6.13.2009
On the sidewalk
I love the pink and red combo. She is standing next to her chalk drawing in front of the kindergarten.
6.08.2009
The table tennis boys
I played ping pong again this afternoon with two of my 5th graders and their 6th grade cousin.
Today might have been my last ping pong match for a while because in the summer they and their family go to the "country" (which is hard to imagine that there is somewhere more "country" than where I'm at now). But they have a country house and land up on a nearby foothill, and they live there during the summer with their fields of potatoes and hay and come back to the village when school starts in September.
Today Florin and Sandu, the twins, were dressed up because it was a holiday. Sandu looking cooly disinterested, Florin with his always present sunglasses and the cousin trying to look serious for the picture.
They invited me to come spend a day with them and their family on the foothill. I think I might.
Today might have been my last ping pong match for a while because in the summer they and their family go to the "country" (which is hard to imagine that there is somewhere more "country" than where I'm at now). But they have a country house and land up on a nearby foothill, and they live there during the summer with their fields of potatoes and hay and come back to the village when school starts in September.
Today Florin and Sandu, the twins, were dressed up because it was a holiday. Sandu looking cooly disinterested, Florin with his always present sunglasses and the cousin trying to look serious for the picture.
They invited me to come spend a day with them and their family on the foothill. I think I might.
6.05.2009
everyone has an afterlife
Yesterday I went to the cemetery with Gabi and Mamitza to pull weeds to make the graves of Mamaitza's parents look kept. Monday is a big holiday and everyone goes to the cemeteries and remembers their dead, and the graves need to be pretty for the big day.
I also attended a funeral this week, of one of my fellow teacher's mother-in-law, and someone I know in America has a close friend who is dying. No one really knows what happens after we take our last breath besides the fact that we're 21 grams lighter. Actually, no one knows what will happen in the next hour, day, week or year, but at least we have boundaries for what will happen(grass will stay green, male penguins will still huddle over their eggs and a cup of coffee in the morning will always sound nice).
But we don't know the boundaries to the afterlife. And what we don't know about, we imagine.
The Afterlife
by Billy Collins
They're moving off in all imaginable directions,
each according to his own private belief,
and this is the secret that silent Lazarus would not reveal:
that everyone is right, as it turns out.
you go to the place you always thought you would go,
the place you kept lit in an alcove in your head.
Some are being shot into a funnel of flashing colors
into a zone of light, white as a January sun.
Others are standing naked before a forbidding judge who sits
with a golden ladder on one side, a coal chute on the other.
Some have already joined the celestial choir
and are singing as if they have been doing this forever,
while the less inventive find themselves stuck
in a big air conditioned room full of food and chorus girls.
Some are approaching the apartment of the female God,
a woman in her forties with short wiry hair
and glasses hanging from her neck by a string.
With one eye she regards the dead through a hold in her door.
There are those we are squeezing into the bodies
of animals - eagles and leopards - and one trying on
the skin of a monkey like a tight suit,
ready to begin another life in a more simple key,
while others float off into some benign vagueness,
little units of energy heading for the ultimate elsewhere.
There are even a few classicists being led to an underworld
by a mythological creature with a beard and hooves.
He will bring them to the mouth of the furious cave
guarded over by Edith Hamilton and her three-headed dogs.
The rest just lie on their backs in their coffins
wishing they could return so they could learn Italian
or see the pyramids, or play some golf in a light rain.
They wish they could wake in the morning like you
and stand at a window examining the winter trees,
every branch traced with the ghost writing of snow.
I do not imagine lying on my back in a coffin wishing to still be breathing, but I do imagine lying on my back in a meadow during springtime, maybe watching the world below and God above. For sure sun and breezy summer warmth will somehow be involved.
what do you imagine?
I also attended a funeral this week, of one of my fellow teacher's mother-in-law, and someone I know in America has a close friend who is dying. No one really knows what happens after we take our last breath besides the fact that we're 21 grams lighter. Actually, no one knows what will happen in the next hour, day, week or year, but at least we have boundaries for what will happen(grass will stay green, male penguins will still huddle over their eggs and a cup of coffee in the morning will always sound nice).
But we don't know the boundaries to the afterlife. And what we don't know about, we imagine.
