Standing on Dignity, Resting on Laurels

I work with words. I also teach other people to work with words. Twice a year, I hold an 8-week (Saturday mornings only) introductory class for people interested in spoken-language interpretation. Along with the basic modes and techniques of interpreting, I stress ad nauseum the idea that language is always in flux, making it impossible for interpreters and translators to rest on their laurels and say, to quote George Lopez, "I got this."

Just think: in the past couple of decades "sweet" has come to mean "cool", but not the kind that is the opposite of hot. One can conceivably be both hot and cool and not even be talking about menopause.

"Bad" can be good but not virtuous, prompting some to say that it's "bad to be bad." Which would mean good. "Pimp" has become a verb and not necessarily a negative one; "sick" isn't; women can be foxes and cougars simultaneously, and few recall that once upon a time "making love" "pitching woo" and "courting" were all synonymous with flirting.

Along with changing language, court interpreters must recognize nuanced speech – lawyers use it heavily, especially with juries. Sometimes, I assign my students to pick a current event, and then read the stories published by opposing ends of the media spectrum. Their task is to de-spin the work of spin doctors, until they come up with non-nuanced texts. (The resulting stories are usually quite short.) And if my class contains individuals who are particularly inclined toward one political extreme or the other, this exercise often provides a good segue into the lesson on controlling emotions and bias while interpreting.

We must be prepared to follow changing developments smoothly. Unflappably, one might say. No words are morally bad. They may simply convey morally reprehensible or perhaps vulgar ideas. Screams, shouts, political incorrectness: nothing should shake the professional interpreter. A colleague once told me of a case he'd served on where the defendant, upon losing, chose to launch a series of invectives at the judge. The (very good) interpreter promptly let loose with the corresponding energetic string of profanity in English. After the courtroom was almost empty, the judge looked at my acquaintance and commented, "I know you were just doing your job – but you didn't have to enjoy it!"

At any rate, this is what I do. Whether translating at my desk or interpreting in a courtroom or deposition, words are my stock in trade and it is my job to keep up with changes in that stock. Calmly, smoothly, efficiently.

Life, on the other hand, delights in upending my smooth, efficient calm. There are times outside the courtroom when the subtle changes in language ambush me, and it's never pretty. When I was first dating John, we agreed to meet his mother for a quick bite to eat at Braums. (Besides the best milk around, Braums makes a pretty mean hamburger. Mean as in good, not average, stingy or heartless. Sorry, it's a word thing.)

I had only met his mother briefly once before and very much wanted to her to like me. As John and I stood in the parking lot, waiting for her to arrive, we snuck a few kisses, hugged, and laughed together – a lot. The moment her car pulled into the parking lot, though, I begged for a little decorum. John and decorum were not generally compatible. Still, for my sake, he tried.

One thing about conversation between John and his mother: they used a slightly different English than what I was used to. Some words seemed to preserve older meanings, unchanged in this little pocket of Texas. It was fascinating for a word person like me. So I listened with decorum and interest and tried hard to make a good impression.

It was all going so well. Then a sweet-faced elderly woman approached our table. Handing John a little card about friendship, she said, "I just had to come over to give you this and tell you that I so enjoyed watching the two of you making love in the parking lot..."

The noise suddenly got sucked out of the restaurant. Horrified, I glanced at John's mother. And at John. And at the smiling, elderly woman. My composure slid under the table and I wanted to follow.

Eventually, it registered that the other three were still chatting comfortably. My future mother-in-law was fully aware of the old meaning of the phrase. The only sign that anyone knew of my inner melt-down was the occasional twitch in John's shoulders as he held back his laughter.

I still have that little card. It's a good reminder that laurels and dignity are no match for real life.

Nickels and Pie

Sometimes my mouth opens up and makes promises all by itself while the rest of me listens, astounded. It then falls to said "rest of me" to figure out how to make good or else to plan a strategic retreat.

Last December, my granddaughters and two of their cousins came for what has become a tradition: the annual slumber party with Oma (aka me.) The discussion turned to cooking. Someone said wouldn't it be nice to have a visit where all they did was cook, and someone said they'd like to create their own recipes and someone said, sure, let's plan on doing that when school's out.

Since that last someone was me, my brain has been trying to figure out a) when, and b) what in the world made me think I could teach four girls to cook. My own children had mixed reactions: Adrian burst out laughing and Patrick asked me if I planned on teaching the girls how to remove food from the stove before it gets to the stage where I say, "Just scrape off the burnt part, it's fine underneath..."

They were being merciful. They could have brought up the Infamous Clam Chowder Incident, the one where Goofy Pooch took a sniff of the chowder and backed away in panic.

With school starting up again soon, time was running out. We made plans. Yesterday morning, two sets of parents delivered four eager young ladies to my door. My granddaughters, M (12) and S (8), along with their cousins, H (14) and B (12), dropped their bags to the floor and asked, "Where do we start?"

We started at a local farmers' market (M announced to her parents afterward, "I have now experienced a Farmers' Market, and they – are – not – air-conditioned!") It was fun watching the girls pick out fruits and vegetables. I found myself passing on produce selection sniffing-and-thumping tricks my mother taught me.

