Saturday, August 23, 2003
I love words. Simpatico. Panache. Kismet. Zeitgeist. Mitzvah. When I hear a piquant morsel, I can't wait to use it in conversation. I once ordered an extremely unpalatable seafood dish in an Italian restaurant just so I could tell the waiter, “I’ll try the scungilli.” Literal words have their place, but it’s words with wiggle room that I love best, words that leave space to hazard my own whimsical guesses. For example, I always assumed an "ambulance chaser" was someone who followed ambulances in the grisly hope of seeing something gory. My lawyer girlfriend only recently informed me that it didn't mean that at all. It means a lawyer who goes after personal injury suits. “Oh,” I said, a little deflated.
Another time, when I walked into my therapist's office, I noticed a book by Anna Freud. "Who's that?" I asked. "Freud's daughter," my therapist said, "she was a child psychologist." "Really?" I asked, intrigued, and for this one beautiful instant I saw Anna Freud as an eight-year-old analyst with oversized spectacles, whose feet, when she sat in a chair, didn’t even touch the floor. Being Freud’s progeny, perhaps she was born already intimate with knowledge of the psyche’s ins and outs. A moment later, of course, reason set in, and I understood she was a psychologist of children and not a child herself, but to tell you the truth, I liked the world better before reality impinged. Imagination is a fertile ground. So much that’s unexpected sprouts if only it’s given a little open space.
My first word, according to my mother, was “more,” which seems a useful thing to know how to say, but my real enchantment with words began in first grade. I was in Miss Burn’s class my first day of school. She wrote “G-O-O-D” on the blackboard and she told us it spelled “good.” It was a simple word and I liked that, but I was restless, too, and hungered for “more." The next week, Miss Burns told me I was being transferred to Miss Caldwell’s advanced class. I have no inkling what earned me this promotion. I didn’t feel advanced.
Two years earlier, my mother had taken me in to start kindergarten at the same time as my sister, though Maria was 18 months older. Perhaps my mom was losing patience with my constant barrage of unanswerable questions, questions like: "Mom, if I add water to my ice cream will it make more?" and "Mom, how long do plants live?" and “Mom, if I cut my doll’s hair off will it grow back?” The truth is, I was excited at the prospect of starting school with my sister. Finally I would have the chance to catch up and surpass her, to escape my fate as the younger child, destined to receive the smaller half of everything. “Because she’s older,” my mother would always say whenever I contested an unequal division.
The three of us arrived at the kindergarten early that September morning, my sister brooding and withdrawn at the thought of having me in her class, and, even worse, of losing her leverage. At the registration desk, my mother explained the situation, that I was only 4 but she felt I was ready. The teacher smiled at her but said that no, I would have to wait until I was five. Starting early was out of the question. I was disappointed, and thus began my long tango with the rulemakers of life.
That meant another whole year cooped up, asking impossible questions of my mom, questions she was ill-equipped to answer, questions that would have driven a sane woman crazy. “But why, mom?” “I know, but why?” “But why?” “But why?” Then finally the day came for me to start school fair and square.
As for the issue of my transfer to the advanced class, I didn’t want to move to Miss Caldwell’s. Why was someone always rearranging my fate? I liked Miss Burns. She was nice and taught us words like “good,” but mostly I liked her because, after a whole week’s practice, she could finally pronounce my name. “Eruhnee Gleeezuuss??” teachers would say when they called attendance, looking around to see who could possibly have such an unpronounceable name. On my birth certificate, my first name is “Erene” which is the Greek version of "Irene." I was named for my grandmother and, in Greek, it sounds beautiful, but when teachers tried to pronounce it in English, most of the time it came out “Ernie.” "Glezos" had its own problems. Back in Greece, it was my cousin Manolis Glezos who had climbed the Acropolis to tear down the Nazi flag during the Occupation. He was a national hero, but, here, they butchered our name until it sounded like a slimy goo, like a slug on the pavement the morning after it rained. “Oh, that’s me,” I’d have to admit when they called out "Gleeezhus" or "Gletzoos," while the class turned en masse to look at the girl with the ugly name. “It’s Greek,” I’d squeak when I found my voice, “but you can call me Renie.”
