Grace in Small Things 59, 60

• I’m having a low-energy day. The nice thing is that by now I have gained the wisdom to know that a series of high days almost inevitably leads to an anticlimactic day. I will not try to fight this in spite of all I need to get done today. I am allowing my body and mind to rest.
• I am often too rigid in my adherence to routines, so it was good when I broke out of my usual pattern this morning by taking a walk, buying a paper and sitting at the marina to read.
• All will be well. It is good to know this deep in my heart no matter what is going on around me.
• Sylvain sent me on a window shopping expedition yesterday and it was fun.
• Someone I know is thinking of moving to Windsor. How cool is that?!
• Broken City Lab is up to something new. I can’t wait to see!
• My houseplants give me oxygen. Thank you.
• It’s overcast, a nice change that makes the day feel calm, quiet and sleepy.
• Snail mail.
• Ducks and their babies.

What I learned today: I learned some basics of reading and writing Arabic.

Comments, Email Problems

Currently I am unable to comment on several Blogger blogs.  I get a Bx error, which some bulletin boards say is caused by the blogger’s changing templates. If they go back to a default template, the problem is purported to clear up.  I don’t know. The only suggestion I found for fixing it on the commenter’s end was to clear my cache and cookies and reboot. I did that and it didn’t help.

At the same time, my emails to three Comcast addresses are occasionally, but not always, bouncing back to me.

Very odd.

I’ve tried researching the heck out of the error codes to no avail.  I’ve sent a request for technical help to my ISP for the latter problem. I’ve alerted my mother and brother to the fact that it might be a Comcast problem, but I seriously doubt that my mother–as much as she loves my almost daily emails–will contact her ISP. She and my brother both report that Comcast customer service in LR/NLR Arkansas is abysmal beyond my imagination.

Since the error message I’m getting on that one say something about my message being too old, I tried setting my computer’s time one day into the future. That didn’t help.

So if you don’t get comments from me, it’s possible that I tried emailing you the comment only to have the email come back to me as well.  Lynn, you are in this category.  An email I sent you last night has come back to me AND I can’t comment on your blog.

I guess it’s time for me to go do something else for a while, like take a walk.

Post Script: after I posted this, a representative of Comcast left a comment on the blog. I was then given a very good customer service experience with technicians working for the national office of that company. They diagnosed and explained the problem to me, and gave me details to forward to my ISP.

My Year in Japan III – Meeting the Neighbours

When we moved into the humble apartment in the six-unit complex, I hadn’t known to take a small gift to each of my new neighbours.  In spite of having pored over stacks of library books on Japanese culture and social norms, I had missed that one and would only learn it months later when then next new tenant moved into the building. I had never met our neighbours other than returning a friendly, “hello” from the teenage son of the family who lived under us.

We could hear our downstairs neighbours chanting every morning and every evening for at least an hour. We couldn’t decipher what they were chanting, but we got a kick out of the fact that it sounded to me like “Ya lo haré mañana” in Spanish (I’ll do it tomorrow).

One fall morning I awoke to deeper snow than I’d ever seen.  I felt like I did when I was a child and school would be cancelled for the day.  I had to play in it!  So I bundled up well and headed outside with a ladle for scooping. The type of snow that had fallen was perfect for sculpting and excavating.  It didn’t take me long to dig a rabbit-den-style snow fort complete with entry tunnel.  Once I’d carved out a little room big enough to sit in, I went inside and sat there.  It was peaceful inside.

The next thing I knew there was a woman peering into my little snow abode.  She was saying something to me in Japanese that I didn’t understand.  I said, “konnichiwa” and smiled.  She was holding something out to me.  I gave her a puzzled look. She said, “Doozo,” which I knew was a phrase used when one person is offering something to another. You also use it for “Please come in,” “Please sit down,” and more.

I took a mug from her hand and said, “Doomo arigatoo” while bowing a couple of times.  She returned the bows and disappeared back into her apartment.  The thick, cream-coloured liquid in the mug was steaming hot.  I took a sip. Oh, yum!

===============

Later that afternoon I knocked on the woman’s door in order to return her cup.  She invited me in.  I took off my coat, mittens and boots and had a seat on a sofa.  (Yes, ironically we lived more Japanese style than most of the Japanese people we met in Sapporo. They all had couches and we sat on the floor in our flat.) The teenage son was there who always said “hello” when we saw each other in passing. They stared at me like I was behind bars in a zoo or something, expectantly waiting for me to do something interesting.

Not knowing what else to say and not knowing much Japanese, I thanked her again for the beverage.  ”Oishii deshita,” I said. (It was tasty.)

There was more staring.

It may have been the son who dared speak first.  I don’t remember now, but he probably asked something like, “Amerika-jin desu ka?”  (Are you American?)

“Hai, soo desu,” I would have answered.

We managed to have a rudimentary conversation around the most basic of questions and answers.

Who is the man?

That’s Xavier. He studies at Hokudai.  He is not American. Supain-jin desu.

I came to understand after much pantomime and pointing that she and her husband owned the scrap metal yard across the alley

This is Yuji, one of our sons.  We have another son, a daughter-in-law and a grandson. My husband is at work.

I don’t remember how future visits came about, but I ended up introducing them to Xavier and we became rather close to them as neighbours. They offered us their phone number for emergencies since we didn’t have a phone. They were quite eager to show us their Butsudan and Gohonzon (Sama) hanging inside it.  I was curious about the items that had been placed in front of and on either side of the shrine: a tidy pyramid of oranges, plant sprigs, a bowl of rice, incense.

Mrs. K showed me her chanting beads and sutra booklet. She tried explaining what it was all about, but the Japanese was too advanced for me. She used a lot of gestures and did her best, seeming quite eager for me to get it.

The Ks were a humble, hard-working family. I was put at ease by their simplicity and earthiness. They didn’t have a car or any fancy things. Their skin wasn’t pale like that of the university profs. They were tan from working in the scrap yard. Their hands were strong, fingernails dirty.  I liked them.  He was a tall, quiet man who imbibed quite a bit  every night, but only after sitting in front of the object of worship chanting for over an hour, the string of beads (juzu) laced over his fingers. He didn’t become silly, loud or belligerent when he drank. Sometimes his buddies came by for a game of Mah Jong.

