matching tracksuits

The first week of school is behind us. A hectic week of bureaucracy and smiles. The former comes from all the forms and materials we distribute to students and then take back up almost immediately. “Bring this back before the end of the first week!” The latter comes from my yearly effort to be genuinely friendly.

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There’s an old saying — advice to new teachers, really — that a teacher should never smile before Christmas. By the end of every school year, I’m so frustrated with my failures in dealing with this or that disruptive or disrespectful (somewhat synonymous in many ways) student that I promise myself that next year I will be a rock until Christmas. I will lay down the law and accept no compromise. I will be a drill instructor. I will pound them into submission and then convince them I’m a decent and nice guy.

Yet summer wanes, my planning progresses, and I inevitably turn my thoughts to what I want to do during the first days of school. And it occurs to me that I would most definitely not like to be beaten into submission as an initial experience with anyone. It would be hard to overcome the negative feelings such a first impression would create.

So when the first day of school arrives, I begin again to walk the ever-wiggling line between being a kind authoritative and devolving into a kind permissive teacher. Students might find the first overbearing at times but have a general faith — now and in the future — that all was done for their best; students find the second to be a favorite teacher while in middle school, only to look back on the teacher as one who was “nice but didn’t teach us much.”

Last week — the first week back — was the honeymoon period. The real test now begins. The sad thing is, I already have my eye on one or two that I believe will be major problems before the end of the first quarter. If I can work effectively with students and keep it only to one or two, it will be a great success.

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The passage of time has always fascinated me. “X years ago today, this happened,” I would think, marveling at all the things that happened in the meantime. Often, it wasn’t an exact day, but instead, within a month or so of the actual anniversary, I would find myself thinking such nostalgic thoughts.

Many of those events later turned out to be insignificant, of little more importance than what one had for breakfast nine days ago.

Today’s is the most significant of my — and K’s — life.

When I reflect on the patience necessary for us to get married (a  non-Catholic American getting married in Poland requires only slightly less bureaucracy than starting a war or passing a stimulus bill) and the patience necessary to put up with my foolishness for six years, I realize how fortunate I am.

Six years – an awfully short time. Wars and debates have lasted much longer — and marriages. But when I look to the next six years, and the six years after that, and the six years after that (ad infinitum),

when I think of a time when my few remaining hairs have turned gray and migrated to my nose and ears, when my mind moves slowly and my body more so,

I will still have the most intelligent, beautiful, and thoughtful (among countless other superlatives) woman at my side. Perhaps only then will I truly understand the significance of our love.

Or maybe it’s to remain our ultimate mystery.

The summer’s end nears. Morning temperatures are back in the lower seventies, and return to eating breakfast on the deck occasionally. Bagels for us all, but the Girl prefers to dip hers in maple syrup. In a sense, it’s hard to argue with that kind of logic.

Here in the south, the end of summer is about the only time we can go outside and play comfortably. In July, it’s still 90 degrees as the sun sets. We try to head out sometimes for a little outdoor time, but no one wants to melt.

Still, there are options. And does it ever bring back memories: a few minutes of running through misted water on a hot summer afternoon was my idea of paradise when I was a kid. A few overlapping garbage bags fastened to the ground with whatever one could find would sometimes serve as a slide, though never for too long. Since we don’t have a sprinkler (they’ve all broken), L has somewhat limited options. It’s more fun for me, though.

The last of the crape myrtle blossoms begin falling.

And in this end is my beginning: a new school year both sparkles and looms.

In the first installment of the Toy Story series, Woody, thinking he’s been left behind, falls to the ground and decries his new, depressing status: “I’m a lost toy!”

Surely there can be many things more terrifying than being lost. One of our great childhood fears is getting lost, being separated from our parents and unable to find them. It’s the stuff of every child’s nightmares, and in a modified way, the plot of great books of the past.

Losing something dear to us is like losing a part of us.

Today, before Mass, somewhere between getting out of the car and walking out of the restroom, L lost her Madeline doll. “She may be teeny tiny, diminutive, petite.” L’s Madeline doll was all those things, and she even had a scar from having her appendectomy.

I walked back to the car, looking for the doll that I thought surely would be easy to find. No such luck. K and L went back to the restroom. No doll. After Mass, I talked to the ushers. Sadly, there’s no lost and found bin anymore, but they informed me that people often leave lost items on the tables outside the sanctuary. No Madeline. We checked the bathroom once more and looked carefully as we went back to the car.

No luck; no Madeline.

Fortunately, L was not terribly attached to the dolls, so a few tears and it was all fine.

But I’m genuinely curious about what happened to that doll. Did someone take it? If so, why? Isn’t it obviously a lost toy? If someone found it in the parking lot, isn’t it a reasonable assumption that the owner will return to look for it? In short, who would simply take a toy when it’s obvious where the owner is? Who would take a doll from a church parking lot?

Perhaps it will show up next week. There’s always that hope — the idealism that led me to be a teacher still says, “Someone will play with it for a week, then return it.”

Facebook is truly becoming ubiquitous, to the point that it can be used in Polish religious advertising.

Below was a poster at the entrance to one of the many churches in Krakow.

“Bóg” (“God”)  is pronounced much like the English “book,” but with an obvious “g” instead of “k.”

“Dodaj boga do twoich znajomych” literally means “Add God to your acquaintances,” but a more Fackbook-eque translation would obviously be, “Add as friend.”