What the Walrus Said

The Spanish language is about half the size of English, so words often have double, triple, or quintuple meanings. Take, for instance, the word “plancha.” Depending on context, it can mean a grill, a hair straightener, a belly flop, or an iron for clothes. For nuance and clarity, Spanish depends on word order, context, and an array of suffixes. That, and an unending love affair with prepositional phrases.

One such phrase that I’ve come to love is “hecho de menos.” By connotation, it means to miss someone or something. Literally translated, it means “to be made of less.” I like the imagery the phrase invokes, the idea that being without an object or person could somehow diminish your soul just a little.

During the last year and four months, there are a lot of things that I’ve missed: fresh milk, Mexican food, automatic transmissions, driving for more than three hours without ending up in the same place. The list is quite long. However, only a few things took a chunk out of my spirit. Here are the top contenders:

My little brother’s wedding. My brother Dave and I have always been close. We were in high school together so my friends became his friends. When I went off to college, hanging out with him was one of the big appeals of coming home and we continued the practice into adulthood. So when he emailed this summer saying he had proposed to the girl of his dreams and was getting married in September, I was ecstatic for him, but a little sorry for myself. There was no way I could go, having neither the finances or the physique to travel. (I had Anya exactly one week later.) All I could do was wish him happy thoughts on his day of days and hope his new wife would be good to him. (Ironically enough, Dave had been outside the country for two sibling weddings and had sworn that, when his time came, he would schedule his nuptials so everyone could be there. Hah!)

My grandfather’s funeral. Grandpa Henry passed away the beginning of December a few weeks away from his 90th birthday. Because of his Alzheimer’s, in a very real sense Grumpa has been gone for half a decade. When I introduced him to Ruyman, Grumpa hid his confusion in a flurry of good-natured wisecracks and an affable smile. Even though he didn’t know me, the time with him was still sweet. The last time I visited, just prior to the trip to Spain, I said my goodbyes as best I could but a vacant look and a squeeze of the hand was all the communication I got in return. Even if it was just his body that died, I would’ve liked to pay tribute to the man who, every time he saw me, squeezed my knee and asked me how the third grade was going.

 My old job. I know I complain a lot about teaching. This is because I am, by nature, a whiney-butt. But there are definitely things I miss about it. I miss my coworkers who taught me to teach and stay alive (Dawn, Roger, Katie Jo, Lisbeth, the late great Rosie Ruff, to name just a few). I miss the moments when I know I helped a kid who might not have had a chance otherwise (Tim, Karina, and a ton of others whose names have settled into the primordial soup of memory). I even miss the challenge of curriculum planning and finding the perfect way to teach a difficult concept. 

My feelings for my old job were driven home the other day when, at my current job, I had to deal with this situation:

SCENE: Small room with knee-height tables and chairs. An adjacent bathroom through a door on the left. There are seven children, aged three and four. One is dead asleep on the table. Another hides under her chair. A third plays with princess figurines. The rest dutifully practice the letter “D” in their workbooks.

STUDENT 1 (in Spanish):  Teacher, I have to poop.

ME (in Spanish, gesturing): There’s the bathroom.

CHORUS OF STUDENTS: I have to go to the bathroom too!

ME: You have to wait your turn.

STUDENT 1 (from bathroom): Teacher, can you wipe my butt?

ME: No. You do it.

STUDENT 1 (still in bathroom): But I don’t know how!

ME: Me neither.

STUDENT 1 (hopping out of bathroom with pants around ankles and poopy bum): You do too know how.

ME: Nope. I never learned. Now get back in there and pull up your pants.

STUDENT 1 exits stage right and returns a few seconds later with pants in proper position and smelling like skunk.

ME (muttering): Four years of college, $11,000 of student loans, 12 credits of graduate courses, and this is what it gets me. Glorified bum-wiper at 12 bucks an hour.

Five minutes later, the scene repeated itself with another child, except she completed a full  circuit around the room before I convinced her to pull up her drawers.

All these events caused Ruyman and I to take a hard look at both our current situation and our future here. As things stand, we will never afford our own place here. The school we work at is cutting back our hours and the cost of living has increased a lot since we got here even a year and a half ago.

So after serious discussion and a lot of thought, we have decided to move to Washington state as of the middle of February. 

In the words of Lewis Carroll’s walrus, “The time has come.”