The evening's cooking session surprised the girls by yielding a very good beef stew. After supper, we made our regular trek to Half Price Books, where I gave the girls a small budget and set them loose in the store. They were so worn out when we got home that they fell asleep almost instantly.

This morning, they learned to make pancakes. They even learned how to improvise when you suddenly run out of flour because you haven't baked anything in so long that you'd forgotten you own a flour bin, much less that it needed restocking.

After pancakes, it was time for another favorite: Nickelrama, an arcade where every game runs on nickels and the machines are generous with tickets. I bought the girls each a cup of nickels and sat down to watch the fun. Kids of all sizes, ages, colors and shapes ran every which way. Game bells and alien ray guns rang through the air. Adults followed their respective kids around, sometimes in a slight daze. I watched a grandmother pump nearly $20 into a game, methodically winning tickets for her grandson to redeem for a $1.75 toy. One woman had brought her little one to the arcade for what appeared to be the first time: the girl (about 3 years old) stared around in wonder, threw her hands into the air and exclaimed, "I just don't... I just don't...I just don't KNOW!" I later saw them at the Sponge Bob game, so apparently she figured it out.

We had pineapple-glazed chicken for lunch and talked about the girls' upcoming school year and boys and hair styles. And somewhere around the time I figured out that the Great Cooking Weekend was really about strengthening ties soon to be tested by adolescence, it was time to make supper.

At 5:30, two sets of parents arrived to find signs on the door announcing, "Welcome" and "Parents, Come In". They were served lasagna, green salad, fresh fruit, garlic bread, "smores pie" and beaming smiles by four young ladies.

Maybe next time, I'll get to teach them the art of disguising slightly-charred biscuits. It can be done – I promise.

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A Little Cracked by 50

I’ve been thinking about my friend Susie. When we started working for the same law firm in Quito many years ago, I was 21 and she was 46. Still, we became the best of friends and I couldn’t say if she was more of a mentor, a mother confessor or a second sister to me.

At the time we met, Susie had already survived the loss of her husband and twin sons, spent six months in a wheelchair, and undergone seven (yes, seven!) breast cancer surgeries, not to mention a host of “lesser” disasters in life. But at the slightest hint that an occasional bout of self-pity might be condoned, Susie would dismiss it with flick of her fingers and say, “It’s just stuff.” She had no time to wallow; there was life to be embraced.

The night before I left Ecuador, I went over to Susie’s for supper. She gave me a small plastic box shaped like a peanut and said, “Here – this won’t take up much room in your suitcase. But don’t open it until you get to where you’re going.”

Naturally, I opened it that night, in the car on my way home. Inside the plastic peanut was a little bean-filled baby doll with a note that read, “Friends always.”

The following year, Susie had an eighth breast cancer operation and shortly afterward, the cancer filled her stomach. She and her daughter, Carmen, flew up to M. D. Anderson in Houston for a second opinion. The doctors there confirmed the prognosis: 6 months at the very most. Susie was told to go home and prepare to die. Instead, she and Carmen came to spend a week of vacation with me.

Ignoring the medical timetable completely, Susie lived another 14 months. In September of 1985, I called to wish her a happy birthday; Carmen answered the phone instead and told me that her mother had died that morning. It was Susie’s 50th birthday.

I remember thinking that in 25 years I would be the same age. I hoped that by then I would have that kind of strength, that unshakeable faith in God, that dependable sense of perspective and absurdity. I wanted to give off that same aura of wisdom.

Well, Susie, here I am. I made it to 50 and, I must say, I’m a little disappointed.

When I look in the mirror, there is no mantle of elder-hood ready to descend around my shoulders, a physical manifestation of deep inner wisdom. There’s just some gray hair, artfully hidden by my friend Garnier.

Not that I haven’t learned a few things along the way. A few weeks after you died, Carmen gave birth to her second daughter and I found out I was expecting my first son. So I’ve learned the fierce joy and absolute confusion of being a parent and helplessly loving the children you want to invest with wings and ground for life.

I’ve had a bad marriage and a wonderful marriage, and learned the difference between the two.

I’ve learned about losing the person you want to grow old with, before you finish being young together.

I’ve learned that I will not die of embarrassment, work or frustration. And that some things, like chocolate, are both bad and good for me and I have to choose which price to pay.

I’ve learned that dreams don’t go away just because other things are more urgent.

I’ve learned that no matter how much I learn, it’s still just a drop in the bucket.

Last night, I was going through some old poems of mine, and came across one written at the ripe old age of 14. It ended with the line, “Memories are a friend and a bag of peanuts.”

I still have the little plastic peanut Susie gave me, although the shell is cracked. It should be – after all these years, I’m a little cracked in places, too. But I’m blessed with friends who are friends always, and maybe it’s alright that my mantle of elder wisdom has yet to come. Maybe I need to embrace my inner nut.

Or maybe I just haven’t yet gotten to where I’m going.