I was out working on the land.

A middle aged man rode up on a 4-wheeler.

He was looking for horses that had gotten loose.

“Do you ever see horses out here?” he asked.

“Yes, but I haven’t seen them out here in a week.”

The man nodded. He was standing up on the footpegs of his 4-wheeler and looking around.

“There’s a paisano that keeps his horses out here,” I said. “But I haven’t seen him in a week.”

The man said gracias and then rode off.

Afterward I thought about how I said these things in Spanish.

Hay un paisano que tiene caballos aqui.

I thought about the word paisano.

I thought about how I could say this word in Spanish and it had these different connotations that were somewhat but not exactly like “peasant” or “farmer,” and that there was nothing derogatory about these connotations, but instead they seemed to exist outside of positivity or negativity as if when you said paisano it was just like saying “a man” or “a tree.”

Un paisano.

I thought about how words in English seem “infected” by connotations and associations.

I think of certain things beyond just “white” and “man” when I hear or read or say “white man.”

I think of certain things beyond just “black and “man” when I hear or read or say “black man.”

Describing someone by his or her physical features is culturally accepted in Latin America. You can call someone “gordo” or “flaco” (which is how I’m often addressed by someone who doesn’t know me, “che, flaco” or “che, loco”) or “negro” or “moreno.”

None of this is insulting.

In Spanish you can totally say “hey, did you see a big fat black dude a couple minutes ago?”

You can “see you later fatty,” to your wife, in public, without it sounding negative.

As I went back to work on the land I kept thinking about how this is a more natural and freer way to think and talk.

And I kept thinking how there must be (or have been) even more natural and freer ways to think and talk that either exist or have existed someplace and in some point in time.