I have survived the first week of school. It went pretty well. I missed teaching and the kids. There is something special about the first week of school, when the kids are a little scared and trying to make a good impression.
A lot of my students from last year have come looking for me and have asked how my father is. They knew he was ill, but are surprised when I tell them he died. A couple times little girls have actually teared up.
Being back I knew people might ask how it was to be home and how my father is. What I didn’t expect from people is the comment…Wow you had a really long vacation! They seemed to skipped over the terminal illness and death thing. I had a particularly awkward encounter with my neighbor. First she commented on my long vacation, I said I went home because my father was very ill—he had cancer. So then she asked what kind. I said prostate because I don’t know how to say endocrine tumor in Turkish. She said, oh..that’s not so bad, my father has that, then she asked how my father was now. Dead. I think she has been avoiding eye contact.
On my quest to have a more balanced life, I have been going to bed earlier this year. It makes such a difference to go to sleep at 10 instead of 12. It makes the morning so much less painful. On the other hand, it is a habit that makes mornings come early. It means that by 9 am this morning, I had showered, blown my hair dry, had breakfast, and walked the dog. I had tried to sleep in, but to no avail. I have a wedding to go to tonight. I will have to take a nap to be able to stay conscious past 10!
It was a small place and informal. When we said yes, we would like to see the winery, we we told to just on on through and come back to taste when we were ready. We had run of the place. It was like a dream!
Far From The Sticks 