And I Will Never Grow So Old Again

There's a warm breeze in the city. And my world is coming back to life.

I discovered the other day that I can now call American telephones from my Gmail account which is pretty incredible. I called my mom's house and heard our answering machine for the first time in a year and a half. When I got through to her today, all I wanted to talk about was how I finally felt like myself again.

Last weekend, I found myself in a six hour conversation with a relative stranger. We talked about everything. We talked about love, religion, politics, how we were raised, everything that you spend years revealing to your friends as you get to know them. At one point in the conversation, I said, "You know, sometimes you just need to talk to a stranger to remember who you are." I walked home that night and each step was easier than the one before it. For months, each step was a hurdle. I was too tired to sleep, I was too tired to get out of bed. I felt lost in this city, lost in my own head. But suddenly, I was searching for similes and metaphors. I was getting a new pair of glasses, removing a veil, watching the sun come out from behind the clouds, feeling a weight lifted off my shoulders. There weren't enough. There will never be enough. We reserve so many clichés for falling in love, for explaining that inexplicable feeling. And now, I want to steal all of those phrases and use them for how I feel about living.

I find myself running for trams a lot lately. I wear dresses again. I feel the way that my feet pound against the pavement, the way that it fights back and propels me. I feel the way that my dress flutters against my stocking-clad legs. I throw my arms wide and feel like I am flying in this warm breeze. I let the tram catch me, I let it pull me through the city. I look up. I see murals I've never noticed. I catch glimpses of crocuses. I smile at strangers and they smile back. I dance when the urge overcomes me. I sing out loud. I sing "Sweet Thing" by Van Morrison because it's the only song that can capture the feeling of spring after a long, grey winter.

Champagnta

This is going to be one of those intensely photo heavy, long posts. All photos courtesy of Jess, Andrea, and Sara as I did not have my camera. Most of the best days in my life are those days that I look back on and, in retrospect, realize were absolutely amazing. Some days, though, you realize in the moment that they will be the best days of your life. This is the story of one of those days. **

**

When I was 18, my main group of friends was referred to as "The Table." We ate lunch and dinner together every weekday while on the weekends we came together for brunch and dinner. The Table was primarily straight-edge, so our Friday and Saturday nights involved going to the movies, candy shop, or playing cards on Jenn and Denise's floor. But brunch on the weekend--that was our time. It was a marathon for us. Ten thirty to one. As many plates as we could eat. Glorious were the days when they had the make-your-own waffle station. Jenn seemed to live for them. Kim could pack in more food than any of us, despite her small frame. But brunch was always bittersweet. We knew we were fighting against the clock, that we had a full day of homework ahead of ourselves and no amount of scrambled eggs would make it go away. We would leave in the early afternoon, resigned to a day of study.

But in the real world, Sunday brunch isn't procrastination's last hurrah, it's the weekend's last hurrah. Whatever happened that weekend, however disappointing, there's still a full day ahead of you to turn it around. There's no homework looming overhead, but there is the knowledge that the week begins tomorrow. Every Sunday is like the last day of summer for a school kid. You know that it's all you've got left and you have to make the most out of it. Our traditional brunch has been referred to as the "Hangover Brunch" but to me it's more of a debriefing session. We gather at someone's flat to cook, eat, and have our last drinks of the weekend. This Sunday, we started with Bloody Marys (my first!) and after we ate our way through a few hours of lounging in the kitchen on the windowsill, we finished up brunch with Magical Mermaid Mimosas. When the pitcher was finished, we finally decided to move to the park to bask in the beautiful weather (in spite of all those warnings about volcanic ash). I looked, calculating, at the empty bottle of twist-off champagne, the full bottle, and the half-empty bottle of Fanta.

