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Month: December 2020
Beaufort Day 5
The Boy finally found his shark teeth. We went back to the beach famed for its shark teeth and within seconds, he’d found his first. It wasn’t his last.
“Once I found one, I was in my prime!” he declared shortly before asking, “Daddy, what does it mean to be ‘in my prime’?”
“I love when you use words you don’t really know!” I laughed.
“What?! It was on Cupcake and Dino. I’m just not sure what it means.”
I explained. It pleased him that he’d used it correctly.
Beaufort Day 4: A Day-Trip to Savannah
Our last full day in the area was not in the area. We went to Savannah because, well, it’s Savannah. You can’t come within 40 miles of Savannah and not spend at least some time there.
Of course, with a bunch of Poles in the group, we had to go to Pulaski monument in Monterey Square as we headed to Forsyth Park and its famous fountain.
Afterward, we headed to the water front where we visited a saltwater taffy shop, watched ships come up the river into the harbor, and wandered in and out of shops.
And of course the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist.
We finished off the day — and, in essence, the trip — at Tybee Island.
Beaufort Day 3
Today we headed back to Hunting Island State Park. It was in part because of something K wanted to do: there is a long trail through a coastal forest by a lagoon that leads to a bridge to a small island, and K, always the hiker, wanted to make the journey there and back. It wasn’t that long — about two and a half miles one way, but it’s enough to get some folks fussing if they don’t really want to participate. However, the potential fussers were sold on the simple idea that it would lead to more beach time.
It also led to something that someone had asked about before we set out on the hike (“Is that the way to the boneyard?” Boneyard? What are you talking about?) but we’d never heard of. A virtual forest of driftwood — whole trees half-sunken in the sand, bleached by the sun, surrounded by rippled, hard-packed sand.
It was the perfect place for a series of portraits.
Beaufort Day 2
“Daddy, I have one dream for this trip,” the Boy has been saying since we arrived. “I want to go shark tooth hunting.” We watched a couple of videos on how to do it, and it seemed entirely possible that the Boy could find a number of them during an hour or so of searching.
After a little hunting, we asked someone who seemed to know what he’s doing. “You just have to look for black triangles,” he explained, shaking out of a small bottle the small black fossilized teeth he’d found during the morning. “Like that one,” he continued, reaching down and plucking up a small tooth that he’d just discovered.
If it was that easy to find, we all thought it would be a simple enough matter for the Boy to discover one.
“It’s my dream to find a shark tooth,” E reiterated. Multiple times.
Soon enough, L found one. Then K found one. Then L found another. But E found nothing.
“Maybe we can come back later today and look again,” E suggested. It was, after all, not quite low tide yet.
We headed off to the historic district of Beaufort for a little lunch and exploring. We found a charming church with an old cemetery that had a few graves from Revolutionary War soldiers. E was impressed with the age of the graves, impressed with the size of the church, but still thinking about that shark tooth he still hadn’t found.
We finished up our time in Beaufort with a walk along the waterfront where marveled at the homes of the rich, large mansions that spoke of fortunes beyond our own considerations and imagination. (We got echoes of that in the evening when we watched Pride and Prejudice.)
Finally, we found a good spot for a few portraits.
Then we headed back to the beach where we’d started the morning searching for shark teeth.
The tide had risen, and the search was all the more difficult for it. Everyone searched for teeth; everyone found shark teeth. Everyone except the Boy.
It crushed him.
The whole way back to the car, he was on the verge of tears. “Everyone found a tooth! Everyone! Even L found a tooth, and she was not even interested in it until this morning!”
When we got back to the place we’re renting through AirBnB, he threw himself into the corner of the couch and fought back the tears. “It was my dream to find a shark tooth!” he whimpered. “My dream!”
Earlier in the day, in a gift shop, we’d bought a small bag of shark teeth. He bought them because they were cool; I encouraged him because I knew after that morning that finding a tooth is not a guaranteed adventure. I used this to try to reason with him: “Look, you wanted to look for shark teeth. You wanted to find a shark tooth. And you wanted to go back home with a shark tooth. You’re accomplishing two of your three desires.”
