"It's been a while since the Police shut us down..."

I have never been the kind of woman who is good at hosting parties. I've never been crafty, or clever, or cute with decor or food. Unlike my awesome sister-in-law who has a business teaching people how to be cuter homemakers, or basically every other Mormon woman in the world, I can barely make my bed enough to have guests over. 

But when I moved to Pinneburg, Germany, into my own apartment, I had the random impulse to throw a house-warming party.  I bought candles, and a bunch of food, and was staring to feel a little too cocky about my party-throwing abilities until I looked at the food table spread: 

• Three frozen pizzas; one overcooked, two under-cooked. 
• A chunk of brie surrounded by the store-brand version of Ritz crackers. 
• A half-loaf of microwave garlic bread.
• A cheap party tray of salty, crispy, snacky things.
• A dry German bunt cake, cut up into uneven slices.
• and a handful of chocolate sticks, leftover from another grocery-store run.

It was a glorious sight to behold. 

My grandmother would have been so ashamed. 

 Luckily, the invitees were awesome, and no one cared, and everyone brought enough goodies to share, and it turned into a really lovely house-warming event. 

Then it took a bizarre, completely unforeseen turn. 

Among the housewarming party-goers were some friends, mostly co-workers, and my landlords, who live right above me. Due to an unfortunate series of mishaps where I accidentally broke the front gate multiple times, I felt obligated to invite them. And they seemed delighted at the invitation. 

They're a really funny couple. A very small, talkative, 50-year-old Philippine woman (who I can thank for the eclectic decor), and a grumpy, chatty, 60-year-old German man. I expected them to come for 20 minutes, and then go back upstairs. But they stayed the whole time. They brought 2 platters of food, extra candles, a giant bottle of vodka, and two juice cartons. 

Just as the party was dying down; maybe 6 people left, my landlord makes an announcement to a nearly-empty living room.

My transformed living room

"It's been a while since the Police shut us down. Let's let them know we're still alive" and turns on the sound system, blasting club music. He turns off the living room lamps and turns on two light boxes that set off a multi-colored light show. And of course, no party is complete without a smoke machine. 
I kid you not.

Everyone was pretty much very confused. 

Two of my coworkers. Confused. 

Though he would've danced with himself, I made everyone at the party dance with him. Awkwardly. Some of my coworkers are less uncomfortable with the whole scene than I, so they kept him decent company. Until about midnight, when I finally had to kick my landlord out. (!)

I think he was severely disappointed to find out his new young, American tenant is the least party-goer in all the US.


Sometimes I'll hear club music thumping and pounding through my ceiling in the middle of the day.

I guess I don't even need to know how to throw a good party. My 60-year-old German landlord's got it covered. 

It's not Imaginary--It's Invisible. There's a difference.

In my theater classes, I play with a magic box. I sit down with a series of printed directions, and wait until they are quiet, so everyone can read the instructions. I don't say a word as they ask questions, so they get the cue that this is a game we're all playing in silence.

I hold up a paper that says: 

"Sit in a Circle. 

In einem Kreis sitzen."

I wait for silent acknowledgement that they understand the system. The students who don't speak English or German I know will catch on shortly. Then flip to the next printed page:

"In front of me is a box.
Vor mir ist eine Box."

"It is a Magic box..."

"It is magic because it can hold anything in it.."

There are a few more pages of instructions: "Everyone will get a turn pulling something out of the box and showing it to the rest of the class if they'd like," "Do not talk or make noises," "I'll go first."

Then I hold the "box" in my hands. Pantomime the weight of a medium-sized wooden crate. Which I "open" and Mary Poppins style, pull out a tall floor lamp, or a very heavy piano, or an apple, depending on the class. Then after I turn on the 'lamp,' play the 'piano', or bite the 'apple', I put it back in the box and close the 'lid'.

