A Gentle reconnection

I thought to myself, I wish everyday (teaching English) could be like this.

Right now, it’s 10:40pm. I’m eating a derivation of hommus. Cooked chick peas, mashed with a fork, mixed with chopped garlic, toasted sesame seeds, olive oil, salt and pepper. Awkwardly eaten (because it’s consistency is more like rice than a dip) on a black sesame cracker. Accompanied, of course, with beer and potato chips. The potato chips I like say “No Added”, the rest is in Japanese, so I’m not sure what is not added. I presume it is the nasty stuff. As though potatoes, fried to an inch of their life in oil, are not bad enough.

Tomorrow is a day off. Friday. Always a day off…..unless we need to work to “make up” for the public holiday that fell inconveniently in that week and meant we couldn’t work. Oh how I miss a public holiday that turns your 5-day working week into 4. Under our contract, most public holidays require us to work an extra day (sad face).

But today, my only teaching day that is filled with adult classes (Monday to Wednesday and Saturday are mostly children’s classes) was sweet. The hommus, beer and chips was icing on the cake. Today Mary came. I met her 2 weeks ago. A young, shy medical student. More shy today, it seemed. I wondered if I would see her again. In our first class she told me she liked music. Pink Floyd was one band she listened to a lot. I wrote out the lyrics to Wish You Were Here in case I would see her again. Every week we have Free Time classes as part of our teaching schedule. Students pop in at random times and we don’t need to prepare the classes. We have text books to use, but they are easy to follow and often these students like the opportunity to have free conversation. This can be difficult but I almost always like the challenge. I especially like the opportunity for connection. I am doing some slightly off beat things since being in Japan. I sing and I draw stuff. In the classes, while I am teaching! Yes. Me. Who should not sing in public. And cannot draw to save herself. But apparently can draw to save herself when trying to explain concepts like ‘reinvent the wheel’ or ‘Gap year’ or ‘stereotype’ or “What? You’re not wearing a one piece, you are wearing a dress!!!! A dress. A one-piece looks like this. A dress looks like this”. Oh and there was that time that I wanted to tell some younger students (12 year old girls) about the dream I had. So I drew myself (a beautiful, aging stick figure) in a cave with very large turtles coming out of the subterranean lake and me wondering how to get beyond these beautiful but very imposing creatures, until a crocodile speedily overtook the beautiful stream of turtles and threatened to eat me and I woke up gasping for air. I drew that. Yes, I did!

But. Pink Floyd. And, Wish You Were Here. Close to the end of the lesson I decided to pull out the lyrics I had handwritten. I asked Mary if she would like to read them. And then. A boldness overcame me. Would you like to sing with me? She uttered a nervous sound. And I just began……..So, so you think you can tell, heaven from hell, blue skies from pain, can you tell a green field………….Mary sang too. Softly. As I sang I felt like something was rehydrating inside me. Lately I have felt like a flat-pak box. Folded neatly with no room to move. Constricted, but neat. Not getting in anyone’s way particularly. And yet, my head has been popping corn. Constantly. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. No rest. Just this wired, electrical current giving me no peace. How is it possible to be both a flat pak box and a popcorn maker? I have no answer to this? But I have one remedy. Sing. Not by yourself. Sing with another. That may be the one and only time of course. I may get sacked for going off piste or Mary may never return and perhaps who could blame her.

Of course, Dave Gilmour and Roger Waters, were exploring a very different idea, but nevertheless, I sing with a deep and true tone……Wish you were here…….xxxxx