"Guys!" I shouted. "We pour half the bottle of champagne into the empty bottle, then top both off with the Fanta, put the caps back on, and bring them with us to the park!" Someone quipped about the beauty of twist-off champagne caps. But then, we did. And it was glorious. *

We went to the park and found the perfect spot in the sun to drink our Champagnta. **

And drink it we did! When you mix in Fanta, you can barely taste the 48 crown (~$2.50) bottle of champagne! *

We decided that the slightly opaque sparkly stuff in the green bottles looked like what they drink in the garden in the movie of Harriet the Spy and this made Champagnta even better. *

I was pretty excited to have dressed so ridiculously for brunch. "I strive to make every moment of my life a photo opportunity" may have been my Champagnta-tipsy quote of the day. *

But while we were laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation, an Austrian boy in a photography class actually came over and asked to take pictures, so, really, we made an impression. *

You'll note that most pictures are of the five of us girls. Brunch is usually high in estrogen and any boys who end up with us seem a bit exhausted. There's a reason he's on his own little towel instead of The Blanket (The Definite Article Blanket, as it were). And that reason is girls and... **

PUPPIES! The park is full of them on a Sunday afternoon and the Czechs aren't big on leashes. We called over as many dogs as we could and attacked them with affection, making cooing noises. This dog, however, found us. We noticed her urinating on the head of a guy passed out a few yards from us. Then, suddenly, she was on our blanket. "She likes other people but not me," the owner said when he came to retrieve her. What we did not get a photo of was the pig.

"Is that man walking a pig?" asked Jess. We all looked over and debated whether or not it was indeed a pig.

"Is that pony?" asked Jess, about a very large poodle at a great distance.

But, the porcine leashed animal came closer, and revealed itself to, in fact, be a pig. Eventually, Lauren and I were on the way to the bathroom and I managed to ask the owner if we could pet it. He apathetically agreed. We pet a pig. Its nose was kind of sticky, its fur was sparse, but it was a pig, and we pet it. ***

Eventually, the one bottle of champagne split two ways ran out.

"Guys! We buy two more bottles of champagne and one bottle of Fanta..." I began.

"And split the champagne amongst four bottles and top it off with Fanta!" someone else finished.

So Sara and I went to the same shop where she had purchased the makings of the Magical Mermaid Mimosas to get more supplies. We ended up with the same cashier and Sara gleefully told her to have a good day. We certainly were having one. We returned triumphantly and the crowd applauded.

At this point, the splitting the bottles became an assembly line procedure. Pour the champagne, pour the Fanta, cap it, overturn it to mix but don't shake. ***

In the end, we had four more bottles of Champagnta. "I'll call you breakfast, and you brunch, and you lunch, and you dinner!" **

*

As we neared the end of the bottles, we did feats to show off how we were still not drunk including hand stands, somersaults, and cartwheels. Throughout the day, friends came and went. There was frisbee and football. There were guitars and surly chihuahuas. As the sun went behind the clouds and slowly began to set, we moved to the beer garden and had a last round of drinks and foosball for the weekend (for some of us, at least).

It seemed to most of us that Monday morning was more brutal after a beautiful Sunday, but I think that on some level we all preferred an amazing Sunday and rough Monday to two mediocre days.

*From Sara

** From Jess

*** From Andrea

We Find Magic Everywhere

When your job involves reading fairy tales at least three times a day, you start to view the world like one. I used to look for magic in the world, but lately, it just appears everywhere. We had a bunch of short willow branches in water from making pomlazka (willow whips, oh Central Europe) for Easter. I noticed that they were starting to bud and thought they would make a beautiful little fairy house. I stuck them into the ground to make a little hut. I explained to the children that this will attract the fairies to our garden as long as we took good care of it. As soon as I explained this to one student, he went and found flowers to put on top. Another found an empty snail shell while a third (for reasons I don't quite understand) sifted some small stones out of the sand table to put in the house. I then went around and collected the snails from all over the garden. I placed them in the house, explaining that the fairies ride on snails like we ride on horses. This also kept the snails safe from little feet that are wont to trod on them. Accidentally squishing a garden snail is much more heartbreaking than accidentally squishing a spider. The look of horror on one boy's face when he stepped on a chestnut that he thought was a snail was reason enough to corral the little guys.

But the fairy house quickly became known the the children as the snail house. "Šnek šnek šnek!" seems to be all I hear in the garden these days. They love to look in on the snails, give them little things to eat, and place flowers on the top of their house. The snails, to me, are magical little creatures in their own right, even if we've forgotten about the fairies who ride on them. My only previous knowledge of garden snails from Strawberry Shortcake. Snails, to me, were always aquatic and less than adorable. So, to see real life eye stalks is like stepping into a fairy tale!

