Tag Archives: children

Hospital Waiting-Room Thoughts

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Terre des hommes Exupery

This is one of my favorite books and its last pages had always impacted me greatly. Below I will post the English version of it. I know these lines by heart, however every time I read them, they are painful, as if I have stumbled upon them for the first time in my life. I am not suffering over them. I fall silent. If you read the last line with your heart you will feel that silence too.

This morning I was sitting at the hospital waiting-room. There were lots of kids with their parents. Nicely dressed and healthy looking kids. I was observing them, as they cuddled with their parents, as they watched cartoons, as they colored hospital coloring books. And I have faith that those kids will be taken care of. Maybe not all of them, but at least some, will read great books, will play creative games, will walk outside and observe people and life, will challenge themselves in the world outside of their house. They will think their own thoughts, speak their own words, create their own paths, they will help and inspire others. And there, in the hospital waiting-room, I thought that this was a pretty good progress that we as a society made in the past 50 years.

The thing that still worries me is the prevalence of the computer games over the on-the-street games, as well as the virtual world increasing dominance. I have nothing against the internet world. I think that the connectivity it offers us is amazing. It opens our generation the possibility to be in touch with others, to learn, to grow, to be independent and create our own value. It is great, as long as it remains the channel, not the final destination.
By that time it was my turn and I left the waiting-room and walked through the white door labeled as “Access A”.

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Here is the English version of the yellow boxed text from the image:

“I sat down face to face with one couple. Between the man and the woman a child had hollowed himself out a place and fallen asleep. He turned in his slumber, and in the dim lamplight I saw his face. What an adorable face! A golden fruit had been born of these two peasants. Forth from this sluggish scum had sprung this miracle of delight and grace. I bent over the smooth brow, over those mildly pouting lips, and I said to myself: This is a musician’s face. This is the child Mozart. This is a life full of beautiful promise. Little princes in legends are not different from this. Protected, sheltered, cultivated, what could not this child become? When by mutation a new rose is born in a garden, all the gardeners rejoice. They isolate the rose, tend it, foster it. But there is no gardener for men. This little Mozart will be shaped like the rest by the common stamping machine. This little Mozart will love shoddy music in the stench of night dives. This little Mozart is condemned.
I went back to my sleeping car. I said to myself: Their fate causes these people no suffering. It is not an impulse to charity that has upset me like this. I am not weeping over an eternally open wound. Those who carry the wound do not feel it. It is the human race and not the individual that is wounded here, is outraged here. I do not believe in pity. What torments me tonight is the gardener’s point of view. What torments me is not this poverty to which after all a man can accustom himself as easily as to sloth. Generations of Orientals live in filth and love it. What torments me is not the humps nor hollows nor the ugliness. It is the sight, a little bit in all these men, of Mozart murdered.

Only the Spirit, if it breathe upon the clay, can create Man.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Wind, Sand and Stars

One Hundred Smiles

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We took a sightseeing tour in Santiago de Compostela. I got to sit with the three kids, my son and daughter and my daughter’s friend. We sat in the small white train that runs through the city for 45 minutes. My daughter and her friend decided to say “Hola!” to the people on the streets. I did not stop them, even though their enthusiastic waving and saluting prevented me from diving into the city´s past. To my surprise almost everybody on the streets smiled at the happy kids and waved back. The waiters, the hotel service workers, the old men sitting on the plaza, the woman walking two small dogs, students on the bikes, a couple with a Great Dane, men and women inside their cars stopped in the evening traffic, the lottery vendor, the beggar, the souvenir vendors, people chilling out at the cafés, people checking out their maps… and everybody else we passed by on the train. They heard the happy “Hola! Hola!” coming from the train, they saw the two five year olds waving and smiling at them and for a second or two they forgot about their own worries and routines. The simple childhood smile rippled through their lips. I think that during our 45 minutes ride we encountered around one hundred people, and all of those who heard “Hola!”, waved back and smiled. The kids enjoyed saying “Hi” to strangers. Their enthusiastic “Hi” was an invitation to share that moment of childhood happiness. Simple, unrestricted, unattached, abstract and light.  It was that unexpected smile that lands on our lips when we are busy with something else and did not intend to smile. It felt good that so many people suddenly smiled back at us. As they smiled their steps became lighter, their words kinder and their eyes looked shinier. I am learning from my kids how to smile openly and say “Hola!” to strangers. And the amazing thing is that people are grateful for that light in our eyes.

Mature people intimidate me. Greatly. I am thrown aback by their seriousness and feel like a child talking to a busy grown up who does not have time for my words. I nod to their assumptions because they are so secure of the stability of their own words and their rightness. And with years I became good at this game of grown ups. I make a serious face, follow up their thoughts with a nod and do not interrupt them with abstract question weather or not they like butterflies and what color of the butterflies’ wings they are attracted by the most. Nope, I don’t collect butterflies. I shiver at a thought of it. But I like the lightness of their flight and the transparency of their wings and their ability to color the fields in spring. It was well after midnight and I was talking to a friend of mine in a small bar in Santiago over a pitcher of Sangria. And we were talking like grown ups, about life, people and thoughts. About work and travel and money, and everything else that mature people normally talk about. And somebody overhearing our words would be sure that we were two grown ups having a night out over a pitcher of summer fruity alcohol drink. But I knew that butterflies were not out of question. Should I start talking about butterflies, stars or dreams, I would be heard, understood and smiled back at. The conversation would not stop there, and it would take an amazing new turn. But it was late, we were the last people in the bar, the waiter had already cleaned the floor, put all the stools on the tables and was occupying himself with something just not to disturb us. We paid the bill and left.