One day Mrs. K invited me to a meeting in the neighbourhood. Out of curiosity, I went.  That was the beginning of my journey of conversion–from spectator to participant in her religion. I’ll tell you about that next time.

Heritage Prowl #1 – 200 Block of Prado Place

For our first Heritage Prowl, we ventured over to an entire city block that has been designated as a Heritage Conservation District: the 200 block of Prado Place, which is right off of Riverside Drive.  As the afternoon sunlight filtered through the canopies of trees, we strolled slowly up the street, a print-out of the Windsor Municipal Heritage Register and pen in hand.

We saw beautiful examples of the following styles: Arts & Crafts; Vernacular Salt Box; Cape Cod; Dutch Colonial; Colonial Revival; Vernacular Cottage; Foursquare;  Bungalow; and Vernacular English Cottage.  One block south of Wyandotte we also got our first view of clinker bricks on a Tudor Revival house.  Most of the houses on the block were built in 1929, but there was one 1920, a 1921 and a couple built in 1924.  We also saw a few ranch style houses that had been added in the 1950s.

It was a lot of fun, and we got to explain to the neighbours out walking their small dogs what we were up to (not casing their houses).

It’s really handy knowing the names of the house styles. I can now stop saying things like, “I can’t stand those houses with the such-and-such type of windows and the blah, blah, blah.” And I’ll be able to say things like, “Hey, look at that cute bungalow.”

Grace in Small Things 58

• The pronunciation lesson I gave to the Spanglish conversation club went well. We explored the differences between the vowels sounds of English and Spanish. Native Spanish speakers have to acquire the off-glide on the long vowel sounds, and we who are learning Spanish have to produce a pure, crisp vowel sound with no off-glide. We also had some fun trying to get the Spanish learners to produce a softer “d” sound by bringing the tip of the tongue from the alveolar ridge to the back of the teeth or almost in position for a voiced TH, though not quite that far.  It was a fun night!
• Sylvain and I went on our first Heritage Register prowl of the city. We had fun!
• Today is S’s parents’ 50th anniversary. We took them to Jackson Park for a stroll and pictures.  What a beautiful park!!! I’m told it was once overflowing with every sort of rose imaginable, but I quite prefer the mix of flowers they have there now, especially the wisteria vines providing shade over one sitting area. Where were all the squirrels we fed there in the winter? I think they were taking little squirrel siestas.
• I am enjoying some quiet alone time before tonight’s barbecue.
• With a four-day weekend, I can afford not to do any lesson planning all day today.

What I learned yesterday: I learned the difference between a ranch style house and a bungalow, what Dutch Colonial and Tudor Revival styles are. I also saw some clinker bricks for the first time.

The Self-Radiance of Rigpa

Before falling asleep last night I read another passage from The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, which I am slowly making my way through, sometimes putting the book aside for entire months at a time. It called to me again from the bookshelf the other day and now I know why.  The time is right.  I am ripe and the teachings are able to penetrate deeply.

Last night while reading I had an important breakthrough in my understanding. Until last night, my understanding went something like this: I bring myself into the present moment.  There is no other place or time where I will live my life. There is only the one Holy Now.  Ok, I get it and I regularly achieve being here now.  Naturally thoughts, feelings, impressions and all sorts of things come along about 65,000 times a day and distract me or carry me out of the Now. Beta mind takes me to the past and into the future, both places/times that do not exist and never will.  The future will arrive, but it will arrive as the present moment.

I’ve been studying Buddhist and similar teachings long enough to know that when these thoughts and distractions come up, I am not to berate myself. It’s only human. I am just to gently guide the mind back to the Now. It’s important to be compassionate.  I’ve thought of it as taking a toddler by the hand and saying, “No, no, sweetie, we are doing THIS right now.” This could be focusing on the breath during meditation or lovingly peeling a cucumber for a salad.

Then I read this:

The essence of meditation practice in Dzogchen is encapsulated by these four points:

• When one past thought has ceased and a future thought has not yet risen, in that gap, in between, isn’t there a consciousness of the present moment; fresh, virgin, unaltered by even a hair’s breadth of a concept, a luminous, naked awareness?

Well, that is what Rigpa is!

• Yet it doesn’t stay in that state forever, because another thought suddenly arises, doesn’t it?

This is the self-radiance of that Rigpa.

• However, if you do not recognize this thought for what it really is, the very instant it arises, then it will turn into just another ordinary thought, as before. This is called the “chain of delusion,” and is the root of samsara.
• If you are able to recognize the true nature of the thought as soon as it arises, and leave it alone without any follow-up, then whatever thoughts arise all automatically dissolve back into the vast expanse of Rigpa and are liberated.

Clearly this takes a lifetime of practice to understand and realize the full richness and majesty of these four profound yet simple points, and here I can only give you a taste of the vastness of what is meditation in Dzogchen.

…

Dzogchen meditation is subtly powerful in dealing with the arisings of the mind, and has a unique perspective on them. All the risings are seen in their true nature, not as separate from Rigpa, and not as antagonistic to it, but actually as none other–and this is very important–than its “self-radiance,” the manifestation of its very energy.

Say you find yourself in a deep state of stillness; often it does not last very long and a thought or a movement always arises, like a wave in the ocean.  Don’t reject the movement or particulary embrace the stillness, but continue the flow of your pure presence. The pervasive, peaceful state of your meditation is the Rigpa itself, and all risings are none other than this Rigpa’s self-radiance. This is the heart and the basis of Dzogchen practice. One way to imagine this is as if you were riding on the sun’s rays back to the sun: ….

Of couse there are rough as well as gentle waves in the ocean; strong emotions come, like anger, desire, jealousy. The real practitioner recognizes them not as a disturbance or obstacle, but as a great opportunity. The fact that you react to arisings such as these with habitual tendencies of attachment and aversion is a sign not only that you are distracted, but also that you do not have the recognition and have lost the ground of Rigpa. To react to emotions in this way empowers them and binds us even tighter in the chains of delusion. The great secret of Dzogchen is to see right through them as soon as they arise, to what they really are: the vivid and electric manifestation of the energy of Rigpa itself. As you gradually learn to do this, even the most turbulent emotions fail to seize hold of you and dissolve, as wild waves rise and rear and sink back into the calm of the ocean.