I watch them and can't help but imagine being a fairy or Strawberry Shortcake riding on them myself. I recognize that in reality, it might be less than thrilling to ride on a snail, no matter how small I might be, but but... the eye stalks! They wiggle around and when they poke something, they go back in or wrap around it. They're incredible! And I've got about thirty more snail pictures, but I'll leave the šneky for another time.

Sometimes, magic comes in the form of an ambrosian Sunday morning cocktail. The Magical Mermaid Mimosa was born out of the desire to have root beer floats at brunch. Unfortunately, root beer does not exist here and vanilla ice cream is scarce (or topped with things). So, I picked up orange soda and strawberry ice cream one morning and figured it would do. It certainly did. We discussed how to make this delightful drink a bit more... alcoholic. Vodka? No. Rum? Perhaps. Tequila? Yes, but it is Sunday morning. So, champagne! Thus was born the Magical Mermaid Mimosa. Champagne, orange soda, and strawberry ice cream. "This is what girls in frilly pink dresses grow up to drink!" said Lauren.

It was hard to get a picture that properly showed the beautiful foam on the Magical Mermaid Mimosa or how it made one feel like one had just stepped into a victorian fairy tale, but this does show it a bit. Lauren coined the term Magical Mermaid Mimosa and later on I thought more about the use of "mermaid" here. In Hans Christen Andersen's original Little Mermaid, sea people live three hundred years but have no immortal soul, as humans do. So when they die, their spirit doesn't rise into the ether. They simply turn into foam and float on the sea. The foam on top of the Magical Mermaid Mimosa is like the sea foam that holds the essence of such magical creatures.

(Thanks to Jess for her M.M.M. photos)

Ahoj, Jaro!

I was talking to a friend the other day about how strange it is to go from the Northeast to a place that actually has a full season of Spring. We're used to it going from 30's to 60's in a week's time, with some minor fluctuations. I'm not sure I've ever experienced this much 50's in my life. And when the season takes time to progress, you can actually see the different flowers and types of trees because they don't all suddenly bloom at once like an explosion, but slowly like a verdant fireworks show.

And this gives me hope about things that are slowly forthcoming being worth the wait. Yesterday, I woke up in the middle of my bed.

In Which a Large Rock, Again, Changes My Perspective on Life

Last week, before a brief bout of second winter hit the Czech Republic, I came home from work and was determined to enjoy spring on my own. I'm still getting used to living on my own (stocking the pantry, being the only one responsible for buying toilet paper) and being on my own (on Friday nights, I am beholden to no one). Korea, in 2008, was the first time I had lived alone during the fall. And though it was lonely, it pushed me to become more independent. Now, I am heading into my first spring alone. I am so affected by the seasons that while I may have learned to live alone in the fall, I feel like I'm starting from scratch with this whole being alone during the spring thing.

A series of jokes has led to a friend and I calling single life "Beartown." The extended metaphor is a comfort. I am watching the trees bud in Beartown for the very first time, it seems. The last time I wasn't living with a girlfriend through the thaw into the summer was 2005--and even then I was in a fairly big relationship with someone a few hundred yards away. I'm used to coming home on a beautiful day to a woman who will hang out in the grass with me. If she was busy, there were usually friends nearby with whom I might sit and watch the water.

But I find myself in Beartown, which happens to exist at around 50 degrees of latitude and thus offers sunshine well past what I am used to in early April, coming home from work with hours of daylight and good weather spread out ahead of me. And, honestly, sometimes when I close the school gate behind me and begin walking home, I feel like I have an ocean to cross before I can lay my head down. I have seconds and minutes and hours to fill up, which in the winter I was fairly content to do indoors, baking and listening to podcasts. But as the sun refuses to go down for hours after I arrive home, I need to be doing something more. Some days, I am exhausted from a long day of Hokey Pokey and battles of will with little people for whom reason is years away. Those days, the couch and a pair of knitting needles don't feel like such an admission of failure. However, after a good day of fort-building and gut-busting laughter, I am ready for more.

