Tonight whilst I was practicing the piano at church, a guy walked in the room looking for a girl he was supposed to meet. She was late, so he came and talked to me instead. I told him about how I learned to play the piano, that I'm an English teacher, that private classes were expensive, and that I always make mistakes playing when people listen to me, but could play (sometimes) flawlessly when alone. He told me that he was from Hungary, that he was lonely, that he had great faith in God's plan for him, that he was hoping to move up in his job soon, that he really wanted to get married, and did he mention that he was lonely?
At a few points in the conversation, I could have offered to help him out in some way. I could have volunteered to give him English lessons, for free or for pay. I could have suggested that he attend a camping trip that I know is happening this weekend with a group of guys from church. I could have invited him to come hang out with us or some friends at our house.
I didn't do any of this, unfortunately. I thought about it. I felt like I should. When he finally left me to play on my own again, I considered running downstairs after him. Ten minutes later when I finished playing, I poked around the foyer hoping to find him, but he was already gone and I instantly regretted it.
In the space of 90 seconds, I lost my chance to make a friend or to help someone because I thought it might be awkward, uncomfortable, presumptuous. Maybe he was a weirdo. Maybe Trav would feel like I had just brought home an unwanted litter of kittens. Maybe he would want me to teach him every week and I hate tutoring. Maybe he wasn't actually that lonely and didn't need me as a friend. But what it really came down to was that I was too afraid of committing my time without knowing the final cost or emotional investment.
I didn't follow my instincts because I was afraid of the unknown. I was too cautious when considering befriending a stranger. As I write this, I feel like I'm making a mountain of a molehill; surely it shouldn't be so complicated to be helpful. What's the big deal? I don't want my first instinct to be distrust or inconvenience, but sometimes it is. I don't want to live in a world where cynicism reigns supreme, even if that cynicism is disguised as realism.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
My friend's brother died yesterday. Maybe you saw it in the news? He was a bit famous for being on a reality show and working on the production of a super awesome documentary that is now left unfinished. It was a tragic accident, made more so by him being a natural adventurer who lived through all sorts of crazy things to die doing something he did all the time. It is terrible, sad, and unexpected.
I suppose it's natural after the death of someone you know to examine your own life, especially when that person was so full of life and died too young, too soon. It makes me feel unsettled, antsy, and restless. I wonder if what I'm doing is actually worth the time I put in to it. Am I just existing rather than living? I want to do something that matters.
"Yeah, we're poor, too," blurted out of my mouth before I could stop myself. The conversation meandered on without much thought to my thoughtless comment, but I couldn't keep my mind from dwelling on it. We're poor too spoken to a girl who could only fantasize about leaving her country for a trip to London until she decided to serve a mission for the LDS church. A girl who really knew what it was to be poor. We're poor too when we live in London, study at a prestigious and fairly expensive university, and take weekend trips more often that we should. In reality, this is care of one large government student loan, without which we would probably not even be here, but still.
We're poor too when I've never gone hungry, really hungry for want of money. There have been some lean times over the years and long stretches of more ramen noodles than could possibly be healthy, and one or two serendipitous moments where an unexpected insurance refund (or Trav's mom) saved the day. Yet we've still been able to travel around the world, live in respectable places, have moderately decent clothing, own more than one vehicle at a time, and pay cash for 4 other university degrees. Poor? Hardly.
But I need a reminder every now and then. It's frustrating being seriously underemployed and mostly living off a student loan. I had a different set of expectations of what our life would be like in London. Mainly that I'd have a real job and we'd be able to finance more elaborate adventures in farther flung corners of Europe (our willingness to sleep in grubby hostel dorm rooms, visit mostly free sights, and subsist on bread, cheese, and carrots whilst traveling has definitely allowed us to see more than one might expect).