The practitioner discovers–and this is a revolutionary insight, whose subtlety and power cannot be overestimated–that not only do violent emotions not necessarily sweep you away and drag you back into the whirlpools of your own neuroses, they can actually be used to deepen, embolden, invigorate, and strengthen the Rigpa. The tempestuous energy becomes raw food of the awakened energy of Rigpa. The stronger and more flaming the emotion, the more Rigpa is strengthened.

Sogyal Rinpoche goes on to explain how the process works.  As I lay there propped up in bed reading, the truth in the teachings veritably rose off the page and filled me, making me vibrate like an aeolian harp.

I almost had it right in treating those arisings as sweet toddlers to be guided instead of an antagonistic part of me to be tamed and controlled.  But this! This takes it a crucial step further and makes so much more sense. Of course Rigpa and the arisings are not separate. Nothing is separate from anything except that our dualistic and linear ego/beta mind/left brain makes it so.  Ride the rays back to the sun.  They are not something to be compassionate toward! They are a vehicle.

Wow.  I sense that these two pages out of one book have the potential to revolutionize how I do life.

It stayed with me all day today. I was able to smile at everything because I kept coming back again and again to that place where there is nothing to do, yet nothing left undone. Being. Pure being. Pure Now.

Vernacular Cottage!?

Isn’t that just the starkest, plainest little old house you’ve ever seen? Yet there’s something about it.  Melissa would love to give it a proper garden. I think we could transform it in no time with flowers, shrubs, and vines. How about bird feeders? Squirrel feeders? A bird bath!

I’ve decided that the windows are trying to be Italianate, though there isn’t enough house for them to be as tall as they really should be for that style. Still, they are reaching in that direction.  The window heads fit in with that, as do the little double eaves brackets.

You know what? Right in the middle of this blog post it occurred to me just to Google the address and see if it’s mentioned by anyone else.

BINGO!!

It’s on the Windsor Municipal Heritage Register. It was built in 1900. Reason for consideration is listed as “vernacular cottage.”  I knew there was a reason I was excited about that ancient little  munchkin of a house.

Of course you know what I want to do now that I’ve stumbled upon pages and pages of addresses of registered heritage houses! I want to print off the entire registry and go look at some of them. What’s “Arts & Crafts – French?”  What are clinker bricks? What about the one listed as “unique design?” I’ve gotta see that! The addresses are all there! Scores of houses just waiting for me to go look at them and learn about these styles.

Next obsession, here I come.

Vernacular Cottage (click to enlarge)

Grace in Small Things 55

• There is an old house near where I park for work that makes me so happy every time I look at it. It’s not like any other house I’ve ever seen. It’s so stark and plain and mysterious in its architecture…as if it had been designed by a very practical or puritanical or perhaps just thrifty person. Yet the bones are so good, it’s been standing sturdy for 100 years or more on its tiny postage-stamp-sized lot.
• I made Aloo Gobi with Manjula. It turned out delicious.
• Sylvain figured out why the stray yellow tomcat they feed sometimes doesn’t eat what they put out, but still looks hungry.  He’s got no teeth, poor dear! No more chunky food for him. Ma is going to buy him soft stuff from now on.
• For today’s pronunciation class, we used haiku as a vehicle for learning about syllables.
• Hot days are followed by warm nights. I love warm nights.

Grace in Small Things 54

• I awoke to a cool morning; the blazing earth had been cooled by rain while I slept.
• I took my cup of coffee and book onto the balcony and gazed at the water.
• S suggested an outing. We drove to Point Pelee and read our books in the shade of tall trees.
• While we read, a bird overhead kept singing, “Drink your te-e-e-a, drink your te-e-e-a,” the last note wavering. By flipping through the Peterson’s Field Guide, I figured it out. Eastern Towhee!
• After struggling with my muses all weekend, I finally came up with a lesson plan that I’m satisfied with.

What I learned today: that the Eastern Towhee says “drink your tea.”

Grace in Small Things 53

• Getting out to the Downtown Windsor Farmer’s Market this morning early enough that everything wasn’t sold yet. We saw Vicky of My Local Food fame.
• Having homemade strawberry rhubarb jam for my toast these last few mornings thanks to a very special friend in Waterloo. Thank you! You know who you are.
• Coming home and cooking up the locally grown produce: okra, tomatoes, rainbow chard, and an onion. I had a big garlic clove our neighbour gave us the other day, too.  The rest of the tomatoes that I didn’t use in my okra dish are sitting near the window to ripen more. Is it true that moonlight ripens tomatoes?
• Going for a stroll with my sweetheart just before dusk when it was beginning to cool off and the sky was so pretty in the west.
• Feeling fat, telling S that I think I’ve gained five pounds based on my not being able to squeeze into any of my clothes this morning…and having him say, “Don’t worry, it’s probably just water retention.”  Good answer! :)

Movie Review: Inception, Magic Realism and Dzogchen Buddhism

I don’t recommend that you read too many reviews or critiques of Inception before you see it–if you plan to see it. The director himself has said that many journalists are trying too hard to turn it into a riddle to be figured out. It’s really not that.  As Nolan says, it’s more of a ride to be enjoyed. Please don’t worry that you’re going to be confused by a million plot twists or anything like that.  I am one of the simplest-minded movie viewers.  Too many double agents in a spy flick and I’m lost, having to depend on my companion to explain things to me after the film.  I did not have a bit of trouble following Inception all the way through.  I cannot say the same of Nolan’s earlier film Memento, though I did enjoy that one as well.  No, here everything is laid out plainly with good signposts as the movie takes us from the waking world into a dreamscape and then into a dreamscape within a dreamscape and so on.  It was very clear to me which dream-level every character was on at all times.

Another caveat I would give movie goers is not to expect science fiction. I personally am not a big sci-fi fan, but I am a huge fan of magic realism.  I came away from Inception thoroughly convinced that it is a work of magic realism rather than sci-fi.  My suspicions were validated when I looked for articles and reviews this morning and found an interview with the director in which he names Jorge Luis Borges as “the chief spark for this flame.”

