what i do

i've said it so many times that i love my job, the work that i do. i am a translator. i retell other people's words. i have the opportunity to get involved in what someone said, emerging myself, soaking up the smallest detail.
time stops. time stops like in no other situation in life. (workaholism helps, but i'm recovering.) words on paper are almost forever. (does blogger.com make hardcopy backups of these lines?) when you are working with something that is forever, your effort is timeless. the pulse of the world around you has no meaning. you take all day to find one word. then next one takes a fragment of a second.
as you make your way through the text you slowly start understanding the author more and more. when i read i focus more on the characters, the descriptions. translation, understanding each word to the extent that you can retell it in another language, takes you behind the scene. you imagine the writer, not only his message. i've never translated anything i've written (i try even not to read what i write). what secrets lie hidden in the choice of a single word, the rhythm, the pace. do written words carry information about my slow breathing, or the passion that leads to fervent typing and table-rocking. does the reader adjust the reading-speed to my breath. can the writer make someone just stop. breathe in. breathe out. breathe. in. breathe. out. breath. pause. breath. pause... pause... stop.
did you get the last line? how much should i care?