So, last Thursday, I decided to take a book outside and read. Having grown up in a harbor, the river pulled me to its banks. I walked along the path, looking for a spot where I could get closer to the water. What made me turn away from the water, I'll never know, but I caught a glimpse of a small cliff covered with grass, moss, and flowers. This was to be my spot. Instead of going lower to find seclusion, I would go higher. This is the direction my life has been taking--I've been picking height over depth for a while now, while not entirely conscious of the decision. This girl who suffered through sandy sandwiches every summer day of her childhood, has picked the mountains time and time again. Up I climbed and settled myself. I could see the river, I could feel the grass under my bare feet. In reality, the glacial erratics of Eastern Long Island and the cliffs that formed some ancient fortress for Prague aren't all that different, if ya' close y'r eyes. It's just rock. Rock, rock, rock. How I wanted to feel the rocks below my feet and the waves pulling the sand from around me. But this cliff, this cliff offered me something new! I could boulder here!

I climbed back down, having only read a few pages, and quickly returned to my flat, dropping the bag full of afternoon reading supplies as I opened the door. I changed, gathered up my gear, and headed back down to the small amount of exposed rock near the river. I'd never been bouldering outside before, I'd never gone rock climbing alone at all. I'm sure I was breaking all sorts of safety rules if not a few actual Czech laws. But I stretched and I climbed up a few feet. I looked to my left and set a goal. Two, three, four times, I got stuck at the same spot. I hopped down and tried to plan my route. I got back to the rough spot and could not find a place to put my left hand. I always like to take a hand hold before moving my feet. I realized that I needed to trust my instincts, moving my feet and allowing my hand to follow. When I made it across, I felt so accomplished. I had conquered so much. I had overcome my fear of going out alone and staked out a new spot for myself where I can read--content to be alone. Crossing that gap in the rock was like climbing Apsan. It wasn't really a goal I had until I found myself with nothing else. Now, beautiful days don't fill me with the dread of loneliness. I can again see endless possibilities instead of moments to fill up.

Snowdrops

The first Snowdrops of the year appeared this week! There's still a bit of icy snow left about but the Snowdrops, like the crocuses at home, are persistent. When Jana brought in one from the garden on Monday, I told her my Snowdrop story which I've heard from many Waldorf sources. I could write it out, but it's better told in person. I then told it to Ruza and the kids, who adored it.

I spend a lot of time thinking about storytelling. How is it different to tell stories to adults versus children? How can we learn to tell stories better to both audiences? How can we become better listeners so that we can enjoy a "nice" story? I talked with a friend about it this weekend who said that we, as the audience, want to feel included in the story, feel like we are part of the drama. That's why, she said, "I went to the grocery store and got some yogurt, and it was good," isn't a good story. But I sit in circle every day with children who say things like, "Yesterday, I went swimming and today I am going to grandma's house." The other children are enthralled, they appreciate these stories. They don't need to be part of the drama. How can we recapture that?

I tell stories all the time. I tell nice stories. And another important thing is learning to accept the audience's silence. You need to give them a moment to absorb and not expect something that sounds cliché like, "That's nice." Just let the story fall. And be okay with it.

As the Snowdrops poke their drooping heads through the frozen ground, we are looking everywhere for signs of Spring. Yesterday, we found worms in a pile of old leaves. "It is alive! It is life!" shouted Ruza. How accurate? When everything around us feels dead, it is so good to see life. We moved them carefully to the compost pile and explained how they would be our little helpers, making us magical compost which will bring new life.

Another thing about spring with young children is this:

We as adults have come to understand from many years of experience that though winter can be dreary, spring will follow. We know what to expect. My kids are 2-5. They have had so few winters and springs, and even fewer that they actually remember. So, every winter to them, it must feel like the earth is simply dying--that this is the end of the world! Imagine the wonder of finding a worm living in the dead leaf, his wriggling pink body so vibrant against the darkness of decaying plant matter. It must really feel like Ruza said, but it's the Earth that's alive! The little Snowdrop reminds us of this.