One clue that we are looking at magic realism is that the script does not attempt to explain the science behind what is going on–people entering each other’s dreams. The movie is not set in the future and we are not speculating about something that might be possible in the future. Rather, a magical component (ability to enter others’ dreams) is presented as fact without the smallest bat of an eye from a character like smart university student Ariadne when she is asked to join a team of dream crashers for a special job.

One tool of magic realism is to interweave the magical element with the common, everyday details of life so seamlessly so that our brain accepts one along with the other.  Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jorge Luis Borges are considered by many to be pioneers of the genre.  One scene in the movie where Ariadne (Ellen Page) turns two large mirrors to face one another with the slightest offset of the parallel angle so that we see a series of reflections diminishing in size toward infinity struck me as a nice tip of the hat to Borges, who was obsessed with facing mirrors as well as with labyrinths–which also play a central role in Inception.

Another feature of magic realism that I encountered in Nolan’s Inception was evidenced when we left the theatre. Our world view and sense of reality had been altered, and the alteration was still with us.  As Sylvain put it, “that movie messed with my head.”  I didn’t realize it had also messed with mine until a few minutes later when I couldn’t get out of the bathroom stall and found myself wondering if I were dreaming.

Bruce Holland Rogers points out in this article, magic realism tries to convey the reality of a worldview that actually exists.  I can vouch for the fact that there are people (me included) who entertain the possibility that what we experience every day is a dream. Many lines of Buddhism, such as Dzogchen,  teach us to view life as a dream. Allow me to bring in an excerpt from Wikipedia:

According to contemporary teacher Chögyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche, in Dzogchen the perceived reality is considered to be unreal. All appearances perceived during the whole life of an individual through all senses, including sounds, smells, tastes and tactile sensations in their totality are like a big dream. It is claimed that on careful examination the dream of life and regular nightly dreams are not very different, and that in their essential nature there is no difference between them.

The non-essential difference between our dreaming state and our ordinary waking experience is that the latter is more concrete and linked with our attachment; the dreaming is slightly detached.

Also according to this teaching, there is a correspondence between the states of sleep and dream and our experiences when we die. After experiences of intermediate state of bardo an individual comes out of it, a new karmic illusion is created and another existence begins. This is how transmigration happens.

One aim of dream practice is to realize during a dream that one is dreaming. One can then dream with lucidity and do all sorts of things, such as go to different places, talk to people, fly and so forth. It is also possible to do different yogic practices while dreaming (usually such yogic practices one does in waking state). In this way the yogi can have a very strong experience and with this comes understanding of the dream-like nature of daily life. This is very relevant to diminishing attachments, because they are based on strong beliefs that life’s perceptions and objects are real and, as a consequence, important. If one really understands what Buddha Shakyamuni meant when he said that everything is unreal or of the nature o fshunyata, then one can diminish attachments and tensions.

The teacher gives advice, that the realization that the life is only a big dream can help us finally liberate ourselves from the chains of emotions, attachments, and ego and then we have the possibility of ultimately becoming enlightened.^[57]

If such a view of life intrigues you or resonates with you, you would probably enjoy Inception. If you like magic realism, see Inception. If you don’t like sci-fi, don’t let that scare you away from Inception. For us, it was a very enjoyable ride.

Grace in Small Things 52

• My body woke me up at 5:00 a.m. on a day when I didn’t have to be up until 9:00.  I got a lot done on my three lesson plans (literacy T.A., pronunciation and one for my Spanglish group for next week by special request).
• I had a nice visit with the person I do respite with. We are getting to know each other better.
• I had a nice supper with Sylvain’s folks.
• I got to see my favourite little squirrel.
• Sylvain took me to see Inception.  I came away feeling sure it will get several Academy Award nominations. It was something else. The trailer doesn’t really do it justice or give an idea of what it’s really about.

I am going to buy or build her a corncob feeder to keep her busy so she won’t get in the trap again. Hopefully she’s not that dumb, anyway! Squirrels are pretty smart when it comes to outwitting baffles, but not so smart with other things…like traffic. I hope she is now wise to live traps.

I CAN Think on my Feet!

During my practicum, my perfectionism was a crippling hindrance.  The mentor teachers didn’t tell us teachers in training what we would be teaching until a day or two before.  We got out at around 3:00 and had one night to come up with the next day’s lesson plan, find all materials, make all posters, cut out and paste any pictures, design crossword puzzles or whatever.  It was sheer torture for someone like me who needs LOTS and LOTS of planning time.

Having read a lot about introversion, I know that–as a rule–introverts need time to process information.  In business meetings, I will take notes then go back to my desk and think about things. I’ll continue to think about it that night and might talk things over with my partner. I’ll sleep on it.  By the next morning, I might be ready to present my ideas to the group…preferable IN WRITING.

Working in the hospice kitchen proved to be a challenge to me.  As long as everyone who was supposed to show up showed up and as long as those who showed up did what they were supposed to do, I did fine. Last-minute changes to the menu, broken appliances requiring me to improvise, missing ingredients or implements put away in the wrong drawer… any of these things would throw me off balance.  I would stand there trying to think what to do.  Many Saturdays there was an extroverted woman working reception at the same time I worked the kitchen.  She was brilliant when it came to thinking things up with two seconds’ notice.  For example, one day a very sweet, courteous and bored child came into the kitchen to ask if she could help us out in any way.  I stared at the child and drew a blank.  P said, “Why don’t you go around all the hallways closing the blinds?”  I was in awe of her fast thinking.

In teaching, you absolutely have to be able to think on your feet. This was pointed out to me in my training, in my practica and each time I interviewed for a teaching job.  This is clearly my hugest area of weakness.

This week I am rotating among three classes in my temporary role as teaching assistant. Level One is no problem. I just sit next to the weakest student and help him when I see he’s struggling.  I have one Chinese gentleman who asks me to pronounce things for him.  The next time I sit by my new friend with the two little girls, I plan to write what the teacher is saying while he talks.  I might pull her out to the T.A. room one day and spend some time working on that day’s words and phrases.

When I help in the Level 2 class, that’s no big deal, either.  I just have to walk around and help whoever calls “teacher.” They have enough language to be able to ask for what they need.

The literacy class is another story.