I knew it was a long shot, and he saw right through it. “But I wanted to find a tooth!” If he’d managed that one simple feat, the other two would have automatically been fulfilled. My cleverness might have soothed a younger boy, but not an eight-year-old E.
These are the silly things that happen in the course of parenting that seem both highly significant and completely trivial. His pain and frustration were highly significant: I recall wanting something so badly at that age, how I used to get my heart so set on it that if it didn’t come to fruition, I might as well have died, so bleak seemed my prospects afterward. Yet it was at the same time so trivial: he’s going home with thirty to forty shark teeth in his bag. In a few weeks or a few months at most, this will be an almost-disappeared memory. It will be a foggy memory he recalls as his own son deals with similar frustration.
Beaufort Day 1
The card reader I brought is broken. How to get the photos downloaded? Connect the camera to the phone, download the images to the phone, and edit them on the phone.
Arrival
Games after dinner. A post from my phone. The streak continues…
Christmas Day 2020
Wigilia 2020
My first wigilia was in 1996. I’d been in Poland for only five months at that point, and I celebrated it with the family in Radom with whom I stayed when we Peace Corps volunteers first arrived in Poland. The fact that I first went to Poland in the Peace Corps says a lot about how much the country has changed. We were there to teach English and help NGOs catch their balance, and we spent twelve weeks in Radom beginning to learn Polish and starting to get an understanding of Polish culture. A few months later, my host family invited me back to Radom to spend Christmas with them. That it was the last time I ever saw them is evidence of how close we were. I don’t remember much about that first wigilia other than the fact that I was always a little uncomfortable. My host-brother and I never quite got along (I believe he questioned my intelligence, for he often behaved that way), so that first wigilia would certainly not be the standard by which to judge the tradition.
My second wigilia celebration was with the family that lived across the river from me in Lipnica, the family that became so much like family that I found myself thinking, “So this would have been what it was like to have a relationship with my host family like others had with theirs.” It was everything wigilia should have been the year before. Afterward, we all walked down to babcia’s house had continued the celebration with the extended family.
My third wigilia, in 1999, I was in Berlin with a friend. We didn’t have much of a wigilia.
Wigilias four and five really didn’t happen. I was back in America and not really close to anyone who celebrated it. Besides, it’s a time for family: one doesn’t invite mere close friends.
Since 2001, though, I’ve been involved in wigilia celebrations yearly. I spent 2001 with the family from wigilia two. I was at that time renting a room from them, and it just seemed logical. And there was no one else I would or could have celebrated it with.
It was much like wigilia two: warm and friendly, like with family.
It was with my fourth real wigilia, in 2002, that wigilia became a true wigilia. K and I were by then dating. Our future seemed to be coming into focus as a future together. L and E weren’t even thoughts in our minds but we were starting to feel like a family.
Wigilia 2003 was much the same as 2002 but with one difference: K and I were engaged. L and E were thoughts in our minds, inevitable joys that we had not yet named or met but were certainties in some sense.
Since then, wigilia has been the same wigilia that everyone else has celebrated: a time with family. Our last wigilia in Poland, in 2004, was our first as a married couple. K’s brother came with his wife and son — now eighteen — and we celebrated as all Polish families celebrate.
Moving to America, we celebrated every wigilia with one constant: Nana and Papa. Other friends joined from time to time. Some friends in the passing of years become more than just friends. Then we added L. Then E. And things went along like that for several years, until we lost Nana. So while there’s always been a certain continuity from wigilia to wigilia, from year to year, we have made adjustments along the way.
K has made adjustments in how she makes the zakwas for the barszcz. This year, instead of the ceramic container with a slice of bread on top, she left the beets and garlic in water and garlic alone, only much longer than the normal four days. It was a recipe she found online, I believe. The result: zakwas so good that she said she could drink it by itself. It was good, I thought, but not so good that I’d consume it as a refreshing beverage.
We’ve made adjustments in the gifts we arrange for Santa to give the kids. This year, we made sure Santa brought mainly art supplies for the Boy and money for the Girl.
So we’ve made adjustments significant and less so, but the constants threaded through it all are simple enough.
