CR 02.19.10 First blog since December

CR 02.19.10


SYNOPISIS:  Inspired by Ticht Naht Hahn; seeing lava at the Arenal Volcano; the waterfall; being perfect; the moment I have held my breath for 5 months; teaching at Playa Panama elementary school.

“I am a writer. I write stories, essays, books and poems. There are times when I don’t write. But that doesn’t mean that writing isn’t continuing inside me. When I water the vegetables, I just practice watering the vegetables. I enjoy watering my vegetable garden. I don’t think about the poem or the short story, but I know that somewhere inside me the short story is being made. If I don’t grow lettuce, I can’t write poems.

So when you allow the grow lettuce, you have to grow it with one hundred percent of yourself and enjoy deeply the work of growing lettuce. Then, when you write a poem, the poem will be good. The moment you begin to write the words down is not exactly the moment you create the poem. While you practice mindful walking, breathing and planting lettuce, without thinking at all about the poem, the poem is being written. The poem, or any work of art, is conceived in the depth of your consciousness while you’re not thinking about it. The moment you write it down or express it is only the moment of completion, like when a mother gives birth to her baby. Much has happened before this to make this baby or the artwork possible. This is why there must be moments when you allow the child in you to grow.” TNH, The Art of Power

(Starting this way for the benefit of those who have asked why it’s been so long without a blog. I’ve travelled to Colorado and Washington 3 times since November and I have not figured out yet how to work that much and write at the same time. I also apparently leave my muse behind in Costa Rica when I travel.

In any case…)



LAVA, LAVA!

I am sitting near a bridge as the sun goes down, watching orange lava spew from under the clouds on Arenal. There are 50 other tourists gathered around and they and their tour guides shout, “Lava, lava!” and we all clumsily gather our cameras and do not get a picture before the lava stops descending or the clouds descend too much and our audience is no longer required by the great and powerful volcano. We read that we can hear the rumbling if we hike on her, but this is what we wanted…. The coveted opportunity to see Arenal on a non-cloudy night. We wait long enough to provide a feast for the mosquitoes before we decide she may not blow again, and head to a hotel.



We check into a quaint cabin with one King bed and a… a crib. Swans with a heart made of flowers are twisted on our bed from bathroom towels and we cock our heads at the curious scene – an apparent honeymoon suite… with a crib.



PRINCE CHARMING

We are in the Jacuzzi chatting with three French Canadian women shortly after our arrival. An odd animal sound – what must be a frog, we suppose, only because we can’t imagine another animal making a similar sound – interrupts our conversation frequently as we chat. We are telling the women a story in French to illustrate that Kassidy is tri-lingual, but they don’t really “get” us. “Le chat voulait mange au crossaint au chocolat.” She corrects our pronunciation, changes voulait to present tense and laughs about the random placement of an irrelevant and unexplained cat in our conversation. She clearly is not a language teacher, but her French is pretty good for a native French speaker, so we let her stay in the Jacuzzi.



The frog continues to make…. Truly un-spellable sounds and I imitate him. We joke about the potential English spelling of this particular sound. The frog sounds his… Rghaagg Ruuph again and I try again to re-create his pronunciation. He copies me. I copy him. He copies me. We are suddenly and unbelievably in an actual conversation that send us into peals of laughter. The more we imitate the frog, whose location is still unknown, the more he replies at appropriate and responsive intervals. We change our tone and intonation and he changes his. His responses answer our questions. We respond to his questions. We have absolutely no idea what we’re saying. Kassidy is now a polyglot rather than just tri-lingual. The French women lose patience with us as we become more and more enamored of our frog.



“I think this is incomprehensible input”, I say, to which my lovely and well-educated daughter appropriately laughs.



“Maybe he’s a Prince!”



“Hola, Principe,” she says. “Bonjour, Principe” she says. “Hello , Prince.” When she receives no response, she decides the frog doesn’t speak Spanish, French or English. She says again, “Rghaagg Ruuph.”



The frog replies, Rghaagg Ruuph.



We can’t breathe.



Maybe it isn’t a frog. We can’t see it. It could be anything. It’s probably a frog, though, right?



She sidles up to the edge of the Jacuzzi to converse with the frog on the other side of the fence. Anyone who has studied animals as much as I have (biology…9th grade) knows that this is a mating ritual. This frog is seeking a mate. Kassidy is interested in kissing a frog to make him turn into a Prince, so they are a compatible couple.



“That”, I say, “Is going in the book.”



This becomes our new line. From then on, anything remotely interesting or even decidedly uninteresting is “going in the book.”