The Afterlife
by Billy Collins
They're moving off in all imaginable directions,
each according to his own private belief,
and this is the secret that silent Lazarus would not reveal:
that everyone is right, as it turns out.
you go to the place you always thought you would go,
the place you kept lit in an alcove in your head.
Some are being shot into a funnel of flashing colors
into a zone of light, white as a January sun.
Others are standing naked before a forbidding judge who sits
with a golden ladder on one side, a coal chute on the other.
Some have already joined the celestial choir
and are singing as if they have been doing this forever,
while the less inventive find themselves stuck
in a big air conditioned room full of food and chorus girls.
Some are approaching the apartment of the female God,
a woman in her forties with short wiry hair
and glasses hanging from her neck by a string.
With one eye she regards the dead through a hold in her door.
There are those we are squeezing into the bodies
of animals - eagles and leopards - and one trying on
the skin of a monkey like a tight suit,
ready to begin another life in a more simple key,
while others float off into some benign vagueness,
little units of energy heading for the ultimate elsewhere.
There are even a few classicists being led to an underworld
by a mythological creature with a beard and hooves.
He will bring them to the mouth of the furious cave
guarded over by Edith Hamilton and her three-headed dogs.
The rest just lie on their backs in their coffins
wishing they could return so they could learn Italian
or see the pyramids, or play some golf in a light rain.
They wish they could wake in the morning like you
and stand at a window examining the winter trees,
every branch traced with the ghost writing of snow.
I do not imagine lying on my back in a coffin wishing to still be breathing, but I do imagine lying on my back in a meadow during springtime, maybe watching the world below and God above. For sure sun and breezy summer warmth will somehow be involved.
what do you imagine?
6.04.2009
the table tennis crush
One of my "extra-curricular" activities is playing ping pong. A few days ago I was serving the light orange ball into the left corner while trying to not step on Florin and Sandu's new puppy who is named Tzitzi. Behind me I heard the gate open and a girl from the 4th grade, her hair in pigtails, with a fashionable, medeivelish red shirt on to go with her red jeans stepped into the yard.
"Sarut Mana" she told me.
"Buna Ziua," I told her and she came over and picked up Tzitzi. I assumed she was a neighborhood friend coming over to play. And then I noticed that Florin was wearing a bigger smile than I would have imagined possible. And in between returning the ball and yelling out the score in romanglish he would surreptitiously glance at the girl in red.
After we had finished the match, he asked her, "would you like to play, Gabi?"
"No, no." she respondd shyly.
"Oh come on, I can show you how," he countered chivalrously.
"ok."
Florin stood at the table with red Gabi and showed her how to hold the paddle, "you can put your finger on the paddle or just wrap it around. whatever you want."
Gabi did fine for her first time and after Florin told her so, he and I played a match together. I have never seen him try to beat me so hard. After every point he won he would look over at Gabi to make sure she had seen.
When we were at 9, 7, my advantage, I finally realized: Florin has a crush on Gabi. He is trying to impress red Gabi with his table tennis skills. Aaaah.
So I stopped hitting back every ball. Because what's the point of having a crush in the 5th rade if you can't show off your skills?
Of course, Florin won the match and looked as if he was living a perfect day when Gabi in red smiled at him when he announced the score, 9, 11.
"Sarut Mana" she told me.
"Buna Ziua," I told her and she came over and picked up Tzitzi. I assumed she was a neighborhood friend coming over to play. And then I noticed that Florin was wearing a bigger smile than I would have imagined possible. And in between returning the ball and yelling out the score in romanglish he would surreptitiously glance at the girl in red.
After we had finished the match, he asked her, "would you like to play, Gabi?"
"No, no." she respondd shyly.
"Oh come on, I can show you how," he countered chivalrously.
"ok."
Florin stood at the table with red Gabi and showed her how to hold the paddle, "you can put your finger on the paddle or just wrap it around. whatever you want."
Gabi did fine for her first time and after Florin told her so, he and I played a match together. I have never seen him try to beat me so hard. After every point he won he would look over at Gabi to make sure she had seen.
When we were at 9, 7, my advantage, I finally realized: Florin has a crush on Gabi. He is trying to impress red Gabi with his table tennis skills. Aaaah.
So I stopped hitting back every ball. Because what's the point of having a crush in the 5th rade if you can't show off your skills?
Of course, Florin won the match and looked as if he was living a perfect day when Gabi in red smiled at him when he announced the score, 9, 11.
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