The nights in Santiago are cool, a breeze maneuvers through the narrow streets and lightly nudges you on the back. Its good that old houses protect you. You and your silence and the unspoken words on butterflies. Only knowing that you can also talk about butterflies, you suddenly become a nice mature person for an hour or two on a cloudy night in Santiago.

I do not like street music. I mean, I do not notice all these people who play their guitars, accordions, flutes and violins on the streets in front of the restaurants. They do not annoy me generally, but they do not make me smile either. Yesterday we had lunch in a nice white restaurant out of the touristic downtown. The food was good and cheap. You always know that the restaurant in Spain is good when it does not look polished and expensive. The best food I had is in those cheap and busy places, where the waiters are always running pass your table. Still they remember your order and start by putting a ceramic pitcher of wine and rough Galician bread on your table before asking the food order. In these places the word “drink” includes wine too, whether you ask for water or wine the price is the same. We just had ordered the food when we heard the music. It was gentle and nice. It had no vulgarity among it sounds and when the food was served, I could not eat it. It felt like eating in a music hall. If I hear music I like I can´t do other things except listen. And so I listened. Two men played an oboe and a guitar on a corner of a nearby plaza. And I stood up and crossed the plaza and put some money in their guitar case (they did not have the hat or bag for collecting money in front of them). They smiled kindly back at me. And somehow I felt very grateful. It was a gift to hear that music. After a while they moved closer to our tables and to my surprise played my favorite music piece, the Turkish Rondo. They played it in a very unusual way. Instruments talked gently, like the most humble person I know, and even humbler than that. The sound was so light that it barely touched you. The music, like a gauze cape over your shoulders did not protect you from anything, did not keep you warm, had no weight. But you, like everybody else, felt the essence of beauty that lay within the folds of its transparent weave.  It radiated light akin to a child´s smile and to the flight of a butterfly.

When you land in Barcelona at night the runway looks like a field ready for some magical game. Red and green lights signal awkward rules to the unknown players. Whether we know it or not, we are a part of it. And I was wondering if others also see the runway in the night as a field ready for some magical, unfair, unrestricted, unknown, but still amazingly beautiful game.

There are certain things that we do not forget easily. And so I will carry these hundred smiles that our children provoked, the midnight Sangria talk and the unasked question about butterflies and the gauze cape weaved by the oboe and guitar “improvising” on the Turkish Rondo. And earthy thick wine in a terracotta pitcher and the rough bread, all done by sunburned and kind hands of village people on Galician fields.  The simplicity of it all sneaks into your heart like a child´s smile. And the moment later you turn the corner and carry it with you for the rest of your life. And you give back. And you give it away. As it would be impossible and too painful to save all these feelings just for oneself.

Santiago de Compostela, July 22nd 2012

Notes from Rome: on traffic and night air

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We are getting better in crossing the streets. Traffic is hectic here, and you do not know from where the cars, Vespas or buses are coming. You just have to start crossing the street hoping that all transport will stop. The first days it took us a lot of time waiting for the “space” in traffic. Today we got much better; we started crossing the streets like people in Rome do it. Just crossing them, expecting the traffic to stop or at least to slow down and not getting scared of the Vespas zipping right in front of us. Cars go in all directions, independently on the traffic flow, one-way street signs and sometimes traffic lights. However, they seem to be able to stop right on time or elegantly maneuver around people. On the busiest streets we saw traffic police directing the cars. It looked almost like a scene from a movie, traffic controllers all dressed in white, added to the sharpness of this sunny and ancient city.

Ice cream and coffee prove to be very good, day after day. Kids eat tons of ice creams while I get my cup of Americano (espresso with some extra hot water). Not sure what is the secret, but the coffee is good. Much better than in Spain, Norway or the US. I heard before that Italian coffee is good, however, I did not expect it to be good in all the places I tried it. Espresso machines are everywhere; I do not think I have seen a bakery or a small sandwich place without an espresso machine. Also, Italian people are very nice, everybody has a kind word for the kids and is very respectful to me, as a mom. It seems like kids are a priority in the Italian capital and the moms, as a prerogative, too.  Kids are not treated as kids, but just as people to who you pay more attention than to regular grown ups. What I mean is that they are asked questions, sensible questions that require an answer. Questions the people would ask me too. They are asked for their name, where are they from, what language do they speak and what they like in Rome. And as these are not just sweet words and the answers are expected, the kids answer. They like to be these little citizens taken with full respect and consideration. Being able to chose their ice cream flavors for themselves and answer what have they seen in Rome are closely tied together. And it comes down to being responsible people who are exploring a new city.

Nights in Rome are much better than days. At least in summer. After 9pm the air is fresher, there are very few tourists on the streets and the buildings look different. What is visible during the day is obscured when the night falls. All the ‘noise’ disappears when then sun sets. New details, sharp windows, columns, doors and corners strike your sight. You see buildings that were invisible during the sunny hours. After 9pm Rome is full of light spots of illuminated facades, sharper cobblestone pavement under the yellowish light and music from the cafes and bars. Contrasts of light and obscureness, of silence and music, of scattered groups people and emptiness of the streets are becoming. I like Rome after 9pm. The air is light and your steps are echoed by non-ending buildings of the narrow empty ‘vias’. Only at night you pay attention to the light.

Rome, July 6th 2012