STORIES THAT WILL NEVER MAKE THE HEADLINES (but color our lives) or

LITTLE ACTS OF KINDNESS THAT DOT MY DAY

When Hank the Cat wakes us up with his urgent meowing in the mornings, I reluctantly open my eyes and coax my body to go vertical. Sometimes it takes longer than at other times. And as half of me wakes up, I sit on the bed and utter a prayer of thanks for the night’s rest and for whatever the Father has in store for the day.

 Off to Work

 I walk into the office at 10:05 and as I pass Robert’s and Stephanie’s desks we exchange lively “Good mornings” to which I add, “It’s Friday! It’s Friday!” I work only 20 hours a week, but Friday holds an excitement for me as for those who work 40. Then I hear Stephanie say, “Robert got you coffee this morning.”

 “Oh, how sweet you are!” I exclaim.

Sure enough there is a cup of hot coffee on my desk. What a pleasant way to start a work day. Dave, our accountant is already hard at work. I am so thankful for this man’s patience as he trains me in bookkeeping and in the software we have to use, new skills for me to learn. I then go to my usual routines – put lunch in the refrigerator, check phone messages, check emails. A few minutes later I decide to check any mail that might have come in. We have a mail slot where the mailman drops the mail onto the floor of a little room that has a separate entrance from my office. As I get out, I hear the furious honking of horns. There is a little red car driven by a young Asian lady who has about a third of her car into a parking spot. In front of her is an SUV driven by a guy possibly in his forties, who is trying to back his car into the same parking spot. Neither of them budges. They just keep honking at each other furiously. I watch intently. “Parking rage,” I tell myself. Then the SUV driver surrenders and gives the infamous digit salute to the lady in the red car. But he pays me the same “respect” as his car goes by. Huhm, this is going to be one interesting day.

Nothing earthshaking happens in the office as I do the chores I have assigned myself for the day. But I learn to spell “Cocanougher” which is the last name of a caller. I call back a lady I got acquainted with yesterday to ask for an update on her husband’s condition. They are from out of town but have been in the City for a few days now. He has cancer and is being treated at the VA Hospital. She was quite distraught yesterday when I talked to her. I promised to pray for him. Today she tells me that he is 40% better and thanks me for the prayers. There are many others praying for him. Soon it is time to go. I’ve put in my 5 hours.

 My Friend Joe

As I get out of the gate I spot Joe, a homeless man who hangs out in our neighborhood. I reach for a Fuji apple in my lunchbag.

“Joe, would you care for a Fuji apple?” I offer.

“Oh, I can’t bite it. I don’t have top teeth,” he replies.

I feel so silly. Duh, Raquel. How many times have you seen and talked to him and you never noticed he didn’t have upper teeth?

On the 8X Muni

I can’t get on my usual 3:47 8X because it is so packed, so I have to take the next one. As usual I am in the senior citizen section. I stand in front of a lady who doesn’t look like a senior at all, but she doesn’t offer me her seat. “I’d just stand here and look sweet,” I mutter to myself.

Soon I hear an argument between a young black father who is hanging on to a baby stroller full of stuff and a Hispanic mother who has a daughter about 5 and a son about 8 who are sharing a seat while she hangs on to a strap trying to keep her balance.

“You should have your kids get up and offer the seat to my wife,” he says to the mother, “Can’t you see, she is holding a baby?” His wife is holding a little boy about two years old.

I don’t hear her answer, but I can tell that she is not about to have her children do that. There are a few more exchanges but the mother stands her ground.

The woman seated in front of me joins the discussion, siding with the young father. I think, “You better stay out of this, lady. Look at you, you’re not a senior and you’re not giving me your seat.” But I just smile at her. In reply to my smile she says, “I like your earrings. They’re the same stone as my ring,” and she holds her ring up to me.

“Garnet, right?” I reply.

“Yes,” she says with a smile.

She sees the young dad trying to ram the Hispanic mother with his baby stroller. The lady with the garnet ring intervenes.

“Don’t do that,” she says quietly, “you don’t want to end up in jail.”

At the second stop on San Bruno Avenue, a few passengers get off and the young dad has his two-year old sit next to the lady with the garnet ring. The boy starts staring at her and crying. His dad moves him to the seat closer to him, next to an old Asian man. The little boy stares at him. The Asian man hands him a cellophane-wrapped cookie. He smiles at the old man, the old man smiles back. The young dad smiles, I smile and the lady with the garnet ring smiles. All’s well that ends with smiles.

“Bayshore and Arleta,” the bus speaker announces. The next stop is mine. I pull on the cord for my stop. The bus driver lowers the steps for me and I get off. I see Don coming, so I hurriedly walk to the spot where he usually picks me up. I pass a couple of nice-looking black ladies and one of them says, “I like your scarf.” I turn around and say, “Thank you.” I get in the car and tell Don, “What an interesting day I’ve had.”