The literacy teacher asked me for some of my time at least once a week.  He has about twelve students who are continuing with him for another semester, so he wants to build on what they already know rather than losing the momentum, which is what would happen if he started over at the beginning for the benefit of the three newcomers.  The three newcomers do not know the alphabet yet.

That’s where he wants me to come in.  He asked me to–as soon as I’m comfortable–take them into another room and work on the alphabet.  I was planning to spend the weekend studying literacy teaching materials on technique and methodology.  You don’t just sit someone down and teach them the letters starting at A and ending with Z.  No.  There is all this theory out there and recommendation regarding which letters should be taught together and how to do it. For example, you teach Bb on the same day as Dd because they need to see that the bump on the b faces right and the d faces left.  This much I remember from skimming through the literacy literature when I was preparing to interview for the position of literacy teacher.  So yeah, I was planning on studying all that this weekend to help me feel prepared to spend two hours in another room with these three ladies. Today was to be strictly an observation day for me–no helping.

But when I got to D’s class, the need was dire.  The three newcomers were staring at the whiteboard looking like little deer caught in someone’s headlights.  I went to the cabinet and found the phonetics flash cards.  D introduced me to the three ladies (mother and two daughters) and away we went to the computer lab for some quiet.

I had no idea until they gathered around me in the lab and stared at me expectantly what I was going to do with those flash cards.  They have just barely enough English for us to tell each other our names.  We did that.  We smiled a lot, a universal language.  Well, I remembered the part about teaching similar-looking letters at once.  So I grabbed the Bb, Dd, and Pp cards from the deck and we started.

“B,” I said, pointing to the B.

They said “B.”

“Bus,” I said, pointing to the word bus underneath the picture of the bus.

“Bus,” they said.

“B says ‘buh’ ,” I said. “Buh, buh, bus.”

I repeated that with the Dd card.  Then I quizzed them by holding up one card and making a questioning face.

They got it right.

I held up one then the other then the other, mixing it up and moving the cards around like a shell game to see if they could still name each one.  When they could get them with 100% accuracy, we added another letter or two to the mix.

M for milk, N for nest.  I saved C and G for later since both of those have a hard and soft sound.

We did about half the alphabet this way.

The next activity I thought up was to lay out about ten cards and have them find all the Ts on all the cards.  They found the T in tiger and also the two t’s in kitten, the two in mitten and the one at the end of nest.  We did that with a few letters.

Another activity I thought of was to turn the cards over and read the four keywords on the back.  I read them, they repeated them, and then I would pick one of the four words to teach them.  I chose the ones that I needed them to learn for our lessons together. They learned “letter,” “word,” “pencil,” and “paper,” to name a few.

We also did a little bit of copying of the letters into notebooks.

By then it was the time when all classes take a 15-minute break.  I let them go join their classmates in the hall.

While they were away, I thought about what else we could do.  It occurred to me that some of the magiscule letters don’t bear much resemblance to their miniscule counterparts.  So I ran back to the classroom to get my whiteboard markers.  I went back into the deck of flashcards and pulled out the first six we had worked on. I wrote the capitals on the left side of the white board and–out of order–the small versions on the right.

When my ladies came back after break, I showed them the board. I pointed to big F, saying “Big F” and drew a line down to small f to connect them.  Then I erased the line and held out the marker to one of them.  She smiled and came up to try it.  At this point I noticed that the shiest one of them–the one who is slowest to catch on–got animated and smiled. The twinkle in her eye said she was keen to do this.  She drew a line between big B and little b.  I gave her a beaming proud smile and said, “Good job!”  Thumbs up!  She smiled even bigger as she returned to her chair.  We played three more rounds and covered all the consonants.

By that time they had been with me for two hours and I figured they were reaching the saturation point.  I said, “Good work! Enough for one day!  You can go back to Teacher D’s class and sit down.”  With the help of gestures, I made myself understood.  They went back to catch the last bit of the plenary lesson.

Part of me feels funny. The part of me that likes three months’ notice so I can read every book on this specialized subset of ESL pedagogy on the planet is a bit out of her comfort zone.

But there’s another part of me that feels really good. I did it! I DID come up with something and it wasn’t half bad.

I can’t wait to work with them again (AFTER reading all the literacy material on the planet this weekend, of course)!

International Windsor Fringe Festival and GiST 47

Being done with lesson planning by noon meant I could join Sylvain for another outing to the International Windsor Fringe Festival. This time we saw Levitate. Had we not attended, there would only have been four people in the audience for that one.  Come on, Windsorites! Come out and support the starving artists!  They would support you if you were starving. Really!

We are hearing very good things about The Drowsy Chaperone, and we also want to see Breaking Down in America.

Hi, Randal! This time I’m spelling your name with one L, so I’ll have it right at least half the time.

I did something for the very first time today. I love firsts. Sylvain was about to grill steaks for his family. Just as I was holding the lid open for him to plunk the steaks on the barbecue,  a big wind came up. He got them on as the rain started coming down in big drops.  I slammed the lid closed and we ran inside. Then it started to hail.  The big patio umbrella blew over.  A tree fell on a neighbour’s house. I volunteered to go flip the steaks when it was hailing.  It was neat watching the raindrops turn to steam as they hit the top of the barbecue.

The electricity went out, so we found candles.

The sump pump alarm went off, so we pulled out the generator. Only it had sprung a gas leak since the last time Sylvain used it. Luckily, the power came back on after a short while and the basement didn’t flood.

After supper and after the storm ceased,  Mama Squirrel came to visit. I told her to smarten up and not get caught in any more live traps. I have her some peanuts and she took them about four feet out into the yard to bury them. Silly squirrel.

I am looking forward to Monday’s pronunciation class. Well, I’m looking forward to all of it. Gosh, it’s SO nice to once again have a job that makes me look forward to Monday instead of dreading it.

My Year in Japan II – Living Arrangements

Xavier and I found an affordable two-room apartment on the industrial side of town. It was on the second level of a six-unit complex. All the apartments’ sliding front doors opened onto the outside; a metal stairway led to the second story and a walkway was shielded from the elements by a corrugated overhanging roof.  The structure was ferro-concrete and not very attractive.  We lived across an alley from a metal scrap yard which–we would later discover–was owned by our downstairs neighbours.