Previous Years
Wigilia 2001
Wigilia 2002
Wigilia 2003
Wigilia 2004
Wigilia 2005
Wigilia 2006
Wigilia 2007
Wigilia 2008
Wigilia 2009
https://matchingtracksuits.com/2010/12/25/wigilia-2010/
Wigilia 2011
Wigilia 2012
Wigilia 2013
Wigilia 2014
Wigilia 2015
Wigilia 2016
Wigilia 2017
Wigilia 2018
Wigilia 2019
Wigilia Preparation 2020
Baking 2020
Four-times-milled poppy seeds for makowiec. A little boy who couldn’t get enough of the cookie cutter. A daughter who made cookies with chocolate chips and crushed candy canes (they are as sublimely amazing as they sound). A Polish mother overseeing and guiding it all — who are we kidding? Doing most of the magic.
It’s getting close to Christmas.
Trump and Biden as Spiritual Warfare
It’s sad a tweet can be a tragic harbinger of things to come.
When one side portrays itself as being God’s side and sees the other side as being of the devil, no good can come of that. No unity is possible when things are framed in terms of a good-versus-evil, spiritual battle. One does not compromise with the devil; one does not work with the devil; one does not even talk to the devil. Instead, one fights the devil; one shuns the devil; one destroys the devil. Mixing politics and religion is especially dangerous for that very reason.
The Civil War created fissures in our society that exist today. How long will the damage Trump and the Evangelicals’ Faustian bargain with him last? For generations, I fear.
And this guy is from France for heaven’s sake!
Pre-Christmas Yardwork
First Day of Preparation
There are sounds and smells that are only associated with the Christmas season. A mixer running through the morning and then again through the evening is one of those sounds. First, in the morning, we run the mushrooms and cabbage through the grinder attachment to create two different pastes that will fill uszka and pierogi.
“I love uszka!” exclaims the Boy time and time again. Every time we have barszcz through the year, E asks if it’s going to be barszcz z uszkami.
“No, honey, that’s just Christmas Eve,” K responds patiently.
“Why?”
“Too much work.”
Once a year, though, it’s not too much work. It’s just enough work. After a couple of weekends of cleaning and several dishes to prepare over the coming days, a day making pierogi and uszka seems relatively insignificant.
But it is a lot of work. First, we saute the onions and the mushrooms while the sauerkraut bubbles away. It all gets strained and then _____ed. Then comes the tedious work: dumpling after dumpling, filled, folded, and pinched closed. More dough cut from the ever-dwindling ball, rolled flat, cut into circles, then again — filed, folded, and pinched. Filled, folded, pinched.
I head over and get a pinch of the mushroom/kraut miracle.
“G, you’re in my way,” K scolds.
The cleaning piles up during all that. A mountain of dishes that then gets leveled and remounded again and again.
Cycles within cycles. That’s what makes life comforting, its predictability at times. We spend so much of our time worrying about what’s coming that we long for those moments when what’s coming is what’s always come before.
Cleaning
Today’s task with the Boy — make some serious improvements in his room. Specifically, in its cleanliness. This meant, in part, going through toys and throwing out things that were broken, packing away to Goodwill things he no longer played with, and generally taking stock of the toys he has and what he needs.
We took out three garbage bags of stuff from his room, including probably 40 cars. We dumped all his cars out into a pile and ran the wheel test: if all four wheels roll, it’s a keeper; if not, toss it.
He was at times somewhat reluctant to give up this or that car. But we tried to be brutal. Heartless. “It’s broken, buddy,” I said I don’t know how many times. “You can’t play with it. You can’t do anything with it…”
“Yeah, but…”
Next, we cleaned out under his bed. Once we got everything taken care of, he decided he wanted to be the monster under the bed. That’s an improvement.
And toward the middle of the afternoon, L made her way into E’s room to clean the windows. K has hired her to do a lot of the Christmas cleaning because she’s saving up for a phone. That’s right. We’ve finally given in. The Girl, at age fourteen, is getting her first phone.
And, in truth, she does need one at times. She called me from volleyball practice once because they’d ended early. “Let’s go ahead and delete that number from the history…” I suggested, handing her the phone when we got in the car.
Friday Afternoon and Evening
In the afternoon, after school and a little break, we had some trampoline time as well as some exhaust-the-dog-kicking-her-ball-for-her-to-chase time.