One student is brave enough to go first. Raising a hand in confidence, and following my head-nod cue, they get up, walk across the circle to pick up the box from my hands. They cautiously open it, looking up at me for a signal they're playing the game correctly, and with an encouraging nod, they pull something out: A bike, a book, a bongo drum. Whatever it is, they're excited to show the class. Then at the end of their display, I remind them, by holding out expectant fingers, I would like the box returned to me. They dutifully pick up the box, walk it over, and place it back with me.

As the game goes on, they get clever getting it back to me. They'll "slide" it, or carefully "throw" it across the circle, but they don't ever forget to return the box.

About once every-other-class, I have a student who says in whiny protest, "This isn't real."  But the moment I offer the box with a silent question in my eyes, "Would you like a turn?" they always eagerly grab the box, happily "pull" something out of it, and gingerly return the box, in-tact, to me.

One class period, I overheard a whispered exchange that I'll never forget.
"I don't understand. It's Imaginary, right?"
Another child said back in reproach, "It's not imaginary. It's invisible. there's a difference."


What a profound statement: just because we cannot see it, does not mean it doesn't exist.
Right there in that classroom circle, we all acknowledged there was a box. It was there because we all agree it was. We agreed to play by the rules of the box. We interacted with it. We displayed its weight. We knew where it was at all times. We returned it to the teacher. We experienced the box. It was real to us. No one could tell us otherwise.

But how many things in life are so real, and also difficult to see? Sometimes invisible.

Love. Excitement.  A sense of Justice. Longing. Heartache. Grief. Hope. Worry. Fear. Charity. Freedom.

They can manifest themselves in ways that we can see: we show the box's dimensions by holding it's sides. We can see charity through actions, or heartache through tears. But the actual substance is impossible to see.

When we have faith in anything, it is an acknowledgement that something is real, albeit invisible.

The things I have learned from teaching these little people in Germany are far from imaginary: the patience I have gained, the perspective on what it means to have psychological safety at work, the affection for humans with whom I can't even communicate.

Invisible, yes. But Very Real to me.

What is invisible and also real to you?

7 Flights of Stairs

My apartment is really charming. It has white crown molding, large windows, lots of natural light, a newly redone bathroom, complete with an adorable red button that you pull to flush the toilet.

There's a charming balcony, overlooking a charming street, with a charming lack of parking spaces.

Everything about it is ... European.
 Including the fact that it's on the 5th floor, no elevator. Moving in, (ie moving up) was a bit of an ordeal.

Even going grocery shopping is an ordeal. Which is what happened today.

German grocery stores are awesome. High quality food at low costs. But because everything's so fresh, Germans don't go to the store once every two weeks, and stock up like Americans (or like this American)... They go frequently, and only check out a few items at a time. Which then leads them to unabashedly cast very annoyed glances when you have more than a few items at a time.

I didn't have a choice! No bread, cereal, milk, toilet paper--nothing. I needed a big grocery store trip. So after I ignored the scathing looks, and pulled the "clearly-I'm-not-from-here-and-I'm-sorry" card, I trekked home with my enormous bag of groceries.

Then I made the trek Up.  There are four floors of doors between the entrance and my flat, but I wanted to know how many flights of stairs. Carrying heavy or awkward objects up tend to make me try and quantify the pain.

Eins
Zwei
Drei
Vier
Funf
Sechs... 

Then I couldn't remember the German word for seven.

SEVEN flights of stairs. When I finally arrived, the toilet paper resting on top of the overflowing bag, got caught on the banister and went tumbling down, through the middle of those seven flights of stairs, then past, into the basement.

I cried out, like Luke when he discovered Vader was his father, "NooooooOOOoooOOooooOOOO!"

Back down the 7 flights, down into the basement. Picked up this little guy:

Then I made the journey back up. Didn't count the stairs this time. 

My Rear Window

Germany is north. Once we hit mid-September, the days here get rapidly shorter. I wake up very early to get to work, and I had 2 blissful weeks upon arrival where the sun was coming up on my way. Now I make the entire 70-minute-long commute in pre-dawn hours--completely in the dark. 