Traditionally the sliding door to our house would have been made of rice paper and wood or bamboo and would have had no lock. But this being a big city in the 80s, our front door was metal and opaque glass and did come with a lock.  As you entered our apartment, the first area you came into was the very small entry hall. This was just big enough for storing coats and umbrellas and taking off your shoes. There was not room for a bench. You just had to step out of your shoes, leave them facing back toward the door through which you’d come, and step into the slippers offered by the host.

This little room was separated from the next area (kitchen) by a sliding shoji-style door. Again, rice paper had been replaced by a sturdier material, such as opaque, textured glass.

In one corner of the kitchen was the sink and small, wall-mounted water heater–which you only turned on when you were about to need hot water. Every family fills a huge thermos dispenser with enough piping hot water each morning to provide for tea breaks through the day.

In the middle of the room was a kerosene heater to be used in the winter months.  I think I remember a pantry taking up some of the space on one wall. There was a small stove and refrigerator.

Separating this area from the living/sleeping room was another sliding shoji-type door. This one had opaque glass where rice paper would have been in a truly traditional home. In the living room most families have an alcove or niche called a tokonoma where they hang a scroll with a seasonal poem calligraphied on it, or maybe put an ikebana arrangement or piece of art. They change these according to the season. It is the meditative and spiritual focal point of the room.  Xavier and I did not do this.

Our landlady spoke no English. The first day we moved in, a friend came to interpret for us. After that, we were on our own with her.  I picked up Japanese very fast and was soon able to understand about half of the things she tried to tell us. One day she came and explained to me that the tenants in one of her units had been taken to jail. They owed a lot of back rent, so she was keeping their things.  She offered us anything we wanted from their stuff.  In turn, I offered to spend two solid days working alongside her and her husband to get the place clean and ready for the next tenants.  One of my chores was to get up on a ladder and clean the windows that the elderly couple could not reach.

Voila, we were now the proud owners of a kotatsu, two futon mattresses to sleep on at night, sheets, blankets and a few other household items. These futons are not what we call futons in the west. They are pliable enough to roll up and stuff into a special closet during the day, converting the room into a living room by day. Thank you, Komada San!

The main living / sleeping room had tatami mats on the floor. These are considered almost sacred by the Japanese; you never, ever step on them with shod feet.  Never.  I understood how serious a cultural taboo it would be to step on them with shoes when I was watching a cops and bad guys show on TV one day.  The cops were giving chase.  The criminal cut through someone’s house to get away, very quickly stepping out of his shoes before crossing the strangers’ tatami mats. The cops also ditched their nice dress shoes before racing through the house after the bad guys.  Yep.

Speaking of TV, how did we get a TV?  Again, I don’t know if the Japanese have gotten over this by now, but at that time they were, as a society, obsessed with having the latest and best version of any gadget or device. Also, yard sales were not a part of their culture and thrift shops were very rare. I saw one second-hand bicycle shop and a few antiques stores, but nothing like the flea markets and second-hand stores we have here.  That means that an enormous amount of still functional stuff got put on the curb for hauling to the dump.  A Japanese person would probably not want to be caught dead snooping through their neighbours’ trash for goodies, but I had no problem with that at all.  We quickly scored: a small vacuum cleaner, a television set, and… this one took a lot of whining on Xavier’s part about how sitting on the floor was giving him back trouble…a nice wooden desk and chair for studying. We stuck it in the kitchen.

The living area had a nice wide closet area on one wall. The top part was for clothing and the bottom section was for stashing away the bedding during the day. In the far corner was the water closet.  I call it that because it only housed a toilet and very small corner sink just big enough for wetting your hands.  We had no bathtub and no shower.

I’ll tell you about going to the public baths next time.

Grace in Small Things 46

• I got a phone call during the late morning from my blogosphere friend Salma saying she, her husband and one of her daughters were in Windsor and ready to meet up.  We did and it was very nice!  I found out that her daughter and I both love the colour purple. They treated me to a blueberry lemonade at The Coffee Exchange, then I took them on a little tour of Walkerville, showing them all the halal butchers, bakeries and markets along Wyandotte on the way.
• Sylvain and I attended our first play of the International Windsor Fringe Festival. We saw The Man Who Fell in Love with a Tuba.  We both liked it. It was sweet and funny.  I also want to see Levitate.
• We took in the Buskers Festival and enjoyed Liqueur Flambe.
• Salma’s husband got quite smitten with Windsor, especially the riverfront area, which reminds him of Egypt. It’s nice when people appreciate this town and see its beauty.
• One pigeon was brave enough to walk among the crowds in order to nab bits of spilled Kettle Corn.

What I learned today: I learned the difference between a beer bong and beer pong, neither of which I had heard of before tonight’s stroll up Ouellette Avenue.

My Year in Japan, Part I

I blogged a bit about how I got to Japan in this post. You might want to read it first if you are interested in this topic.

Can we ever say a decision we made in our lives was a mistake?  Doesn’t every experience teach us something and shape who we become?

I was only about twenty years old when I said yes to Xavier. Yes, I would live with him in Japan. I had only known him for nine weeks. Was that very smart?  Looking back, I’d say no.  That was not very smart.  I paid a price for that impulsive “yes.”

I do believe Xavier–more than a decade my senior–probably was in love with me.  Was I in love with him? I don’t think so.  Back in those days I became infatuated easily.  But I was quite the flirt, and I was opportunistic. I suspect I was in love with the idea of love, and I was a bit addicted to the brain chemicals of early love.

Let me paint a picture of Xavier for you.  He was a tall man who bore a great deal of resemblance to John Cleese.

He was a professor at the local polytechnic when I met him in Gandia / Valencia, Spain. He had masters in both architecture and civil engineering and was hoping to work on a PhD on the vernacular architecture of northern Japan at Hokkaido University in Sapporo.  He was a man (and probably still is) who took himself rather seriously. He ran for mayor of his little town. He wore a silk scarf about his neck every day tied like an ascot.

When his proposal was chosen and he won a fellowship, we were a few weeks into a torrid love affair.  He said that if I did not come with him, he would turn down the fellowship.