LAS CATARATAS



We have to return to the waterfall the next morning because while exploring the evening before, I have left my Loyola sweatshirt. We arrive to look for it and they won’t let us in unless we pay and they guarantee us that there were no jackets found. A few minutes later, when we have steadfastly refused to leave, they are reviewing videos of the previous evening’s tapes to determine if a jacket was left and who might have retrieved it if it was.



It is at this moment that I remember what we were doing last night. We were entirely unaware that there were security cameras at the waterfall.



I mention to Kassidy that there are videotapes of last night and she says, “Oh, God.” We both silently mentally review the repeated and excessive camera poses as we both attempted to get passable pictures of each other in front of the waterfall. It’s a thing we do. Tilt your chin up. Snap. No, now turn sideways. Snap. That one isn’t good either. Change your smile. Snap. Too much teeth. Snap. Put your hair down. Snap. Take your sunglasses off. Snap. A little to the left. Snap. Now your chin’s too high. Snap. How about that one?



But we were alone. No one was watching us or we would never have publicized our vanity. They were smiling when they found my jacket. Maybe they were just really proud that they found it.



It suddenly stopped raining, so we went down to the waterfall --- a tremendous hike. Beautiful, steep, and full of stairs that are an unreasonable distance away from each other. The waterfall is surrounded by rocks. We climbed over them. As the falling water hits the lake it mists thickly so that dry clothes and towels are moist almost immediately. We carefully climbed over the slippery rocks and gingerly dipped our feet in the water. The rocks were mossy and the water was bitterly, shiveringly cold. We left our shoes and climbed in and shrieked at the temperature. An Englishman in the parking lot had insisted we try to go “right round” the waterfall on the right. Just “right round” he said. We tried. We swam really, really hard. We kicked. We pushed. We swam backward into the mossy rocks. I might’ve… might’ve…. Been able to make it. But the waves (seriously… waves) were constant and battering and created the illusion of being caught in a storm in the ocean or a 6 Flags wave pool. This would be a preposterously dumb way to die. A few minutes later a fellow swimmer, this one also a Canadian, mentioned that occasionally people have died here. No idea if it’s true, but it was the end of Kassidy in the waterfall. “MOM… we could DIE.” “We’re not going to die, Kassidy. We don’t take any risks.” She agreed with a too quick nod that did not make me feel manly or strong, but rather passive and safe.



I am in Central America under a waterfall that is so high I cannot see the top, standing on a dangerously mossy rock in 40 degree water aware that even when I do dangerous things, they aren’t dangerous. I am too afraid to complete the things I start, to weak to swim behind the waterfall, too afraid of dying and leaving Kassidy to figure out how to get home alone.



And I think… maybe that down payment I put down on SCUBA diving lessons 2 months ago that I haven’t yet completed is something I should think about again.







“To feel happy right where you are in the present moment is your practice. With this kind of understanding you accept yourself completely; you don’t feel the need to become someone because you already are someone.”



“I take my time. I want to be myself. I don’t deny myself in the here and now.. This is our practice – we call it aimlessness. We don’t put a goal in front of ourselves and run after it constantly. If we do, we’ll be running all of our life and never be happy. Happiness is possible only when you stop running and cherish the present moment and who you are. Who you are is already a wonder; you don’t need to be someone else. You are a wonder of life.” – TNH, The Art of Power





PERFECTION

What if there were a place in the world where you were the definition of perfect? What if there were a place where the shape of your body, the appearance of your face, the content of your character, the characteristics of your personality --- every single little thing --- what if that was the definition of ideal in some given place? Imagine a place where everyone wants to be just like you and wishes they could be more like you. Imagine a place in which there was no reason to feel self-conscious or insecure to experience self-loathing because there was no argument that in this place, the textbook definition of perfect – was you.



After reading and meditating on this TNH excerpt I thought how lovely this would be and how much differently I would treat myself. Then I wondered what would be different for Kassidy if she had a place in the world like that. Home. That’s what home should be. I wonder if that’s how Kassidy feels at home? I realized that it wasn’t, and resolved in that moment to change that.



That afternoon we were swimming in the ocean and I shared this thought with her. What began as a resolution has become part of our day every day. Yesterday she said to me, “Good thing you’re perfect or that would’ve really been a problem.”





YEAH, WHICH I’M ACTUALLY STARTING TO REGRET

My perfect daughter is talking to our friend Liam. “You’re only staying for half the year, right?” he says. Liam has a curious ability I’ve seen only in football watching men who attempt to have simultaneous conversations with their wives or dates. They watch the game over her shoulder. Liam is looking beyond Kassidy while he talks to her. He’s only 10. She says,

“Yeah, which I’m actually starting to regret.”



And then the conversation abruptly ends because he has flattened his belly against his boogey board and is catching the wave he had been watching behind her.