I look out my bedroom window. It has a full-glass pane door leading out to the balcony, facing the street. The whole street is like that. When it's dark outside, you can see into the other flats through their door windows--like watching a film through a glass screen.

5:55 am, pitch black sky, and I see one other window lit, straight across the road. Clear as a moving picture, I watch as a man, pushes a kitchen chair into the table, puts his keys in his pocket, and adjusts his belt. 

Without feeling a glint of shame for my voyeurism,  I wonder, what is he doing up at such a cruel, cold, dark hour. 

With me. 

Fumbling around his apartment, same as I, eyes trying to adjust to the dark of the morning. Just the two of us awake in our whole neighborhood. 

And I share this rather intimate, rather sweet moment with a total stranger.

Then I think, "Maybe I should close the curtains when I get changed."

Lies Your Teachers Told You

Growing up is a constant series of discovering all the things that you thought you knew but you really didn't. Like learning the actual lyrics to that one song, (R-E-S-P-E-C-T… take care of BLT!); or suddenly understanding the dirty jokes in a beloved childhood film (Grease, anyone?).

Being a first-year teacher, I’ve learned a great many misconceptions I had about the things teachers tell you. Flat-out lies they tell you: 

1.  Teachers always have a lesson they’re trying to get through, and you not being quiet is hindering the whole class’ experience.

This is not always the case. Sometimes the kids blow through what I’ve prepared in much less time than expected, and I’m secretly grateful for the opportunity to improvise a lesson about respect and classroom conduct.

        2.  Teachers don’t care about your opinion. Of their subject or themselves. 

This is also sometimes a lie.  Experienced math teachers have hardened their hearts, and understand that not every child is passionate about the beauty of Euler's Law, but most teachers really love what they teach, and want their students to love it too. Maybe this is a newbie teacher thing, and I’ll grow out of it. But when that cool girl in the 9^th grade says to me, her tone dripping with vitriol and boredom, “This is dumb. Do we have to do this?” A little piece of my soul dies. I moved across the world to share my passion for performing arts with a bunch of disinterested small humans. And apparently, I’m still a middle school girl inside, who secretly cares about the cool kid’s opinion of me.

        3. Teachers don’t have favorites.

This is most definitely, 100%, always a lie. There are students we like, students we really like, and students we really, really don’t. I can say sincerely, I care about every one of my students, but some of them have opened my eyes to the appeal of corporal punishment.

I want to tell you a story about one of my not-so-favorite students:  I have a crew of 7^th grade boys. That sentence alone should make your soul shutter with fear—but it gets worse. They’re waaay too cool for school, and they’re smart. This crew of besties hacked into all the 7^th grade lockers and changed everyone’s combinations. They sit together like a pack of wolves, and they speak very little English.

I know they understand me. Well, they understand some things: like when I tell them to stop grabbing each other, or stop talking, or stop touching the drums, but other than that, they’re totally checked out of the lessons.

The other day, they were causing their usual ruckus, disrupting the class, and finally, I sharply told one, we’ll call him Calvin, (the one that hates me the most) to move to the other side of the circle. He made his protestations, but I gave an insistent finger point (universal language of pointing--very effective), and he moved. I didn’t know what the rustle was, and I didn’t care, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw this tough guy with quiet tears streaming down his face. I was surprised, I thought he was totally apathetic.

A moment later, the one originally sitting next to Calvin, we’ll call him Peter, interrupted me, “Um… Miss…?” (he’s the one most shy about his English. Also the one that cares least about my class, as evidenced by the fact that he doesn’t know my name)...

 “Miss Corkin?” I threw him a bone. But then, admittedly annoyed at being interrupted by his antics again, I was a bit harsh with my tone, “What, Peter?”

“It…not… was Calvin.”

“What?” I didn't understand.