On the day of my transfer, I toddled behind Miss Burns with my lunchbox as she escorted me down the hall, too afraid to ask if she could please warn Miss Caldwell about my name. She deposited me in my new location. “Class,” Miss Caldwell said, introducing me, “This is Erruhnee Glaaznost.” “It’s Greek," I said, feebly, beginning my spiel again. Miss Caldwell wasn't soft like Miss Burns. She was gruff like the bark of a tree, and she talked to us like we were big. She announced that we were to get ourselves an index box immediately. Every time we learned a word, learned how to spell it and what it meant, we could write it down, a separate index card for each, and place it alphabetically into our box. If we could spell the word, the word was ours. If we could define it, it belonged to us.
When my dad came home from work that night, I told him what I needed. “Let’s go see what we’ve got,” he said, and I followed him downstairs to the basement where he kept all his tools. I was afraid to go into the dark basement alone, but when dad was there, the place became friendly, like a TV whose channel had been switched from a scary movie to The Family Affair. He took a look around and finally pulled an old green metal index box off the wooden shelf he’d built above the washing machine. I watched while he transferred all the screws and washers he stored in it into a vacant plastic container. “Wow! Thanks, Dad!” I squealed, and the very next day I began to fill it.
Perhaps because my box had its origins in dad's workroom, I sensed from the start that words could be my tools, could help me build things, and the things that I built could change the worn out rules and make the world a better place. I remember words like “allegiance,” and “excellent” and “antidisestablishmentaryanism.” I don’t need to count to tell you there are 28 letters in that word. When Mike Menepace and I discovered it in the dictionary, we giggled ourselves silly as we wrote it down on our index cards. It was our trophy word, like catching a 200-pound tuna, though at the same time, it made me uneasy. What good was a word no one else in the room knew? It was more like an anti-word, if you ask me, because it built a fence to keep people out instead of a bridge to carry them across to understanding.
As first grade progressed, my index box grew fat, its contents, prized possessions. One day after recess, our principal, Mrs. Irwin, summoned me to her office. As I walked down the dim hallway, I searched my inner catalogue for things I might have done wrong. I was petrified. My mother would kill me if I had gotten myself into trouble. When I arrived in the principal's office, my six-year-old stomach was in knots. Mrs. Irwin invited me in. Surprisingly, she was smiling. “I just want to congratulate you on your index box.” Then I noticed my box on her desk. Had Miss Caldwell given it to her at recess? “Thank you,” I said, turning crimson. I felt happy to garnish such a compliment, but mostly I felt relieved. She gave me my box to take back with me. That night I entered two new words on index cards and placed them alphabetically into my box. “Praise,” I wrote, and after that, “Trouble.”
My dad loved that I could spell. When we'd go over to my grandfather's house on Sunday afternoons for dinner, Dad would place his thick hands, so strong from carpentering, on my shoulders. My Aunt Phillipa would be at the stove stirring the Greek rice, into which she mixed olive oil, dill, and raisins that got puffy from the heat. Dad would ask me to spell a word for her. She would give me baby words like “snow” and “rain.” Then Dad would say "precipitation." When I spelled those long words, dad would always break into a great big smile and he would squeeze me. My heart swelled like one of my aunt’s raisins that I had made him proud.
I even won the spelling bee in school. People said I had a talent. It wasn’t talent. I loved words. They kept me company on the long afternoons when I was punished by my mom for some unruliness of youth. Alone in my room with nothing in the world to do, I'd read The Cat in the Hat Dictionary cover to cover. "A is for airplane. B is for bird." I was grounded, but words gave me wings. Even now, they have such power to console me. A poem of Rumi's can dust me off when I've taken a tumble or feel like a fool, and how often has Rilke slipped imperceptibly into my room as I read his Duino Elegies, contenting me with a spirit world that vibrates invisibly, all the more lambent for being unseen. And Shakespeare! My favorite passage is from Henry V, King Hal’s "St. Crispin's Day" speech to rally his troops before they go into battle at Agincourt. The men of England are grossly disadvantaged and are facing almost certain death. How many times have his words sent me blazing into battles of my own, when I too felt outnumbered 100 to 1? “We would not die in that man’s company that fears his fellowship to die with us. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.” His words gave me courage, summoning my valor, and made me, too, brothers with a King.
I noticed my box last Christmas, strewn in the basement of my mother’s house, when I went to fetch more baklava from the freezer. The index box lives now amid disowned yearbooks and outgrown clothes. My mom swears she’s going to have a garage sale soon and urges us to go through the stuff. “Don’t you want to keep these for your children?” she always asks, having been the kind of mom who bronzed our first shoes. Our disheveled past waits for a time that will never return. I still work at my box, reincarnated as it is inside of me. "Good” was the first word I learned to spell, but, ironically, I’m still working at its definition. I have learned that it’s not how many words your box contains, or how many syllables are in them, but that the ones that are there belong to you, as much as your own name. My name, "Irene," means "peace" in Greek. My middle name, "Sophia," means "wisdom." I'm still working at those too, hoping one day to achieve them.
