdays, funerals, Thanksgivings, play dates, countless Eid celebrations.

IMG_7737Home is Where the Heart Is

I could never turn my back on a city that made me.
And “life’s been good to me so far” (Eminem)

I don’t have to select an anthem. Instead I will make a crazy summer playlist—one where John Denver and Eminem are back to back. I’ll add a splash of Simon and Garfunkel, some Fiddler on the Roof, Kutless, Crowder, and probably Lady Gaga.

I will laugh, cry, dance, and stare off in the distance on that epic, one-way road trip at the end of July.

Home is the center of our hearts—the place where the presence of God is real. Even in the mess of my mixed emotions, chaotic packing, and our crazy summer playlist of 2018…  He makes His home with us.de86863c-499c-4dc4-89fb-a8ef53b71e24.jpg

What’s on your summer playlist?

The Inspiration Case

~ Georgia Coats ~ 6 Comments

DSC_0186For her 9th birthday, Ella received an incredible Inspiration Case. It has every color in various forms to create unlimited possibilities.  It’s where the tools meet the paper to draw out anything her imagination can fathom. Language is my inspiration case. I get giddy over the possibilities of punctuation or the playing on of words.  It’s the place where form and meaning come together to express profundity.

Should vs. Could: A Tale to two Modals

A few weeks ago, as my husband Steve and I sauntered down the wedding reception buffet line I surveyed the dinner potentials. Should I get the Caesar or Raspberry Spinach salad? Should I try the chicken or beef?  I ultimately chose chicken and spinach and sat down at table 18. As Steve joined me, he commented that I should have tried the beef, and shared a tasty bite with me.  The great thing about being in a buffet line is that nothing had to be either/or. Both/and was also possible. I could have both the beef and the chicken if I wanted to.   I could go back for more salad.

Should and could. Both are auxiliary verbs. Phonetically, they are different by one minimal sound—the /sh/ vs. the /k/. Both are useful tools in just the right context. Everyone needs the color of mud in their Inspiration Case, but indigo is so much more fun to use. Should gets a lot more use in my inner dialogue and feels like a slow drain of phantom energy. Could  on the other hand invites the possibility of joy and adventure. Should is a modal verb of doing the correct thing. Could is a modal expressing possibility or potential. Should and could function similarly in a sentence, but their use in the buffet line takes me down such different paths.

 The Game of Possibility

Last week a job offer that I wasn’t even looking for fell into my lap. I came home in a panic trying to figure out the right thing to do. Should I say yes? Should I turn it down? After my beef vs. chicken experiment, I decided to change my inner line of questioning—the game of possibility. I could take this job. Then again, I could say no. Possibility and potential. I was freeing myself up to be inspired by the prospect of a new path, but not tied down to the obligation of what lay before me.

I love how my longtime, kindred spirit friend Kate sums it up in her blog post, Don’t should on me!: We all know the suffocating weight of living under “should”.  Whether in eating or exercise, friendship or family, “should” robs us of joy and marches us forward with a dutiful sense of obligation…“Could” opens up our imagination and stirs up excitement about things to come.

She goes on to warn us, though, not to let an obligatory should insidiously sneak into our inspiration…it’s important not to “should” ourselves into positive thinking.  Even reading this, we could conclude, “From now on I will say “could” instead of “should”.  That would be nice, but I’m afraid it’s just a set up for another “should”.  Instead, we can gain awareness about how our thoughts are coming to us.  There are obligations in life.  Having a sense of duty is not always bad, but we can still frame it in the excitement of “could” rather than the drudgery of “should”.

Sometimes Ella does use her inspiration case for required homework purposes, but having the right set of tools even for the obligatory stuff makes it more inspiring. Even then, she could choose the color of mud, but she could also choose the color of chocolate, or both/and. The possibilities are endless!

My Wayne State Moment of Fame

~ Georgia Coats ~ 3 Comments

This short article about my epic academic year was submitted by my advisor and published in the Wayne State newsletter for the Department of Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures (CMLLC), 7-13-2016:

Masters in Language Learning (MALL) student Georgia Coats ends a successful year by leading group to Spain

Georgia Coats, a student in the MALL (Masters of Arts in Language Learning) program, hadIMG_0378 an amazingly successfully 2015-2106 academic year. She was awarded a Graduate Professional Scholarship to complete all but one course toward her degree. She developed a project that resulted in conference presentations at the Michigan World Languages Association and the Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (CSCTFL). Coats received funding for her conference travel through a WSU Humanities Center travel grant. And in an exciting culmination to that work, she published her first article titled Analyzing Song Lyrics as an Authentic Language Learning Opportunity in the CSCTFL conference proceedings.
To round out this impressive year, in May 2016 Coats led seven adults from her church to Málaga, Spain, where they worked on improvement projects at a retreat center. In a first-class example of the training provided in the MALL program, she prepared the group for their trip with information about Spanish and Arab cultures and with exposure to the language to enable the group to enjoy their time in Spain as well as make the most of their efforts at the retreat center.