“I had…  took his pen. Fault not Calvin. My.” Painfully stumbling through finding the words, he was trying to tell me that his friend, who I’d banished to the other side of the circle, was not responsible for the trouble, that Calvin had been provoked, and shouldn’t be the one punished. This boy, who was totally uninterested in me or my class, was offering up himself in an honest attempt at taking responsibility. That’s why Calvin was crying, because he’d been wrongly blamed (even on a small scale, we can all relate to this utterly powerless, deeply disturbing feeling). 

But here, his friend Peter was trying to fix it. No matter the personal cost, including struggling through limited English in front of the whole class.  

How much I underestimated this young man because he annoyed me sometimes. How easily dismissive I was because of a language barrier. What character in that moment he proved to have. 

Impressed and humbled, I melted. Oh, my heart. 

“Thank you for telling me that, Peter. I really appreciate your honesty, and taking responsibility.”

I didn’t know how to convey how moved I was at his gesture, in a language we could both understand. So I just smiled warmly. The best I could do.

“I still don’t want you to sit next to each other though. So just stay there right now. Next time, you can move.”

Speaking the Same Language

One time, I sneaked into a  Music and the Brain conference at Harvard Medical School. Thinking, “I am smart, I like brains, I like music--I took a neuroscience class at Harvard, and I can play the piano, this will be fun!" 

While I recognized they were speaking English, they were not speaking a language I understood. So I sat in the dark, straining to focus harder, blinking up at their presentations, trying desperately to understand what exactly any of these words meant, and what I got out of it was a very stinging feeling that I was not that smart.

Trying to get to work using the bus on my own for the first time in Germany. Or the second. Or the 8^th. I ask in my embarrassing German, “Eine Tagskarte, Bitte” (One day ticket, please), and place a few euros on the shelf. And the exchange that comes after is painful: 

The bus driver gives me very specific instructions, then stares blankly while I clearly don’t follow them, and in those moments, I want to say, “I’m so sorry. I'm trying. I’m not stupid, I promise! We just don’t speak the same language.”

I am now teaching little humans. And while I am no Harvard neuroscientist, there is a language barrier between the English I’m speaking, and the English these small people are able to speak as they grow. Including the ones for whom English is their first language.

But I want to remember that feeling I had in that neuro-music conference. Or the feeling I have every time I try to speak German. How small it can feel.  And as I’m going along in my classroom, trying to align the tongue we speak, I want to make them feel like they’re not small, but growing.

I’m learning how important a virtue patience really is. And how wonderful the end product worth investing—a world in which we can understand one another. 

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Feelings

The weekend before I left Boston, I wandered around my favorite stationary store, and was utterly captivated by one postcard. It was not flashy or funny or any of the attributes that usually make me linger on an image. But as I tried to pull myself away, to look around the store, the postcard kept drawing me back, like a sad, grey magnet. On the back of the card it revealed to be a German company. I took it as a sign from the universe, and finally shelled out the 70 cents to purchase it. 

Now it hangs on my wall, amidst places I've lived or visited, cards from relatives or friends, and a few inspirational quotes. And it sticks out a bit--where the other images are charming/happy/funny/inspirational and/or hold dear memories, this one stands as an odd homage to uneasiness.  

I don't know exactly what it is about this little old woman that so stunned me. Obviously some macabre imagery--impending death, mortality and the unknown that is the end of a life-- yada yada yada. But I don't think that's what was drawing me in.

Something about the grey unknown in this woman's view--it's terrifying, but also beautiful. This sort of sublime awe in the inevitability of being completely wrapped in, drenched in, overtaken by future ambiguity.

The future. And the unknown.
Two very scary prospects for humans all around. They're sort of one in the same. I think we'll always be afraid of the unknown and of the future, and I think maybe we can embrace the fear. Dive in, as this brave old woman is on the brink of doing.

What do you think? Is this image as beautiful to you as it was to me?