Regardless of our situation at this moment, we have what a lot of truly poor people don't have. We know that at the end of this "poor" year that isn't really that poor at all, we'll go back to our normal lives with normal jobs. We'll pay off our student loan and continue traveling and living life and not being poor. I have no right to claim "poor" when there are people who don't have smart phones, or reliable electricity, or jobs, or education, or healthy food, or any food. We feel poor these days because of the privileged life we're used to and the lifestyles of our peers. But our poor is relative. Our "poor" is a privileged kind of poor which means not poor at all.
I'm in the US right now. Surprised? Me too. Here's why:
My mom has breast cancer. Again. She caught it very early on, but she does have to have a double mastectomy, which will require several weeks of recovery. But since my dad will be in the midst of tax season (read: 70 hour weeks), and my sister Kate is working lots of hours for my dad's accounting firm, they won't be around much during the day to help momma. Luckily (and kind of unluckily at the same time), my part-time teaching job is very flexible, so I'm here to act as nurse and maid and driver and chef for a few weeks.
Also my dog is slowly trying to die and my favorite cat needs to have half of his (rotting) teeth pulled to avoid an infection that could kill him. At this point I feel like 2014 could be better. But then, it could definitely be worse. I can think of a lot of ways it could be worse, ways which I shan't put down in words lest the evil jinn get any ideas.
Meanwhile, Trav started a new term. He's been eating plenty of plain rice with raw bell peppers, scrambled eggs, and granola. He's been spending lots of time with Portuguese speaking missionaries (he could use a regular friend outing), and procrastinating his homework.
On a more positive note, I have a mountain of things to knit for my family and a momma who will buy lots of yarn, and I've learned how to do cables. As you can see, however, I need to work on my sizing a bit.
Trav has a professor who is definitely American but has lived in the UK for the past 10 years or so. Listening to her talk is confusing. First she sounds British, then a hard r pops up and she sounds American, and then she suddenly has a bit of lilt in her intonation, all which leaves you feeling a bit unsettled but quite sure that she's the one who's actually confused.
I vacillate between feeling like this professor is a total poser and admiring her pleasantly mixed English. On the one hand, it's pretty obvious that the professor is not English. Her accent doesn't sound natural--I can hear the American sounds, which make the British ones sound forced and a bit fake. A nasty side of me wants to scorn her for not being true to herself.
On the other hand, the linguist in me sees the need or even desire to code switch. When in Italy, I wouldn't try to speak Italian with an English accent, so why speak American English in Britain? The obvious difference is that this is a difference in language rather than dialect; English is actually my native language, and I already speak it "correctly." At least correctly for one part of the world. But it makes sense that after 10 years of immersion in another dialect, your accent would soften and melt away into the speech of those around you. What about after 3 years? 6 months? It's interesting to me that I do feel a bit of disdain for those who adapt their accent immediately, but admiration for those who learn a foreign language well. But it's disdain laced with envy. I want to pick and choose how I speak without any social repercussions.
When I add just a tidge of lilt to my intonation, I'm often mistaken as Irish. This completely delights me (I wonder if they can somehow read my Irish-loving soul and just attempt to flatter me), but is also surprising and makes me feel slightly guilty. There are similarities between some dialects of American and Irish English (listen to this audio clip), but really not enough to have been mistaken 4 times now. Sometimes I consciously soften my American sounds and predictable intonation/stress pattern, but sometimes it just happens. When everything you hear sounds one way, it's normal to start adjusting. But then maybe I'm just a poser too.
Apparently, however, dialects don't always merge seamlessly together. Charlie Hunnam, who plays an American biker dude on Sons of Anarchy, is British (and a Geordie at that--you should definitely listen to that video), and his natural accent is now a complete wreck. Prepare to be entertained.
Yesterday was one of those times when a well-planned Saturday just doesn't live up to expectations. Here's about how things went.
