There is a phenomenon in television and movie dialogue where various characters say that they want some “space,” or that they need to “get some air.” There is nothing about the circumstances that bring about these comments to indicate a surfeit of either space or air. These types of verbal fillers irritate me. Instead of saying, “I need you to stay away from me while I decide whether or not to continue our relationship,” or “I’m leaving so that I do not rip off your ears and feed them to you,” the copywriters put in “space” or “air.” Someone I know once characterized that lack of creative effort as lazy copywriting.
In the movie “Spanglish,” an angry young girl tells her mother that she “needs some space.” Her mother responds with an equally angry, “No! There is no space between us.” The girl, who had been two years-old when she came with her mother to the United States from Mexico, was learning to express herself just as the students at the private school she attended. Mom, despite her lack of proficiency with the language of English, understood that the child did not need physical space, but emotional distance, and she was having none of it. I can imagine what the mother would have said if her daughter had walked away, claiming she was going to “get some air.”
“What air? Where is there more air than here? Are you going to hold your breath until you get to this other ‘air?’ Who told you this air is bad, and that air is better?” Mom’s struggles with English would have made this tirade chuckle-worthy. (I made that up.)
When someone is skateboarding, getting air involves getting the board off the ground while maintaining control. Long ago, when a basketball player would leap, the amazed spectators would say that he (or she) was getting air. My youngest granddaughter, though almost 4-years-old – and forty pounds – will still come to me and raise her arms, signaling to me that she wants to be lifted into the air, and ultimately come to rest on my hip. Should I fail to observe the mute cues, she gives me a verbal cue: “Up, please.” When Myah and I are playing together, she often invents games that require me to be a baby of some kind, such as a baby kitten. Should I tire of the game and refuse to participate, Myah will cross her arms in anger, stomp her foot and tell me that she will never play with me again. She will then get some air, leaving the room and storm into hers, closing the door behind her. The amount of space that she requires is rather small, as it will not be long before she returns to my space and climbs into my lap, asking to watch YouTube Kids on my iPad.
Aboriginal Australians used to walkabout, which meant to “wander in the bush away from white society in order to live in the traditional manner.” The phrase “go on walkabout” means to “wander around from place to place in a protracted and leisurely way.” It is unlikely that the current use of getting air and needing space evolved from the Aboriginal terms considering the volume of space and air in Australia, but I invite my readers to consider those terms and apply them with the current usage of space and air. When faced with an uncomfortable situation from which you need to separate yourself, walkabout. If you need a protracted separation and the benefit of refreshing winds and cumulous clouds scudding across the sky, go walkabout.
Cool, right?
cjon3acd@att.net