"You just can't imagine how hungry a body can get."

My grandmother had a stroke last week. Considering everything, she's doing amazingly well. When I visited yesterday, she was sitting in a wheelchair, drinking strawberry Ensure. She said "talk to me," and I found that I was out of words. I finally leaned into her ear and shouted some about teaching. It seems as if she is going to recover, something we wouldn't have imagined last week. I'm so conflicted though. Getting old in America is brutal.

My grandmother was moved from the hospital to a nursing home, as she can't return to her assisted living apartment. The hospital nursing home is temporary--while we look for a better place. There were four ladies in my grandmother's room. The one across from my grandmother asked me what time it was. She was waiting for lunch. "You just can't imagine how hungry a body can get," she told me. I offered to find someone to bring her a meal, but she told me there were 10 aides and over 100 patients and not to bother. The meal did come before I left. While I was in the hall, a nurse walked by with a baby and you could see each person's eyes brighten as the baby passed by--the baby also helpless, also needing constant care, but cute and portable.

Yesterday, we moved my grandmother's things out of her apartment. I took her table--it is lovely and I have been living for many years without one. But I said no to the nick-knacks, to all the elephants my grandmother has collected, with their trunks down, not up--a detail of vital importance to her. I should mention that I'm not entirely without a heart, I have a beautiful quilt my grandmother has made. But I am interested in the items that we cherish but others do not. In Finland, my aunt and I sorted through my grandfather's slides--this was about a year after his death--and we threw most away. They were pictures purchased (lovingly) from museum gift shops. They were also pictures he took of strangers, people he had met on his travels: a smiling tour guide, a church elder. We kept only the pictures that captured our faces or those we recognized. I thought of my photo albums, and how they will be viewed by others. Picture of Salzburg? Throw away. Picture of smiling pig advertisement? Throw away. Picture of cow? Throw away. Picture of graduation? Keep. (or so I hope)

quotes

"I was walking down Fifth Avenue today, and I found a wallet. I was going to keep it, rather than return it, but I thought: Well, if I lost $150, how would I feel? And I realized I would want to be taught a lesson." Emo Philips

"You have delighted us long enough." Jane Austin

Farmers Market

Twice a month, I wheel my grocery cart through Farmers Market. It is a long way from my home, but I'm drawn here, pulled by the tangerines, green tea, and maeil coffee.

When I arrived in South Korea in 1998, I would wander through the grocery store, baffled. What is this? What is that? Even food that should have been familiar felt unfoodlike. The whole experience was otherworldly. The man standing in the produce aisle shouting out a string of numbers, the kimchi bar with its blood red cabbage, the console of nuts, shrimp, fish, dried bananas, dried mushrooms--all waiting to be chosen and then blended into a breakfast powder. (I would become addicted to a vegetarian version, including: sesame seeds, dried carrots, coconut, nuts, grains, dried mushrooms, and dried fruit.) But that first month, I was always hungry.

Now in California, I come to the Farmers Market. Outside in folding chairs, three ajashis sit and sell Korean newspapers. I nod deeply, throwing my shoulders into the motion. I want to say "anyanghaseyo," but sense it would mark me as the earnest pretender, which I, in fact, am. The store looks a bit like Lotte, a bit like Krogers. The produce section has the global staples: tomatoes, apples, cucumbers, garlic. The prices though are cheap. Grapefruits: 2 pound for 50 cents. There are also Korean staples: sesame leaves, lotus root, bokchoy. Normally, I am the only whitey, and this pleases me. I like to sink into the Korean announcements, the cutie packaging of choco pies and pepero. I buy fruit (grapefruit and tangerines and Asian pears) and I also buy ginger, red pepper paste, green tea. I toss the tea in my cart, three boxes at a time. I would drive here strictly for the green tea, which tastes so different from the American version that one can hardly believe they share the same name. It's like the difference between a giraffe and a moose.

But here is my confession, my guilty, guilty confession. The other items I can justify, but the Maeil coffee is an SUV purchase heavy and pointless. I think of the environmental footprints of these drinks, packaged in Seoul and then flown to LAX and then driven here, and I know that I should keep on wheeling my cart. And yet, and yet. In Korea, after a hard day of teaching, I would dart into a convenience store and purchase a Maeil coffee and know my day was going to be okay. When I first saw them here, lined up beside the milk, I wanted to cry. I stood holding one for a long time and finally decided to sell my environmental soul for the Cinnamon Latte.

The last time I visited Korean Market, there were other whiteys in the store. What are they doing here? was my general attitude. They were probably thinking the same about me. A friend recently pointed out this website: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/page/2/. I am guilty of # 71, among others.