Wake up early (ixoj). Stay in bed for longer than desired by ixoj (Trav). Eat breakfast and vacillate between choices of walks; the canals are sounding more industrial the more we read about them. Take a long long time deciding what to do, but fall back to the original plan and find the proper bus to take us to the start of the walk. Get off the bus and promptly get lost finding the start of the walk due to mysterious road closures and police activity. Desperately need a bathroom and take a long time finding one. Finally find a toilet and get back on track. Start walking along the canal, which, for a while, is lined by charming houseboats. Keep walking and watch the charm disappear as the quaint houseboats turn into floating shacks (at least there was interesting graffiti). Walk through two moderately appealing parks and walk past the Olympic Stadium. Coolies, but rather far off the path to investigate. Keep walking and walking and wonder if the small strip of soggy looking greenery to the right is the supposed marsh. Throw in the towel on the walk. Head towards what is thought to be the correct bus stop, then turn around and walk the other way for a while. Take the slowest bus imaginable back home (never again, 55).
Go to the Scandinavian Fair where they brazenly charge an entry fee to look at kitschy items you don't actually want to purchase. Wait in the queue to buy a waffle, and then get passed over not once, but twice, by people more waffle hungry (pushy buggers) than yourself. Snarf your waffle, look around at the junk one more time, and decide to go boot-hunting.
Find Central London to be appallingly packed with people. Struggle through the hoards and look at shoes. Feel too overwhelmed to try anything on, buy a cardigan instead of boots, and flee back to the house.
Not exactly what I'd hoped, but it could have been worse, I suppose.
It's hard not to have a job. Most obviously, you miss the money that you're not making but that you keep spending in order to do things like stay alive and pay rent. Also obviously, you may get bored with all the extra time you have on your hands, even in a place as exciting as London. After applying for your fifth job of the day, you resort to entertaining yourself by knitting another baby hat for a friend, watching reruns of your favorite television series, going to museums, or just walking around town. But nothing you do completely diminishes the anxiety you feel while you wait to hear back from the jobs you've applied for. You're afraid to open your email to another rejection. You feel guilty being out and about and enjoying yourself when you know you should be doing something more productive. Like working. Or applying for more jobs even though you've scoured the internet every day for the past many days and there isn't anything new that you haven't already applied for.
After a while of not having a job, your standards begin to lower. Jobs you never would have considered 3 months ago don't seem so bad. Opportunities in remote areas of the world that you were never before interested in and would require you to move far far away seem much more plausible. You start scheming for alternative ways of making money. Selling your possessions, for example. You wonder if your spouse really needs two kidneys. Or maybe you really can become a millionaire from home by stuffing envelopes.
What it really comes down to is waiting. Finding a job is just a game of waiting and dealing with anxiety. And trying to keep hoping.
This week was very exciting because 1) I got my first London hair cut by an exuberant Italian man who sang and whistled, though not at the same time, the entirety of my overly short cut; 2) a friend came to visit; 3) there was a parade! 4) there were fireworks!
No, the parade and fireworks were not in behalf of the job I still don't have. They were for the Lord Mayor's Show which, in a nutshell, is a whole lot of pomp and circumstance for the Lord Mayor of London to go and swear loyalty to the crown. In the olden days, the kings were a bit nervous about the leader of London having delusions of seizing crown and country, so they needed to ensure they had a nice tight leash on the mayor. Today, the Lord Mayor isn't the actual mayor of London. She or he is the head of the City of London Corporation (one of many officers who could be voted into the head position by other officers) while the actual mayor is elected in the usual election kind of way.
Anyway. While our friend was visiting, I made several delicious dinner dishes in a row, dishes that did not include rice and beans, our staple these days. I finally saw Platform 9 3/4 but neglected to take a photo of myself because there were too many people about. I need solitude to properly pose at such an irresistibly kitschy location. I went to a delightful bakery and bought challah bread to make this french toast.
And then of course we went to the parade and stood in the pouring rain and saw sopping wet marching bands, freezing cold dancing Colombians, lots and lots of floats about recycling, surprisingly friendly military units, and finally, the Lord Mayor herself riding in a 300 year-old golden carriage. It was an excellent parade and totally worth having feet that resembled ice blocks.
