Blythe Spirit

Learning

The week we left home (our old home, that is) our nephew Jack began his first week of pre-school. Jack is a friendly, outgoing kid who likes to talk and play with trains and chase his cousins around. He is lucky that he’s spent most of the hours of his life when he happens to be away from his parents with his grandparents or the myriad (almost twenty!) aunts and uncles that surround him. So heading off to pre-school was a big deal and very different than his everyday experiences. On Thursday night, the night before we departed, Jeff’s family got together for a late-summer barbecue. Of course, there was plenty of discussion about our departure the following day, and promises to visit us, and plans for our first visit home. We also heard about Jack’s first week of school – his backpack and his cubby, the teddy bear song, and learning how to criss-cross-applesauce. Much of this narrative was prompted by his parents – “Jack, did you take your backpack to school? Where did you put it when you got there? Did you learn a new song?” At one point during the evening, he piped up to his grandpa, “Today at school, I cried.” Like dutiful aunties and uncles, we immediately began to tell him it’s OK, and he shouldn’t be scared, and think of all the new friends and snacks. “But sometimes when you try new things, you cry,” he replied to us. And then he resumed gleefully screaming and chasing his cousin around the yard.

I’ve thought about Jack’s piece of wisdom (and I suspect that I should attribute it equally to his wise mother) during the past few days. Change is hard. Spending time in a place where you don’t know the rules or even how to ask what the rules are is difficult. Last night we walked down the street to eat at what we thought was a typical biergarten. We were expecting sausages and potatoes. Instead, after missing the main entrance and being scolded for entering the restaurant through the kitchen, we found a menu that included buckwheat crepes, spare ribs, and Mexican food. We haven’t slept well in four or five days, so we decided to eat the crepes (they were fine – inevitably better than the Mexican food, we hear) and get out of there and go to bed. We were exhausted but after going to bed, we both spent most of the night tossing and turning and trying to be quiet in case the person across the bed had somehow managed the miracle of sleep. At about 2:40 am – the third German 2:40 am I have experienced in my four nights in this country – I wanted to cry. But I was too tired. So instead I thought about Jack and realized that today, Tuesday, he will go back to pre-school even though he cried last time, and he will learn some new songs and probably make a new friend. So today I hope to learn some new things (where to find a decent bratwurst, for example; hey, I’m aiming low) and if I’m lucky maybe I’ll dream my way through 2:40 am and get up in the morning and make a new friend.