Wednesday, September 29th wasn’t the serene day of
introspection and re-focussing I had hoped for when
embarking on this project. Instead, another day of
running around, trying to catch up with that elusive
goal of a to-do list fulll of crossed-out items. A
P.E.D day, teacher development day aty Roslyn, meaning
no school for Luis and Joni. They sprinkled quite a
few of those randomly on the calendar, with no day
care options. How do working parents organize that?
Cora made breakfast, as every day, reliably, she is
the first to get up. She sat at the table drinking her
tea and reading Jonathan Frantzen when I came down.
Only her second day at St. George’s, and she seems
completely relaxed, unambigously looking forward to
spending time with new teachers, new class mates.
Matthias left right after her, so he just got a little
bit of the energy the boys bring to the table. I
managed to sneak away to the basement, checking e-mail
and the news. A new date for Luis’ trumpet lesson with
Xylo, who teaches in his small bachelor apartment,
with a big couch in front of the TV and huge sneakers
on a tray by the door. Luis thought that is so great.
He got a glimpse of what it means to be growing up,
and didn’t mind at all that that included cooking and
doing laundry. A French journalist and a Spanish
CEGEP-student are interesting in the tutoring us in
French.
The two young Italian hostages are free, for 1 Mio
dollar ransom. What an irony, they set out to help
along peace and learning, now they have indirectly
financed violence and intolerance. A map shows the
places of the 2063 attacks that took place during the
last 30 days. 70 car bombs, shootings, highway
robberies a day. 3 every hour. Front page coverage
every day and we know nothing about the reality of
that war, and who can include Uganda, Sudan, the
suicide rate among Inuit youngster among their daily
concerns?
Mounting noise levels call me back to my little world.
I think of Jeans matching-sheets-for-the-boys-room
remark a lot. Yesterday I listened to an interview
with a Canadian pediatrician who has worked in all the
humanitarian red spots. “I need buffer time whenever I
come back”, she said. “ Of course, parents have a
right to be concerned here, when there child has had a
fever for 3 hours, and it didn’t come down with the
first dosis of Tylenon. In Darfour I treated babies
who had walked with their mothers for days, had not
had a warm meal, or any meal, in a week, and came
down with malaria or tuberculosis.” How much of the
misery of the world can we take in the comfort of our
homes?
Joni is invited to a birthday party today. When Tinu
sees me gift-wrapping a lego police car, he gets very
excited, then very upset. No, its not his birthday.
“But it’s too lange” (until his birthday) he keeps
wailing in his German-English all the way to Narnia,
his magical pre-school.
When I get back, Luis and Joni are working on a card
for Simran, the birthday girl. Luis is so wonderful as
a brother. Joni writes his name, carefully, letters
varying widely in size. My Kindergarten-boy.
I drag them along to an hour of boring talking at
Cora’s school. I thought I’d just drop of the
permission slip for her lunch-out with the advisor
group, but end up being introduced to the director and
principal annd the lady in charge of financial aid.
Another form to fill out, another night unpleasantly
spend with narrow money worries. Kathay, the young and
elegant admissions lady, apologizes gracefully for not
having mentioned the one time 1500 contribution to the
building fonds, but assures me: “They will do the best
they can, everybody loves Cora already.”
We’re late for Joni’s birthday party, again I get lost
behind the Atwater tunnel, not sure whether I’m north
or south of Lachine canal. The party is already in
full swing. Princess Simran and courtesans open the
door. Joni opts for a remote control car. I chat with
the father of Olivia, a beautiful French speaking girl
who stands apart a bit. She’ll probably learn English
faster from her peers than everybody will learn French
from the teacher in Jonis immersion French class.
Simran’s mom Baru is pregnant with her 5th child. She
has 4 girls, hopes for a boy now, laughingly. Is this
a “Brick Lane”- reality? do they dream and talk of
going back to Bangladesh? She seems incredibly relaxed
inspite of her dark-rimmed eyes, with her small belly
stretching the smooth golden long narrow skirt.
It is a clear blue, sunny fall day. As always, I’m
dressed wrong, today I was too optimistic about
temperature. Usuallly I err on the opposite side,
never trusting the sunshine. This can only be winter
holding its breath, hiding its true nature behind a
pretty face. Just the right weather to shop for winter
clothes. I hate shopping, Luis loves it. He knows what
he likes and dislikeds immediately, I try to figure it
out rationally. He falls in love with a 55 dollar
black-blue hooded adidas sweat shirt, I buy him a
reasonable one for 30. Was it worth saving those 25
dollars? Thermal underwear and a pair of pants for
each boy, boots for Luis - 300 dollar. With Coras
tuition on the back of my mind, I’m in a stingy mood.
Prices matter.
I rush Luis back to the car, afraid of another one of
the vicious parking tickets Montreal considers a
legitimate major source of revenue. We’re both hungry,
and were tempted by the croissant counter already on
our way in. Now, as so often, no time for the basics.
Simran lives in an apartment building, with hallways
and doors reminiscent of a hotel. On the way home in
the car Joni speculates: “Maybe they are not in their
real house yet, because there are other people living
there. But they have there toys and everything!” He
thought of our time at the Marriott Residence Inn,
with no toys. How we cannot but take our own
experiences as points of reference! We expected our
start here to be like the first months in Palo Alto,
when we were so close as a small family, and so eager
to get to know the place, the people, the everyday
life. Now, here, we’re mostly out of breath.
Rush home, pack a snack and a bag of ice-skating gear,
and rush out again, rush Tinu away from his play
dough, to the park bench, through the snack, and back
to the ice-rink at the southern end of Westmount Park.
50 kids stalk across the ice with their hands
stretched out backwards like penguins out of the
water, in different degrees of awkwardness. This is
the perfectly exotic moment for me. This is Canada,
winter is always closer than you might think, so, of
course, it is not unusual to dress your kids in
snowpants, jackets and mittens on a still reasonably
warm fall day, hide their faces under hockey helmets
and have them walk across ice. This is their life, and
we start to be part of it. The feeling of
out-of-placeness passes, and leaves behind the
questions of travel. Is this what we have come for,
this Wednesday afternoon event of a well-structured
ice-skating lesson? This sudden rush of waking up to a
newness, that, after all, is only a reshuffling of
known parts (YMCA swim lessons in the ice rink)? What
is there at the end of the road, world-weariness, the
tired recognition that there is nothing new under the
sun, or the humbleness of realizing that life is
bigger than your own horizon? “Or should we have
stayed home, wherever that maybe?” - it is a
rhetorical question, isn’t it?
Luis practices skating backwards. Joni falls once too
often, his jeans are wet at the knees and bottom: “I
hate ice-skating, I don’t ever want to do it again.”
We watch two big boys in short sleeves who kick the
puck around in the big rink with surprisingly long
sticks (I’m sure they have a real name).
For dinner we’re having mashed potato and cauliflower
with Bechamel sauce and cheese on top. Luis likes it,
Tinu doesn’t. Dishes, undressing, brushing teeth,
reading stories, singing songs, reading Winnetou to
Luis, 5 sentences with Cora about her day - when we’re
finally done after nine, Matthias and I start working
on the financial aid papers, but give up soon. I’m too
tired, and this is too little fun. Two pages of
Levi-Strauss “ Tristes tropiques” and I’m asleep.