He agreed to foot the bill and I agreed to return to America to apply for my spousal visa. Since we were not really married, he ended up having to talk someone into sponsoring me for a six-month visa. I would have to reapply from within Japan if I wanted to stay for another six months.  Do you know who agreed to sponsor me?  This is better than a soap opera. Professor Purple, an elegant, staid widow who was raising her son on her own and who had a crush on Xavier agreed to sponsor me!

It took nine months for my visa to come through.  In the meantime, Xavier and I wrote letters. About once a month, he would call me on the telephone.  This was back before Skype…back when international phone calls were really expensive.  He usually called me without warning and I would be fast asleep when the call came in.  He assured me he was looking for an apartment for us. After all, the dorm where he was housed was not co-ed.  I absolutely would not be able to stay there even one night.

When he picked me up from the airport after my 13-hour flight, I felt very funny sitting next to him on the bus.  It dawned on me that when you know someone for only a few weeks and then are apart for almost a year, you have to get to know them all over again. I was not feeling all lovey dovey.  Rather I was feeling nervous and shy.

He took me to the dorm and sneaked me in. You can imagine how I felt about this–me, the obsessive rule follower.  The parts of my body that had been closed up in underwear for an entire 13-hour flight were chafed and irritated. I was tired. I didn’t feel good.  Xavier said he had been waiting for nine months for this moment, and he was not happy when I said, “Not tonight.”  I tell you this part not because I am an exhibitionist (although I am), but because it is pertinent to the rest of the story.

For the next thirty minutes or so, as we lay squeezed into his single bed, Xavier continued to make his case. I continued to present my side of the debate.  I hadn’t seen him for nine months. I needed to start over with a date or two, some hand-holding.  I needed time to remember who he was.  I needed to get my motor running again.   He explained that he was aching, he had waited long enough.  In the end I looked him in the eye and said, “You would really go through with this knowing I don’t want it now?”  He said yes, he would.  I conceded, and in that moment my love for him changed to hate.  For the next eleven months, we went through the motions as a couple, but nothing was the same again after that night.

We found an apartment.  I insisted on a purely Japanese cultural experience.  This meant that the apartment we ended up renting had no bathtub or shower.  We would walk to the nearby public bath house (there is one every six blocks or so) when we needed to bathe, including in the dead of winter with two feet of snow on the ground.  We had no chairs; we sat on zabuton around a low table.  We had no western-style beds, but unrolled our futons on the floor at night. We had no forks or spoons. We learned to eat with o-hashi.

As Xavier’s “spouse,” I was allowed to enroll in all-day Japanese language classes on campus.  We lived only two blocks from the subway station, so getting to class was no problem. I had started studying Japanese as soon as I returned home from Spain. I spent hours reading books about the culture, social norms, what is considered rude and what polite. I was ready!  That preparation paired with my natural gift for languages meant that within two months, I was interpreting Japanese to Spanish for Xavier whenever we went out together.

I fell in love with the Japanese people and the culture. Theirs is a culture that values order and cleanliness. They are master rule-followers.  To say they are polite is an understatement. They avoid hurting each other’s feelings at all cost.  If you want to say “no” to someone, you can’t really say no.  You have to say, “Well, ….”  It is the other person’s job to pick up on the fact that your hesitation means you have a problem and cannot say yes. The other person will then rush to your rescue and lift from you the burden of having to say “no.”

I was in the “honeymoon phase” of culture shock.  The fact that everyone dressed alike and had the exact same haircuts did not bother me or yet make me mentally investigate the drawbacks of a society that does not tolerate individual expression.

There are not a lot of foreigners (“gai-jin”) on the northernmost island of Hokkaido, so everywhere I went, children stared in awe and pulled at their mothers’ hands. “Yellow hair!” was one I heard a lot (kin-iro no kami no ke).

I think this blog post is long enough now.  Maybe soon I will tell you about my being roped in by the only evangelical Buddhist sect in the world and getting to know my neighbours.

Grace in Small Things 44, 45

More than one blog reader has mistakenly assumed that Grace in Small Things is the title of my blog or something I invented. It was started by Schmutzie Pickles and anyone can join in.  She has her main blog and then she has the social network Grace in Small Things, which she runs on the Ning platform.

It’s not the name of my blog. It’s just something I participate in daily. I also have my regular blog posts.  My blog is called Kikipotamus the Hobo.

GiST numbers 44 and 45 out of 365:

• Summer! Heat. Sunshine. Blue skies!
• Going on a little trip with my sweetheart. We had to take his van to Waterloo for a repair to the ramp.
• Good news for Mama Squirrel, who did indeed get caught in the neigbhour’s live trap. Fortunately, Sylvain noticed before she was taken far away and released. He called the neighbour and explained that Mama Squirrel is our friend. She takes peanuts from our hands. Sylvain asked his neighbour to let her go.  And so it was.  Whew!
• Ye’s Sushi!
• Grapefruit juice.
• My practice. I love my teachers, such as Ajahn Viradhammo, whose book I am reading at night before bed. Today I practiced noticing when I felt myself resisting what was happening in a given moment.
• Being able to retreat into an apartment all my own after a long day spent around people.
• Going to Olivia’s blog and finding a blog post there!
• This old gal is so loved. Many of my distant cousins and others who care about such things are hoping to get her sailing and teaching again. My great uncle once raced her against the Blue Nose. He won, but the race was invalidated on a technicality.  So say MY ancestors, anyway!
• When people who read my blog finally leave a comment to let me know. That rocks!

Hello, Lamp Post!

Some days.

Some days my mood just soars.  I’m not sure why anymore than I understand why on some days I find myself in the dumps.

Today was one of those days.

I walk through the halls of the basement toward the underground parking area and touch the rough and cool cinder block walls.  Hello, wall, I say.

I am happy to be alive.

I am happy to be almost 47 years old, in good health, with food in my refrigerator and a car to get into to go to work.  I am so very blessed to have found some work in this economy (extra high unemployment rate in this city).

Hello, CHICORY! I say to the periwinkle-coloured flowers that beautify every vacant lot, every roadside, every shoulder of every highway right now.  Hello, Queen Ann’s Lace!  Hello, Pink Clover!  If I had scissors with me, I would fill a little jar with these flowers and take them to class. Maybe on Monday.

It’s the kind of mood that makes me want to sing The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy).

