“Yes or no?” I ask the Boy.
“Tak,” he replies.
Results For "Month: January 2014"
Glimpse into Your Future?
As an eighth-grade teacher, I’ve sometimes found myself in a situation that is difficult to believe: a student, already in trouble, burrows herself even more deeply into the issue, verbal fangs and claws showing. “It’s surely a defensive mechanism,” I thought, wondering why this person was essentially standing in front of a wall banging her head mercilessly against the cinder blocks and growing more angry that the only result was pain for her with no visible effects to the wall. “Surely this is automated response,” I almost mused aloud.
Such situations have left me wondering what I could do to help such a student and frustrated that I didn’t handle the situation better at the time. In such cases, if the kid has been somewhat troubling through the year, it can be difficult to resist the temptation to poke at the situation a bit like a bloodied knee. What does it cost me? It only hurts the other person, and don’t she deserve it for all the nonsense I’ve put up with through this year? Yet I’m the adult in the situation, and thankfully I can say that I’ve generally resisted the temptation to provoke further in such situations.
“Surely it’s something they grow out of.” It’s the only hope sometimes. And then I saw this.
Musical Memory
Spotify has allowed me to wallow in music I literally haven’t heard ten or more years, which is to say wallow in nostalgia.
Snow Day 2014
Pre-Snow Day 2014
Having grown up in the South, I was amazed and enchanted with all the snow I encountered in southern Poland during my first winter there. “Snow” is a frequent word in my journal during that period. In January 1997, just six months after arriving, I wrote,
It has begun snowing steadily this morning, and the wind is making the snow fall at quite an angle, greater than forty-five degrees at times (or less, if you use the ground as a point of reference). The flakes are very large and wet, and they coat my jacket with white when I walk.
In Bristol snow never stays on the ground for longer than a few days. There might be spots of snow in heavily shaded areas, but not the continual blanket of Lipnica. The temperature is consistently below zero, so old snow remains as a foundation for the occasional flurries. Yet despite the amount of snow on the ground, it really hasn’t snowed that frequently. The bulk of the snow now on the ground is from two heavy snow falls, and it hasn’t done much more than flurry since then.
Heavy snow that stays on the ground for weeks, below-zero days, hoar frost, zero at the bone — all these things were relatively new experiences for me.
Later in the month, I continued:
It is snowing, and has been since Tuesday night. Something like four to six inches has fallen, and I love it. The wind blows fiercely and the wet flying snow makes me have to look down anytime I go out. It’s a storm by my standards, but probably only an average snow fall in Poland. It will give me something to talk about back home. “You call this a storm?”
Over the years, though, the snow lost its novelty. Snow everywhere for weeks on end soon became as much a hindrance as a blessing. I knew I’d fully lost my fascination with snow when, walking to midnight Mass one Christmas with K and her aunt, I found myself overwhelmingly annoyed with the sound of shoes crunching and squeaking on the ice and snow.
Then K and I moved to the States, ultimately ending up in South Carolina, where snow is as much a rarity as ninety-degree weather in K’s Polish hometown. Snow became a blessing again, but it is so rare. And so every winter, we wait in anticipation that we might get just a touch of snow.
Today in school, after the first two periods, when eighth grade students were heading off to their various third period related arts classes, the teachers spoke in a hush.
“Mr. M said we’re going to be releasing at twelve today.”
But it was all in anticipation of the storm bearing down on the South. It wasn’t the first time I’d experienced an in-expectation snow day: several years ago, when we lived in Asheville, schools closed the day Babcia was supposed to arrive, also in expectation of a mother-of-all storms. That one never materialized, though. So today I was a little skeptical of the whole prognosis as we got the kids through lunch and hustled out to their buses. I arrived at home around two, and nothing.
Finally the snow started falling, but the flakes were so small that they were difficult to see, and after fifteen minutes, only the lightest of dusting covered the table and chairs on the deck.
“Can we go outside?” L asked, eager to play in the snow and checking the window periodically.
“Can we have a snowball fight? Can we build a snowman?” L has had so little experience with snow that she can’t understand the amount of snow a simple snowball needs. She has no idea the difference between wet snow and dry snow and the impossibility of making snowballs and snowpeople from the latter.
The Boy, having been in Poland last January, has much more experience with snow. The only problem is, he doesn’t remember it. So he too was fascinated with the white powder on our back deck.
L and the Boy returned to their cartoons, and finally the snow became significant, hiding the glass under its less-slight dusting and making significant inroads with the chairs.
Close, but not enough.
Finally, the Girl could stand it no longer. “Daddy, I’m going out!” And off she went, searching for snow to eat and a patch large enough to ball into a projectile.
I got the Boy and headed out shortly after. After marching about the yard for a while, he began scooping swirls of snow, leaves, and dirt in the backyard.
L on the other hand was working on a collection of snow in the cat’s outside bowl.
Once K arrived and we’d stuffed ourselves with chili (what else to eat in such weather?), the four of us handed out for a family walk. The sun had set but the night was still bright with the sparse snow and gray sky reflecting street lights, and the stroller’s wheels crunched in the snow: surely everyone who saw us thought us mad. Our stroll took us to the edge of our neighborhood, into a parking lot of a small corporate office. The Boy was convinced it was “babbas,” a gigantic manifestation of the bubbles in his bath that have become a highlight of his day. He ran in the snow, occasionally calling “babbas!” The Girl chased him, chased K, chased me, obsessively calling, “You’re it!”
So much joy from just a dusting of snow. Only finding out we could do it all again tomorrow made it better.
Morning Light
In the mid-80’s, when I was a young teen, my uncle’s doctors discovered that he had highly advanced kidney cancer — so advanced that they said there was nothing they could do. Six weeks or so later, I was a pallbearer at his funeral. It was quite a shock for the family, for he was just in his early fifties, and it all happened so quickly.