Another time, when I walked into my therapist's office, I noticed a book by Anna Freud. "Who's that?" I asked. "Freud's daughter," my therapist said, "she was a child psychologist." "Really?" I asked, intrigued, and for this one beautiful instant I saw Anna Freud as an eight-year-old analyst with oversized spectacles, whose feet, when she sat in a chair, didn’t even touch the floor. Being Freud’s progeny, perhaps she was born already intimate with knowledge of the psyche’s ins and outs. A moment later, of course, reason set in, and I understood she was a psychologist of children and not a child herself, but to tell you the truth, I liked the world better before reality impinged. Imagination is a fertile ground. So much that’s unexpected sprouts if only it’s given a little open space.
My first word, according to my mother, was “more,” which seems a useful thing to know how to say, but my real enchantment with words began in first grade. I was in Miss Burn’s class my first day of school. She wrote “G-O-O-D” on the blackboard and she told us it spelled “good.” It was a simple word and I liked that, but I was restless, too, and hungered for “more." The next week, Miss Burns told me I was being transferred to Miss Caldwell’s advanced class. I have no inkling what earned me this promotion. I didn’t feel advanced.
Two years earlier, my mother had taken me in to start kindergarten at the same time as my sister, though Maria was 18 months older. Perhaps my mom was losing patience with my constant barrage of unanswerable questions, questions like: "Mom, if I add water to my ice cream will it make more?" and "Mom, how long do plants live?" and “Mom, if I cut my doll’s hair off will it grow back?” The truth is, I was excited at the prospect of starting school with my sister. Finally I would have the chance to catch up and surpass her, to escape my fate as the younger child, destined to receive the smaller half of everything. “Because she’s older,” my mother would always say whenever I contested an unequal division.
The three of us arrived at the kindergarten early that September morning, my sister brooding and withdrawn at the thought of having me in her class, and, even worse, of losing her leverage. At the registration desk, my mother explained the situation, that I was only 4 but she felt I was ready. The teacher smiled at her but said that no, I would have to wait until I was five. Starting early was out of the question. I was disappointed, and thus began my long tango with the rulemakers of life.
That meant another whole year cooped up, asking impossible questions of my mom, questions she was ill-equipped to answer, questions that would have driven a sane woman crazy. “But why, mom?” “I know, but why?” “But why?” “But why?” Then finally the day came for me to start school fair and square.
As for the issue of my transfer to the advanced class, I didn’t want to move to Miss Caldwell’s. Why was someone always rearranging my fate? I liked Miss Burns. She was nice and taught us words like “good,” but mostly I liked her because, after a whole week’s practice, she could finally pronounce my name. “Eruhnee Gleeezuuss??” teachers would say when they called attendance, looking around to see who could possibly have such an unpronounceable name. On my birth certificate, my first name is “Erene” which is the Greek version of "Irene." I was named for my grandmother and, in Greek, it sounds beautiful, but when teachers tried to pronounce it in English, most of the time it came out “Ernie.” "Glezos" had its own problems. Back in Greece, it was my cousin Manolis Glezos who had climbed the Acropolis to tear down the Nazi flag during the Occupation. He was a national hero, but, here, they butchered our name until it sounded like a slimy goo, like a slug on the pavement the morning after it rained. “Oh, that’s me,” I’d have to admit when they called out "Gleeezhus" or "Gletzoos," while the class turned en masse to look at the girl with the ugly name. “It’s Greek,” I’d squeak when I found my voice, “but you can call me Renie.”
On the day of my transfer, I toddled behind Miss Burns with my lunchbox as she escorted me down the hall, too afraid to ask if she could please warn Miss Caldwell about my name. She deposited me in my new location. “Class,” Miss Caldwell said, introducing me, “This is Erruhnee Glaaznost.” “It’s Greek," I said, feebly, beginning my spiel again. Miss Caldwell wasn't soft like Miss Burns. She was gruff like the bark of a tree, and she talked to us like we were big. She announced that we were to get ourselves an index box immediately. Every time we learned a word, learned how to spell it and what it meant, we could write it down, a separate index card for each, and place it alphabetically into our box. If we could spell the word, the word was ours. If we could define it, it belonged to us.