I’m so happy to be alive.

I spent my morning and afternoon in the level one classes. The students are so precious. They only barely know how to say “My name is…” and “Nice to meet you,”  ”You too,” and “This is…”  But they are all smiles every time you look at them. Many of them have come through a lot.  Refugee camps, some of them.  But they still have sparkle in their eyes. They hold the doors open for us teachers out of respect. They are very eager for their first jobs.  Two of my level two students have had job interviews recently. They are trying hard.

While C gives the lesson…a wonderfully dramatic, funny, animated lesson with lots of pictures…I go from desk to desk peeking at papers to see who needs help.  Sometimes a student will point to a word and then look at my face while pointing to his mouth. This means, “Please say this word for me.”  I say the word and the student repeats it over and over, trying hard to mimic my sounds.

Today they did more work with kinship terms. By now they have grandmother, grandfather, mother, father, son, daughter, sister, brother, parents, children and grandparents down pat.  We take turns saying whether we are married. Everyone in the class is married except the two teachers present.  We take turns answering where we met our significant others. Most of them met their spouses in church.  I met my partner on the Internet, I report.  They are intrigued. None of them have Internet at home, I’m fairly certain. They are learning to use computers at school.

This class is a low level one. Many of them spend another 2.5 hours in the literacy classroom after lunch. Many of them have been kept illiterate by an oppressive regime. They want to learn. They try very hard, but for some the tiniest successful exchange with a native speaker is much, much harder than pulling teeth. Teacher C is very patient. I don’t know how he does it day after day, taking heart in the smallest triumphs.

At one point the instructor had to go to another part of the building to fax some documents to the students’ case workers. I was alone with them.  I didn’t want the time wasted, so I thought to stand up and point to some of the words on the board, see if we could do a little more practice with the kinship terms.  But I wasn’t sure what to do.

Before I had time to worry about how to use the time, one of the older women asked, “Teacher,  you no married?”

I confirmed but explained using a lot of gesture that I have a boyfriend and that we probably will get married in the future. All their eyes were on me as I explained the situation using only the words they already know.

I described Sylvain’s living arrangement, and they laughed at my pantomiming that it is a household a bit too busy for my taste.  It was easy since they do understand the words mother, father, and sister.  One of them piped up, “lots of laundry!”  We laughed. They were getting the idea.

Then–using more gestures than words–I described my living arrangement. They know the word “apartment.”  I mimed myself eating supper all alone, and they understood when I play-acted washing up only “one dish, one spoon, one fork, one glass!”  Easy!  Ahhhh.

I said, “Saturday? Teacher Kelly wakes up at 9:00. Nice!” They all laughed and the ones with small children indicated their envy.

Then one of them said to me, “You get married 2011.”  This is a sweet trait of many women I have met from other cultures. Often they want to reassure me that it’s not too late, I’ll get married soon.

I know them all by name now, and they so enjoy it when I greet them in the halls. One of them offered me a bottle of water from his satchel today.

What lovely, lovely people.

Lojong

Oh! Thank you, Violet. I am so glad you reminded me of the Tibetan practice of Lojong.  It sent me over to Wikipedia where I found this outline of the teachings.  I have highlighted the ones that resonate most with me.

• First, train in the preliminaries.
• Treat everything you perceive as a dream.
• Find the consciousness you had before you were born.
• Let even the remedy itself drop away naturally.
• Stay in the primeval consciousness, the basis of everything.
• Between meditations, treat everything as an illusion.
• As you breathe in, take in and accept all the sadness, pain, and negativity of the whole world, including yourself, and absorb it into your heart. As you breathe out, pour out all your joy and bliss; bless the whole of existence.
• Understand your attachments, your aversions, and your indifference, and love them all.
• Apply these proverbs in everything you do.
• When practicing unconditional acceptance, start with yourself.
• When everything goes wrong, treat disaster as a way to wake up.
• Take all the blame yourself.
• Be grateful to everyone.
• Don’t worry – there’s nothing real about your confusion.
• When something unexpected happens, in that very moment, treat it as a meditation.
• Work with the Five Forces. The Five Forces are:

1. Be intense, be committed.
2. Familiarization – get used to doing and being what you want to do and to be.
3. Cultivate the white seeds, not the black ones.
4. Turn totally away from all your ego trips.
5. Dedicate all the merits of what you do for the benefit of others.

• Practice these Five Forces and you are ready for death at any moment.
• All teachings have the same goal.
• Follow the inner witness rather than the outer ones.
• Always have the support of a joyful mind.
• Practicing even when distracted is good training.
• Always observe these three points:

1. Regularity of practice.
2. Not wasting time on the inessential.
3. Not rationalizing our mistakes.

• Change your attitude, but stay natural.
• Do not discuss defects.
• Don’t worry about other people.
• Work on your greatest imperfection first.
• Abandon all hope of results.
• Give up poisonous food.
• Don’t be consistent.
• Don’t indulge in malicious gossip.
• Don’t wait in ambush.
• Don’t strike at the heart.
• Don’t put the yak’s load on the cow.
• Remember – this is not a competition.
• Don’t be sneaky.
• Don’t abuse your divine power for selfish reasons.
• Don’t expect to profit from other people’s misfortune.
• In all your activities, have a single purpose.
• Solve all problems by accepting the bad energy and sending out the good.
• Renew your commitment when you get up and before you go to sleep.
• Accept good and bad fortune with an equal mind.
• Keep your vows even at the risk of your life.
• Recognize your neurotic tendencies, overcome them, then transcend them.
• Find a teacher, tame the roving mind, choose a lifestyle that allows you to practice.
• Love your teacher, enjoy your practice, keep your vows.
• Focus your body, mind, and spirit on the path.
• Exclude nothing from your acceptance practice: train with a whole heart.
• Always meditate on whatever you resent.
• Don’t depend on how the rest of the world is.
• In this life, concentrate on achieving what is most meaningful.
• Don’t let your emotions distract you, but bring them to your practice.
• Don’t let your practice become irregular.
• Train wholeheartedly.
• Free yourself by first watching, then analyzing.
• Don’t feel sorry for yourself.
• Don’t be jealous.
• Stay focused.
• Don’t expect any applause.