“Yeah, which I’m actually starting to regret” swims repetitively in my bobbing head while we play in the waves. The sun sets brilliantly and I swallow it whole with a several cups full of salt water and a chest full of happy.



There is a level of happiness that is attainable alone and there is a separate and fuller level of happiness attainable when your happiness is not making someone else miserable.





TEACHING AT PLAYA PANAMA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL



Walk to the door. Walk to the window. Walk to Yancy. Walk to Alex. Walk to Jose. Walk slowly. Walk to the teacher. Walk slowly.



The 6th graders are cool. They clearly think I’m an idiot. I’ll have to give them some time to warm up to me. The 4th graders, though, hug me when I arrive, hug me during class and hug me when I leave. Several of the girls kiss my cheek when I arrive and when I leave.



I arrive to teach the first day and the classroom has not been used in 2 months. Several kids grab mops and broom and remove a thick layer of dust from the top of the desks and the floor. I consider briefly just teaching on top of the dirt, but it isn’t possible. It’s suffocating, old dirt. There are spider webs. I grab a mop. I should have asked if they had electricity in this room before I brought the LCD projector down with me. I have bought two white board markers. Before we start I have the kids move all the desks up against the wall on once side of the room so that we have chairs and open space on one side of the small classroom. There are holes in the ceiling. The windows are made of chicken wire. It is really, really hot. I can hear all the rest of the kids. They are at recess and they are peeking in our windows. My voice hurts from talking over the noises. The door opens and closes perhaps 30 times. Kids come in. Kids go out. Without saying anything. As though they have suddenly remembered they have to be somewhere. Other kids open the door, look inside, and then walk out. I don’t know if they are supposed to be in class or not.





Day 1: walks to, fast, slowly, the door.

Day 2: the window, looks at, don’t look, don’t walk

Day 3: I arrive at the school and one of the teachers is at a meeting. She has cancelled classes for the day for the half of the school that she teaches, so only half of the students are in attendance. She also took the keys to my classroom. I have no board with the previous days words on it, no labeled classroom parts, no props, no markers. I decide to suck it up. I teach in the empty Kindergarten classroom and change my lesson plan.



The wall. Yells. What is your name?



The next day, I teach the same lesson to the kids who weren’t there the day before.



I arrive on Day 4, which is now Day 3 the second time. Where is everybody? They went home already. Why did they go home? They left on the bus. Why would the bus have left at 10:30 before the rest of their classes? I don’t know. Okay, where are the 5th graders? At lunch. Why are they at lunch during English class? I get no answer to this. They just run off after them and try to get them to come to class.



I have only 4 students. Let’s get started, I say. They keep bouncing out of their chairs like they’re made of rubber. It’s like herding cats. I finally decide to just start. We don’t have very long. Let’s just start, I say. They sit.



Another kid from the 6th grade walks in. He isn’t in a uniform. He has gone home, changed clothes, and come back to school. The rest of the 6th grade went home early for no apparent reason. Dennis decides to stay.



The wall. Yells. What is your name?



Then I start to teach a story using all the words we’ve done so far. I don’t want to be the mouse. Can I be the cat? Sure. I want to be the cat, too. There are two cats. Okay – fine. Two cats. I’m going to be the Uncle. They Uncle? There’s no Unc… nevermind. Okay. You can be the Uncle.



After we tell the story a couple of times I ask them if anyone wants to re-tell it. One girl starts to re-tell it. The baby mouse looks at the cats. The baby mouse yells….



And then 4 of the 5 students are standing and looking out the window. The English teacher is here.



Okay. Whatever. Sit down.



The girl apparently has no memory of the fact that she was in the middle of telling a story. Someone else volunteers to tell it. I accept. The girl walks out. I don’t know where she’s going.



This is not a classroom management issue. They are sweet and kind and well-behaved. This is precisely what they do in all their other classes. It’s weird. But then… having the bus come in the middle of the day and take students home… scheduling lunch during English class… those things aren’t what I would consider normal, either, and all I can say



The real English teacher comes in to talk to me after class. We speak in Spanish. She will be coming on Mondays and Thursdays. We decide that I will come Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I ask her what her plan is, so that maybe I can support her in it. I show her the book I intend to teach – Isabela.



Los niños no pueden leer.



This is a 6 year English program. She tells me she will bring me the Costa Rican curriculum for English because these kids will never be able to read in English.



I have secret weapons at my disposal, but I do not share that. I will whip them out later in the form of literate students. ;-)



Kassidy is home and we are going to the beach. We have been every day this week. We have friends visiting and tomorrow will go out on the boat with Marcos. Catching up on writing… now I have to catch up on pictures.