When my dad came home from work that night, I told him what I needed. “Let’s go see what we’ve got,” he said, and I followed him downstairs to the basement where he kept all his tools. I was afraid to go into the dark basement alone, but when dad was there, the place became friendly, like a TV whose channel had been switched from a scary movie to The Family Affair. He took a look around and finally pulled an old green metal index box off the wooden shelf he’d built above the washing machine. I watched while he transferred all the screws and washers he stored in it into a vacant plastic container. “Wow! Thanks, Dad!” I squealed, and the very next day I began to fill it.
Perhaps because my box had its origins in dad's workroom, I sensed from the start that words could be my tools, could help me build things, and the things that I built could change the worn out rules and make the world a better place. I remember words like “allegiance,” and “excellent” and “antidisestablishmentaryanism.” I don’t need to count to tell you there are 28 letters in that word. When Mike Menepace and I discovered it in the dictionary, we giggled ourselves silly as we wrote it down on our index cards. It was our trophy word, like catching a 200-pound tuna, though at the same time, it made me uneasy. What good was a word no one else in the room knew? It was more like an anti-word, if you ask me, because it built a fence to keep people out instead of a bridge to carry them across to understanding.
As first grade progressed, my index box grew fat, its contents, prized possessions. One day after recess, our principal, Mrs. Irwin, summoned me to her office. As I walked down the dim hallway, I searched my inner catalogue for things I might have done wrong. I was petrified. My mother would kill me if I had gotten myself into trouble. When I arrived in the principal's office, my six-year-old stomach was in knots. Mrs. Irwin invited me in. Surprisingly, she was smiling. “I just want to congratulate you on your index box.” Then I noticed my box on her desk. Had Miss Caldwell given it to her at recess? “Thank you,” I said, turning crimson. I felt happy to garnish such a compliment, but mostly I felt relieved. She gave me my box to take back with me. That night I entered two new words on index cards and placed them alphabetically into my box. “Praise,” I wrote, and after that, “Trouble.”
My dad loved that I could spell. When we'd go over to my grandfather's house on Sunday afternoons for dinner, Dad would place his thick hands, so strong from carpentering, on my shoulders. My Aunt Phillipa would be at the stove stirring the Greek rice, into which she mixed olive oil, dill, and raisins that got puffy from the heat. Dad would ask me to spell a word for her. She would give me baby words like “snow” and “rain.” Then Dad would say "precipitation." When I spelled those long words, dad would always break into a great big smile and he would squeeze me. My heart swelled like one of my aunt’s raisins that I had made him proud.
I even won the spelling bee in school. People said I had a talent. It wasn’t talent. I loved words. They kept me company on the long afternoons when I was punished by my mom for some unruliness of youth. Alone in my room with nothing in the world to do, I'd read The Cat in the Hat Dictionary cover to cover. "A is for airplane. B is for bird." I was grounded, but words gave me wings. Even now, they have such power to console me. A poem of Rumi's can dust me off when I've taken a tumble or feel like a fool, and how often has Rilke slipped imperceptibly into my room as I read his Duino Elegies, contenting me with a spirit world that vibrates invisibly, all the more lambent for being unseen. And Shakespeare! My favorite passage is from Henry V, King Hal’s "St. Crispin's Day" speech to rally his troops before they go into battle at Agincourt. The men of England are grossly disadvantaged and are facing almost certain death. How many times have his words sent me blazing into battles of my own, when I too felt outnumbered 100 to 1? “We would not die in that man’s company that fears his fellowship to die with us. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.” His words gave me courage, summoning my valor, and made me, too, brothers with a King.
I noticed my box last Christmas, strewn in the basement of my mother’s house, when I went to fetch more baklava from the freezer. The index box lives now amid disowned yearbooks and outgrown clothes. My mom swears she’s going to have a garage sale soon and urges us to go through the stuff. “Don’t you want to keep these for your children?” she always asks, having been the kind of mom who bronzed our first shoes. Our disheveled past waits for a time that will never return. I still work at my box, reincarnated as it is inside of me. "Good” was the first word I learned to spell, but, ironically, I’m still working at its definition. I have learned that it’s not how many words your box contains, or how many syllables are in them, but that the ones that are there belong to you, as much as your own name. My name, "Irene," means "peace" in Greek. My middle name, "Sophia," means "wisdom." I'm still working at those too, hoping one day to achieve them.