Leap Frog Day

In South Korea, my students called me "test queen." Or rather, they called my sister "test queen" and I picked up on the name by virtue of being the exact same person. True story: I once taught a student at Pusan University of Foreign Studies. He spent four months with me--four months observing my fashion triumphs and disasters, four months listening to my corny jokes, four months watching me wave my arms about as I tried to be entertaining. He went on to take several English classes from my sister--who also taught at PUFS. Through idyll chit chat, my sister discovered that he thought we were the same person. In fact, he was startled to learn she had a sister, more startled still to discover that he had been in my class. So here is my question: If you're going to be remembered as someone else, do you take more chances? I mean, if my students were going to remember me as Sonja, why didn't I dye my hair green and yellow, sing half the lessons, and make students dance if they came to class late or if they were text-messaging?

In South Korea, I gave lots of quizzes--and unfortunately didn't make a single student dance. In Riverside, I do the same. "Take out a nice clean sheet of paper," I say, and I feel like my high school history teacher. Sometimes if the class looks particularly glassy eyed, I'll say, "put a smiley face on your paper"--and, this surprises me, most of them do it! Sometimes they even scrawl below the smiley face, "Have a nice weekend, Mrs. Fordham." [shudder]

I then launch into the quiz. "What fashion item," I ask in all seriousness, "did Jeeves disapprove of?" Some of the students furiously scribble down, "Alpine hat." The keeners even include, "with a pink feather." I continue, "Bertrum’s aunt asks if he's taking Jeeves to Toitleigh Towers. Bertram says, yes, of course. His aunt then tells him to watch out. Why?" And so on.

First, isn't it bizarre that I've been entrusted with these students? Obviously, I've been teaching a long time, I know what I'm doing, etc., etc. But really, when I'm standing up front asking a question about an alpine hat, I feel deliciously like an impostor. My next question could be about oranges or skipping giraffes or skipping giraffes that juggle oranges.

Second, I once heard you should never teach an author you love. I adore P. G. Wodehouse, and after two days of sharing P.G. with my students, I'm beginning to concur. My students are cranky. "But he uses such big words," they complain. "We didn't understand any of it." "But he writes about alpine hats," I counter. "You have to love a book about an alpine hat." They disagree, nonhumorously.

Besides humor literature, this quarter I'm also teaching a journalism course (!), and a remedial reading course. Each Friday, in the reading class, I bring in a poem--everything from Pablo Neruda to Billy Collins to Maya Angelou. Today, my students brought in their favorite poems--everything from Emily Dickinson to Tupac Shakur. After class, Student A told Student B: "When you read your poem, you sounded just like Beyonce."

Picture

George Clooney

It's spring in Riverside, spring with a vengence. Birds singing, flowers blooming, all that good stuff. With warm weather comes the need to expunge the excess and be filled with light.

My target: my hair. Each day, I would think: too long. For a few practical weeks, I was considering a very short bob and actually going to a hairdresser, rather than sawing away at my hair myself, as per usual. I didn't go and didn't go and as time passed, I started thinking, why not get it all cut off, like Sabrina? (I blame that film for many hair cut decisions.)

Yesterday, I went to a fancy salon, armed with a photo (of longish short hair) and shored up with determination. An hour later, I looked like George Clooney (think ER days).

In high school, I got my hair cut and the beautician cut off more than I was anticipating. I disolved into a puddle of tears. I wept and wept and would not be comforted. I was finally dragged to the back of the store and given a box of tissues and a free cut. My aunt who accompanied me was mortified.

Yesterday, I shrugged my shoulders and then did some shopping and some cleaning.

So am I less vain now? Or is high school really more brutal than anything that comes after? Or is there a duller reason? Have all those bad hair cuts in the past kept me from getting emotionally involved?

Actually, I'm not even sure I hate the cut. It's short. It's different. It's no fuss. And I appreciate how fast I can dry my hair. I am, however, looking forward to a longer version of the cut--the version in the photo.

Birthday

Last week. I was freakishly busy, and so I almost didn't visit my grandmother on her birthday. "I'll go next week," I rationalized. "She won't know the difference." But my goody-goody nature won out, and I made the drive.

When I arrived, my grandmother was sleeping, but she sat up and said, "I thought you were coming today. That's why I left the light on." Later, she asked me if I'd been "galavanting."

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"How old are you, Nana?" I asked.

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"60!" she told me, all wide eyed and frankly a little annoyed at my birthday singing and happy clapping. Sixty must be the age she used to imagine as "old" and so she held on to that number. Usually, I agree with Nana, but somehow I couldn't today.

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"You're 87," I told her.

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"Oh my," she said. "Oh my."

We sat in the garden for about 30 minutes. I was ready to camp out in her room, but she told me very firmly, "Thank you for coming. It was so nice to see you. I'll walk you to the door. I'm going back to bed!"

About this picture, she said: "You have a nice memory."

I said, "thank you."

She continued, "You'll have something nice to remember sitting in the garden."

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And I do.