Later that evening, or rather afternoon since it gets dark here at 4:18, we watched the fireworks and then went off to a pub for our friend to experience the quintessentially British fish and chips followed by the quintessentially American apple crisp with ice cream. Yum.
One of the main drawbacks to our neighborhood in Bloomsbury is that it's not as much a neighborhood as a tourist mecca. You can find people who live here if you look very carefully, but they seem greatly outnumbered by the visitors. It also means that while there are plenty of grocery stores, there isn't a great neighborhood farmers' market. This really isn't a problem, however, since there are plenty of other markets within a couple of miles. It just gives me an excuse, as if I needed one, to visit them all.
Yesterday we popped up to the Parliament Hill farmers' market and it definitely did not disappoint. We ate a crodough filled with lemon curd and potato bread with rosemary and potato skins hidden inside, which were both scrummy, but the real treat was the Welshman selling said items. Not only did he think my accent sounded Irish (bless him! and don't be too shocked. It's all the r, I think), but he chatted with us for a good 5 minutes while customers lined up behind us. His accent was charming, although sometimes unintelligible, and I was reluctant to end the conversation.
Here is one of the stories he told us: he saw two lines in a paper about a crodough (aka doughsant or cronut) being served in NYC and though it would be fun to try making them, which he mentioned to a friend, who immediately tweeted that the Welshman's bakery would be selling crodoughs at the next Saturday market. So the Welshman looked up a recipe online, made a couple of batches, and sold out of them the first week. They've been a hit ever since, particularly the ones rolled in cinnamon and sugar immediately after coming out of the fryer. I'm thinking about going back every week just to see him, but then it means I might miss other markets. It's really a difficult decision.
We also bought a jar of sweet and dainty honey from an English flower I never quite caught the name of. I felt asking the honey man a third time for the name of the plant was just insulting, so I nodded, handed him a fiver, and scurried away with my honey.
Then we found ourselves in the Heath, or, as I think of it, heaven in London. Hampstead Heath is an 800-acre "park," to use the word loosely. It's more a jungle of wild grass, massive trees, murky ponds, rambling hills, and tame wildlife plopped right in the heart of the city. You can pull on a pair of wellies and tromp through the mud and forget that you're in the suffocating midst of 10 million people. You can also frolic with your dog along with all the other dog people who look at you strangely when you ask them questions about their dog when you don't have one, but who chat merrily with the other dog owners. I definitely need a dog.
I wish I had some photos to show you of the Heath, but I don't. Some things you just can't capture with a camera. At least I can't. If you can, please come visit and you can photograph it yourself.
We step in to an inviting looking cafe sandwiched between a convenience store and a bar and look around. The tables are all empty, but two old men sit on stools at the counter, and there's a man drying off some cups. As we enter, everyone turns and stares at us, and we awkwardly gape back at them with half a dozen questions running through our minds. Do we sit? Table or counter? Is there a menu? The man behind the counter frowns slightly at us, possibly because we're still standing in the doorway, but more likely due to our general air of sweat and dirt. Trav and I exchange a quick glance and finally lug ourselves and our backpacks to a corner table. Sighing as he places the now dry tea cup on the peg board behind him, the man comes over to our table and asks what we want. I ask what type of tea they serve and receive a puzzled look, as if it never crossed his mind they might offer multiple varieties of tea. I timidly point to the oversized poster blocking the doorway that explain the many types of tea served in this cafe. The puzzled look is replaced again by a slight frown and he abruptly walks away. Some minutes later he returns with my tea, Trav's muffin, the only edible item in sight and therefore the safest thing to order, and our bill. I gulp down the tea while Trav uses the toilet placed rather inconveniently in the middle of the room, and we remove ourselves from further awkwardness and head back on the camino. Later on, we learned that that every cafe in Spain sells cheese and bread, as well as a plethora of other unannounced items. You just had to be savvy enough to know this without asking.