LANGUAGES, LANGUAGES

A French Non-Connection

A couple of years ago, Don and I had a short layover in Paris on our way to Hungary.  We had some difficulty at the Charles de Gaulle Airport. It just wasn’t organized in the way American minds work. When we finally found our way to the Immigration booth, the officer said something in French. Don answered, "English only" and the following ensued:

Officer in the booth: Je ne comprends pas.

Don (smiling but getting uncomfortable): Don't speak French. English only.

Officer: Non, non. Parlez-vous le français?

Me (trying to salvage situation and "charm" the man. We've heard of mean French people at CDG airport): Un peu.

Man: Ah, ah, Comment allez- vous?

Me (Now, I'm really in trouble! Think, think back to +50 years ago when you took college French!): Ah, ah . . .

Man (eyes beginning to widen and glare at me): How are you? I say "how are you?"

Me: I know, I know. I just can't remember how to answer that!

Man: Ah, ah (meaning, I got you!)

Me (suddenly remembering my French teacher in college): Trés bien! Trés bien!

Man : Aha, mademoiselle. (grinning from ear to ear, turning to Don with a big thumbs up. I was so happy I made him glad. He hands our stamped passports to Don.)

Me: (Trying to be even more charming.) Merci beaucoup!

Don: Where do we go from here?

Man waves us off to a direction behind him to the left.

And thus, started about 30 minutes of getting lost looking for F1, where supposedly we could find Gate 31 for our flight to Budapest. I'm glad we did not have to go back through Paris on our way home. The Dutch were a little more merciful.

“Kelapa” or “Kepala”

There aren’t too many experiences that humble one more than trying to learn a foreign language.  On our first few months in Indonesia so many years ago, while still learning the language, I was subjected to some strange reactions as I tried to communicate with the new words I learned from our language teachers.  I remember being stared at as I pointed to my head and told someone, “Kelapa saya” when I meant, “Kepala saya.”  The “Kelapa” meant “coconut” and “Kepala” meant “head.”  Then I went to a little store looking for matches.  I asked for “kereta api” which meant “train” rather than “Koret api.”  A favorite story that went the rounds of our missionary circle was about a very dignified senior missionary lady who was one day talking to the young man who helped with the chores in her home.  One morning she told the young man to “Buka yang chelana” to the great shock of the young man.  What she meant was “Buka yang chendela,” which meant “Open the window.”  Instead, she had said, “Open the trousers!”

            My own favorite story was about the first time I taught a group of about 30 Indonesian kids.  I had my flannelgraph board and was skillfully putting the figures on.  I was teaching in Indonesian for the first time as I animatedly told the creation story from the book of Genesis.  The children were all so very attentive and I thought, hanging onto every word I said.  The more attention I was given, the more animated I became.  After the class and everyone but our neighbor Ambarwati was left, I asked her how the lesson went.  “Kami tidak memahami kata-kata apa yang Anda katakan! She plainly told me as only an 8-year old could, “Ibu, we did not understand a word of what you said.”  After a whole year of reading, memorizing and practicing, this was the judgment on my language skills.

The Heart of a Language

            But the more difficult thing about communication is it really is not just a matter of reading, memorizing and practicing.  Language has to be learned in its context.  It cannot be learned well unless it is learned in its culture.  I call this learning the heart of the language.  Language may be part of a people’s culture, but the people’s culture is also part of the language. 

            I often hear a new language from my young friends, the millenials.  I am learning their language through social media.  It is taking me awhile to get used to their language as there is a part of me that is resistant to it.  I am still enamored with English the way I learned it – complete words and sentences, expressive and always takes time to say what it wants to say.  It does not say BFF when it means “Best Friends Forever.”  It uses all 18 letters to say it.  My millenial friends don’t have the time to say all these letters.  Then there is “peeps.”  They shorten the 6-letter “people” to 4.  “Husband” becomes “Huz.”  I’m still trying to learn the heart of this language.  I want to be able to communicate with my young friends effectively.  My “Huz” tells me that it comes from their texting and twittering that require them to say more with less.  I’m trying to find the heart of this language. I have come to the conclusion that this new language requires that things be said as quickly as possible with as little as possible.  It seems to be a language of the hurried, hurrying and would be hurried.

I’m probably just an old stick in the mud.  I remember my discussions with my children when they were still in school and writing papers.  I’d read them over and where I saw contractions, I’d tell them to use complete words.  They would tell me nobody wrote like that anymore.

I wonder what this millennial language would grow to.  Will it ever produce literary masterpieces such as Psalm 23 of King David, or Lincoln’s  Gettysburg Address, or the poetry of Robert Frost’s “Walking Through the Woods on a Snowy Evening” and those of Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, etc.  Let me try my hand in a FB version of those famous lines from Frost.

D wds r lvly, drk n dp,

Bt I hv prmses 2 kp,

N myls 2 go b4 I slp.