October 25, 2004
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Unrelated Excerpts
The girls are collaborating on a pencil-sharpening effort. What began as Ms. 6 casting
about for something to do (because for one day of the week I have refused to bring her anywhere or amuse her myself) has become a game in which she is the matron of a store. Her job is to sharpen all the pencils. Ms. 4 has been corralled as a lackey whose current duty is disposing of the shavings flying around Ms. 6. Ms. 4 is bustling around and bumps into something.
Ms. 4: Oops, I just broke the most valuable thing in the store.
Ms. 6: (dismissively) You are the least valuable thing in the store.
Four continues bustling without comment.
I open my mouth. I contemplate the fact that no-one is crying and everyone is engaged (even if one is engaged as an unappreciated slave). I shut my mouth.
I am walking back from a solitary trot along the bike path over my lunch break. It’s one of the most glorious days in the world. The sun is high, the wind brisk, the leaves at the height of their color. “Eli” is coming back from his own jaunt in the other direction. He pauses outside the door, waiting for me. I come up. He smiles slightly.
“It’s all really useless, isn’t it?” he offers in his inimitable kibbutz accent. Eli’s world-weary cynicism underlies every word he utters, and to communicate well with him the American needs to turn off linear thinking and turn on (as best we can) the sort of
intuition born of millennia of tradition. Sometimes I manage, and this is one of them. I smile and nod. Every other conceivable reason not to stand here in the balmy fall of color (the end of the lunch break, pressing meetings, documents to file, calls to make) does indeed seem entirely useless.
Comments (12)
Guess there's no sense feeling sorry for a lackey that's not complaining...
Sharpen those pencils!
Afterall, the situation is hopeless, but not serious.
(forgot who said that)
Aren't those quintessential fall pictures! I just love them. Especially the one of the girls heading for a plunge in the leaf pile. That brought a giant smile to my face.
bahaha, either ms. 4 has all the self-esteem in the world, or none at all. but if she's not worried about it, i guess there's no problem either way.
Kids are so easily amused!
We walking back to the car through the campus of Son's college yesterday and I felt a deep sense of remorse at realizing that the unbelievable sense of calm and beauty that was fostered by the sights and smells of autumn would be over way too soon. I've come to enjoy fall so much that it brings with it the bitter sweet fact that it too must end. Damn! So, I'm going to get the hell out of here and hit the bike path.
1 those are wonderful pictures.
2 i will take your suggestion and ignore the end of the lunch break, pressing meetings, documents to file, calls to make to take in the fall colors. at the mall.
dayum!
I REALLY need to get OUT more - into the nearby flora...
Funny how someday Ms.6 will realize that Ms.4 is the most valuable friend she has in this world! I think I must have felt the same as she does when I was 6 and my little sister was 4!
I just love everything about fall that assults all of my senses! Truly is useless!
hey, she may've found her niche in the business world!!! she'll be rich!!
lovely photos, these!
autumnal bounty, beauty and abundance. Enjoy!
I love those tiny warty little pumpkins. I also had two girls, two years apart. There were times I missed overhearing their conversations but one that remains in the mind of the youngest is that the oldest when she was around your child's age, would call her sister Ef A Tee So (FATSO). When the youngest learned what the spelling meant, she was angry, hurt and even today, she'll bring it up.
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