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Sunday Afternoon

Sunday 21 November 2010 | 2 Comments

“Tata, I want to help!” she calls as she hops down the deck stairs. With an armful of branches and twigs, I’m agreeable, but I smile, wondering how much help I’m actually going to get.

“Grab a couple branches,” I explain, “and follow me.”

We march to the street, L chattering all the way, explaining how she’s going to explain tomorrow how she helped her daddy.

Suddenly, behind me, I hear it: “Ouch!” She’s rubbing her eye; I’m wondering when she’s going to ask for a bandage. It’s been her obsession lately: no matter the wound, no matter the location, there must be First Aid.

“The stick went in my eye,” she says, with concerned voice. After so many months of learning her various voices, I know it’s nothing serious. It’s not quite play — something did happen — but perhaps her concern is exaggerated. She sees K and me hurt ourselves, and she models the reaction.

“Come on,” I say offhandedly. “You’ll be fine. Little things happen when you work as hard as you’re working now.

She plods along, amending the story she’s going to tell tomorrow, practicing the Tragedy of the Stick.

As we’re returning to the backyard, the late afternoon sun reflects off the golden autumn leaves, and it’s as if she’s walking into pure light or developing a halo. I walk about twenty paces behind, watching her hair bounce and sway as she dances into a golden November afternoon.

Helping Papa

Saturday 13 November 2010 | 0 Comments

Count Me Out, In

Tuesday 09 November 2010 | 0 Comments

In order to create, we must destroy.

Partial destruction is oxymoronic: in the process of destroying, we often find we need to destroy more than we'd initially anticipated.

One cannot destroy only halfway, though one can create halfway. It's called cutting corners.

Living in a house highlights that mystery, for a house is itself a mystery.

There are leaks that leave tracks, and sinks that have no visible connection to the main drain line.

"When you talk about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out. In." You know, it's going to be alright. Eventually.

Prayers and Candles

Monday 01 November 2010 | 0 Comments

Today is All Saints' Day -- one of the best times to be in a Catholic country like Poland. This morning, every single cemetery in Poland had something like this going on.

Every year I write the same things and probably show some of the same pictures. Since we haven't experienced All Saints' Day in Poland since 2004 (has it really been that long?), I've only a very limited stock of photos, and an even more limited stock of stories: I can only tell the same stories so many times before even I get tired of them.

That's something of the appeal of it: the repeating ritual of the Catholic liturgical calendar means we're always coming back to the same place. It makes life less of a straight line and more of a spiral.

One of the most calming and consoling times in that spiral is the evening of All Saints' Day, when all the cemeteries flicker with the light of thousands of candles, and the hissing, crackling, and popping of the candles punctuate the prayers of the faithful.

I would visit the cemetery at least twice: once when the priests were leading prayers and a second time when no one else was there. Both were calming in very different ways.

Surrounded by Poles who had intimate connections to the cemetery -- here lies a brother, a mother, an uncle, a great-grandmother -- I felt the peace of the community, even though I was an outsider. Catholicism is very communal and intimate, and prayers in a candle-light cemetery are the epitome of that intimacy and community spirit.

Yet it was when I was alone that I felt more calm than I've ever felt in my life. Surrounded by death, I felt more alive than any other time of the year.

Halloween, in comparison, is so distinctly American: commercial, whimsical, with just enough evil to make us worry but not enough to make us act.

I prefer the Polish Catholic version, and I would imagine I always will.

Signs

Sunday 31 October 2010 | 2 Comments

Some signs of autumn:

The heating comes on intermittently. It’s a relief: we’re always worried about the heating in This Old House every fall: we’ve had enough worries about it.
I wear jeans and flannel around the house. The mornings are chilly, as are the evenings: nothing is cozier than flannel.
There’s always hot coffee or a cup of tea at my side.
Saturday mornings are inside mornings.

Some more signs:

Birthday picnics continue into the darkness and include sweaters and oysters:.

I ask the Girl if she’d like to try one. The shells have her undivided attention; the goodies inside, less so.

“You want to try?” I ask.

She touches the freshly-steamed oyster, licks her finger, then says, “No! It’s gushy!”

More signs: Sunday night trick-or-treat.

Magdalena Kozena

Tuesday 26 October 2010 | 0 Comments

I’ve been listening Magdalena Kozena singing Bach for close to two weeks now (since I purchased my first but certainly not last CD of hers).

Who knew she had such a sense of humor?

There’s a Doctor in Our House

Monday 25 October 2010 | 2 Comments

We took L to the doctor today: a lingering, stubborn cough that has persisted through a round of antibiotics, Benadryl, and Musinex. A quick check and another round of antibiotics.

But suddenly we have a doctor in the house. K and I have both received several checkups. It's obvious L was paying close attention to what the doctor was doing: L runs her makeshift thermometer over our forehead and down one cheek. She puts her stethoscope on our chest then on our back and asks us to breathe deeply. Warning, "This might hurt," then whispering the instructions to cry afterward, she plunges a syringe into our arm and clamps a plastic bandage on it.

"You'll be alright," she soothes.

Alright! Break Over!

Sunday 24 October 2010 | 0 Comments

What happens when you take a break from the online scrapbook of your family's life? You get backed up with photos, among other things, and you want to post everything, in one shot. Which is unrealistic.

You want to post some pictures from the pumpkin patch.

And from the apple picking -- which wasn't much of an apple picking. The hordes arrived early for Pink Ladies, and the trees were bare.

And you'd want to share pictures from the walk about the yard for leaves as your daughter pulls a leaf from each

and every

plant and tree she can find

regardless of the leaf's size, color, or condition.

You'd want to post all these with great descriptions and compelling observations about Life, the Universe, and Everything. With a soon-to-be four-year-old, three courses as a student, full time work as a teacher with extra-large classes, a wife (remember?), and an ongoing yard project, you probably wouldn't have Â much time or inclination for posting.