Later in the afternoon, the Boy and I headed out to do some adventuring. We haven’t done that in quite some time. I think we overdid it a bit and both got a little burned out. Today, though, we did our full adventuring circle, complete with cameras. The Boy hasn’t edited his pictures yet, so I won’t include theme here
In the evening, a walk. A great way to usher in winter break 2020.
Opłatek 2020
It’s always the highlight of the school year for me, introducing American students to the lovely tradition of sharing the opłatek wafer. The kids love it; the administrators and counselors I invite in love it; I love it.
And I thought that we wouldn’t be able to do it this year. But I’m not one to give up easily when I think it’s something valuable for my kids, so I came up with an alternate plan.
Instead of sharing food, I had kids bring in their own snacks.
“What are we doing, Mr. S?” they asked.
“You’ll see.”
It’s important that they have a bite to eat during the process because that’s what the tradition is all about: breaking bread together.
So the kids divided into two groups, with the inner group rotating in sync, always maintaining social distance, and never touching any other seat.
I showed them pictures from previous years.
“That looks really fun,” one girl said.
Well, it is more fun than what we did today, but perhaps they got a little glimpse of the perfection that is the sharing of the opłatek.
14
Today is L’s birthday. She’s fourteen, which means there’s enough adult in her now to imagine what she’s going to look like in her twenties. When she was born she looked like just about every other newborn: squinting and wrinkly, she looked like the most helpless and pure being in existence. Her skin was softer than anything I’ve ever touched, and she smelled like nothing else in the world, a creamy, buttery odor with musky notes of sourness and a base of sweet, freshly baked bread. I held her in my arms for the first time and realized at an elemental though conscious level that we would never be the same again. We were three, with our latest addition being the most helpless member of our new family.
I was so nervous holding her, worried that I might hold her the wrong way, might grip too hard for fear of dropping her, might not support this or that appendage properly and thus allow grave damage. I spent the first several weeks worried that I was doing something wrong. Those weeks of “is this right?” worry stretched to months, then grew into years, and while the end of that worry is in sight, I know that I will worry for the rest of my life about whether or not I did it wrong.
I see pictures of her infancy now, and I find myself thinking that I’d give significant money to have one more opportunity to hold her as an infant, to have her head nestled into my neck and her feet not even touching my belt. Perhaps that’s the magic of grandchildren: it’s a return to a time of helplessness when we can appreciate it and not simply worry about it.
Trump and QAnon
I was reading an article in Newsweek about QAnon and McConnell’s congratulating Biden on his victory:
Supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory have unsurprisingly turned their backs on Mitch McConnell after he finally congratulated President-elect Joe Biden on his election victory.
Followers of the radical movement who believe President Donald Trump is waging a secret war against satanic pedophiles, as well as pushing baseless claims that the election was rigged, were dismayed at the Senate Majority Leader and accusing him of being a traitor. (Source)
What if Trump were simply to say, “Look, I’m not doing any such thing, and any suggestion to the contrary is simply false. If you believe this, please do some more research and take into account that I am flatly denying it. Democrats are not a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles.” To begin with, they probably wouldn’t believe him. “It’s all just part of his brilliant plan to keep the pedophiles on their toes!” But at the very least Trump could say in good conscience, “I’m not encouraging this dangerous, reality-denying conspiracy theory.”
The problem is, Trump doesn’t do anything in good conscience. Trump does what’s best for Trump, pure and simple, and to push back on the QAon folks would be almost certain to lose some voters (except for the ones who’ll believe it despite his insistence to the contrary.
14th Celebrations
The Girl turns 14 tomorrow. She’s taller than her mother, faster than her father, and (some days thinks she’s) smarter than us both combined.
Some things have changed in 14 years; some things have not. She’s still very particular (some would say OCD) about arranging things, and so she places the candles on her cake herself.
She’s still very particular about mixing foods (she doesn’t) and sauces (she doesn’t) and vegetables (except for peppers and cucumbers, she doesn’t), but she’s increasingly open to new things. For her birthday dinner, though, there’s only one option: crab cakes. I think we’ve done them for her three years in a row now.
Some loves have come and gone (dance and gymnastic have run their course and are now only memories) while others have stuck around (we’re now into our third year of volleyball).
Tomorrow she officially turns 14, but I might need a little convincing.