Yet, looking back and considering the number of cigarettes he smoked daily and the number of years he continued the habit, it’s not entirely unexpected. Actions have consequences; those consequences in turn often lead to still other repercussions.
One of these was the almost-continual driving back and forth from our home in Virginia to the hospital in South Carolina that was treating my uncle. It was summer; I was out of school and my father was taking time off work, so the three of us went back and forth, spending the weekends and other occasional days sitting in the waititng room or by my father’s brother’s bedside. I spent a good bit of my time reading Stephen King, skateboarding in the parking lot, and walking to the Hardee’s down the street for something sweet to drink.
I didn’t like hanging out in my uncle’s room, mainly for selfish reasons. It was stressful walking down the hall, seeing all the aged and decrepit (little did I know) patients, their rooms open, their eyes following every visitor as we walked by their doors. Additionally, the odors were, to my immature nose, offensive and probably unnecessary. So little did I know of death and dying; so little do I know now, but at least I understand its natural elements a little better.
In some ways what bothered me most was seeing my father helpless. It was obvious in his voice and countenance that this was one of the most trying experiences of his life. He was constantly asking his brother if he need anything: another pillow, the television on, the blinds closed, the television off, the blinds open. He sat sometimes and wiped his brother’s forehead with a cool cloth and, as far as I recall, said nothing. What could he say?
Receiving End
You’re supposed to pull unreservedly for your home team. It’s a form of loyalty, perhaps. But sometimes, it’s just hard. Sometimes, you’re glad for every single point the opposition scores. When a game starts with an enormous lead, and all the breaks seem to be going to the home team, and the visitors just seem completely outclassed, it only seems the sensible thing to pull for the visitors.
When the coach pulls out the starters (mostly eighth graders) and allows players from lower grades to play and the lead only grows, the game becomes almost painful to watch, especially when the visitors make so many unforced errors, to mix sports terminology. The frustration on their faces, the despondency on the bench. It hurts just to watch.
Or does it? As the point difference climbs, the visiting team seems to be more heroic. They don’t give up. They don’t slow their pace. They continue fighting even though it’s clear to everyone in the gymnasium that they’re outgunned.
When I was a coach, my one season as a volleyball coach, we faced game after game like this. I admired the girls for going out every time and giving it their best, and I told them as much. “What you did requires more character than the other team exhibited by winning,” I said. For middle schoolers, though, character isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
As I walked out of the gym tonight with most of the final quarter remaining, I glanced back up at the scoreboard and saw how dismal things had become. Part of me wanted to stick around and tell the visitors what courage they’d shown; part of me thought that might be taken as some sort of gloating. In the end, I left hoping their coach had the sense to say those words.
The Tooth Fairy’s Telescope
I heard the crying first thing in the morning. L was nearly panicked, her crying almost a heaving, desperate bawling.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?”
“The tooth fairy! She didn’t come!”
Uh oh.
The tooth came out unexpectedly last night. She came running to me, showing the new gap in her lower teeth, explaining that she’d just bitten into an apple and boom — out it came. The first disaster of the experience occurred shortly after that, for we couldn’t find the little circular plastic container that the dentist had given her for her lost teeth. We searched and searched, but no one could remember where we’d put it after the last lost tooth.
I suggested that she put it on a bookshelf. “The tooth fairy will be able to hone in on it then,” I explained, thinking, “and that might make it a little easier for me to remember.”
Making the “100th Day of School” shirt
In the end, she put it in a plastic bag, which she tucked under her pillow.
“Well,” I said this morning, “perhaps the plastic bag somehow messed things up.” I could almost sense the gears turning, could almost hear the response: “But Daddy, that can’t be it. The last time, I put it in the little box the dentist gave me, and that was plastic!” So I made a preemptive explanation: “That’s odd, because the fairy box the dentist gave you is plastic. Perhaps it’s the type of plastic, or the fact that it’s in a bag.”
What a good thing that I didn’t almost blow it with the tooth fairy like I almost did with Santa, when I called down to K, “When did we buy that telescope?”
“Wait, did you buy it or did Santa?” L had asked.
Making the “100th Day of School” shirt
So it could have been much worse. A forgotten tooth fairy night can be remedied with the explanation that even the tooth fairy needs a night off and a couple of bucks under her pillow the next night. But there’s the question of whether one wants to do this: isn’t it essentially lying to your child? I always thought that as a teen and young adult, when the thought of being a parent first flitted into by brain. Now, with a bit more experience, I see it differently: it’s no more lying than telling a story is lying. We don’t take the time to examine the veracity of each story we read to the Girl. We don’t cultivate a sense of doubt in her simply for the sake of creating a skeptical daughter. We do it because a sense of the mysterious is not such a bad thing.
Yet as I left her room this evening, I realized that she could have peeked through one eye to see me sneaking out and I’d never know it. Maybe she’ll let us believe we’re still fooling her.
“Do your parents still believe you believe in the tooth fairy and all that?” a friend might ask.
“Yeah, it makes them feel good,” she might respond. “It lets them think I’m still a little girl.”
In a way, as long as she believes in the tooth fairy, as long as a missed visit causes tears, she is. But on the other hand, she put it behind her easily enough and soon was making her “100th Day of School” shirt, gluing anything and everything she could think of to her t-shirt. Had such a disaster occurred just a few months ago, I can’t see her getting over it so quickly. Just more proof that L’s imagined conversation contains the unavoidable truth: she won’t be a little girl forever, nor would we want her to be.
Play My Boy To Sleep
Few things are as rewarding as getting one’s guitar and playing in a darkened hushed room until one’s son is fast asleep.