5. I love catching adults doing things they should probably have never started doing in the first place but definitely should have outgrown by the fourth grade. The first time I saw a person eat his own boogers is a memory that for some reason my mind has held onto and perfectly preserved like the ancient Egyptians with their pharaohs. I was in the second grade, new to the school and sat toward the back of the room, the perfect location for wearily observing my fellow peers. One day while amusing myself by watching my classmate Mark determinedly digging around in his nose for the perfect little morsel, I watched in confusion and horror (and as my memory recalls, slow motion) as his finger, with said morsel perched atop it, travelled from his nostril to his mouth. Instinct told me to cry out and warn him, “Mark wait! You don’t know what you’re doing!” certain that he just must not realize that while probing around in his nose, something attached itself to his finger which was now about to enter his mouth! It wasn’t until his lips closed around his finger and I heard the satisfying slurp as he sucked it off that I realized that this action was completely deliberate. I was disgusted yet intrigued that someone would intentionally eat something that came out of their nose. And now, ever since that day sitting in the back of Mrs. Marafino’s 2nd grade classroom, anytime I see someone picking their nose I wait anxiously, eyes fixed on them, to see if whatever they find up there will be deemed as trash or treat, snot or snack. Mark was the first but he was definitely not the last and I have seen many a booger consumed since, usually by children. However, there is the occasional adult who just never grew out of that phase, who still craves the salty snack so conveniently provided by our own bodies. I was walking home from a festival in the park the other day when I saw a grown man eating his boogers, in broad daylight, masses of people all around and zero attempt at discretion, as if it were a completely acceptable adult behavior. I stood and stared, also with zero discretion, as his finger repeatedly traveled from the inside of his nose to the inside of his mouth, numerous times, like he just couldn’t get enough of a good thing.
6. I love that rather than just being a tool for recreation as they are in the United States, Razor scooters have inserted themselves in Budapestian society as a practical and widely-accepted means of transportation. Before I came to Budapest, I thought of razor scooters as a short-lived fad among young children and adolescents. You can imagine my delight then when I saw an entire family, mom, dad and three kids in-tow, scooting their way across one of the many bridges over the Danube. As with the booger snacking, this would be the first of many such sightings. Adults of all ages, men in suits and women in heels can be seen daily zipping around the city to their various destinations with the wind in their hair, sun on their faces, and youthful zeal in their swinging leg pushing them along; a significantly more pleasant commute than sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
7. I love when things get lost in translation. Have you ever used google to translate a web page into English and even though it’s riddled with grammatical errors, most of the time you can pretty much get the gist of what it says, but then sometimes it’s just a bunch of random words all jumbled up into one nonsensical mess? So we were eating out at a Chinese restaurant last week and even though I love the act of eating to a degree above that which is probably considered to be healthy, my favourite part of the meal actually came at the end, when the eating had ceased and we were given the bill (This is usually my least favourite part, unless someone other than myself is paying for it, then it feels kind of exciting like I just won something). Included on the receipt amongst the carbonated water and unexceptional vegetarian egg rolls and fried rice was “Exploding fried potato silk”…..perhaps also known as potato chips? Hash browns? We’re still trying to figure it out.
8. I love how kids have no concept of time. In my church I teach a Sunday school class for kids ages 5- 11. I usually like to start off the class by asking them to share something good or exciting that happened to them during the week. We had a cute 5-year-old girl who was in our class for the first time last Sunday so I explained what we did at the start of each class and began with the kid at the end of the row opposite her so she could have time to think of something. When it got to be her turn I said, “Okay, what is something good or fun that you got to do this week?” And she sat there for a minute in her red fluffy dress, dangling her feet clad in sparkly red shoes as she thought real hard before looking up at me and saying in her sweet little voice that was almost a whisper, “Um, I don’t know what a week is.” Amazing. Not the only time I’ve felt jealous of a five-year-old.
9. I love good live music that really makes you feel. Jare and I recently went to see Austra a Canadian band we like, at a venue just a walk away from our flat, and you know how even though you are alive you can sometimes feel kind of dead (ok, “dead” sounds a little melodramatic, you could substitute the eloquent “blah” for dead here if you’d prefer) but you don’t even realize that you feel that way until something happens that makes you feel alive again and you think “Oh yeah, I remember this feeling!” Well that something was Austra and their mystical, enchanting, theatrical, and completely uninhibited ways. Watching them onstage with their neon makeup and eccentric clothing, they seemed free of fear and had this liberating air of complete disregard for social pressures and constraints. The lead singer’s free spirit was infectious and spread throughout the entire audience until we were all jumping and dancing to her magnetic voice accompanied by the band’s electronic sounds that were sometimes so loud it vibrated the inside of my face and made my nose tickle. Other than the lack of space for adequate twirling, arm flinging and body flailing, it was one of those perfect rare moments when I was exactly where I wanted to be, doing exactly what I wanted to be doing and I loved life, and I think I loved it so much because I felt alive you know? I mean really alive, like every cell of my body had been woken up, and I could suddenly see things more clearly and feel things more vibrantly. I felt perfectly happy, free of worry and stress caused by the silly things in life that unnecessarily crowd my mind with anxiety. it was perfect and I felt completely lost in the moment and my mind felt free and inspired and we were both suddenly convinced that making music and performing shows like this was exactly what we needed to be doing and everything else that did not directly contribute to achieving that goal was an unnecessary distraction in our lives that should be immediately done away with. That feeling lasted until the next morning when we woke up and continued to go about business as usual, but every now and then, we see or experience something again that makes us believe or maybe reminds us rather, that we are meant for something greater than the day-to-day grind we are currently caught up in. There’s this aching desire to do something great with our lives, to create positive change in the world. Somehow though, that feeling fades so quickly, like it’s just a glimpse that you get, but how do you hold onto that feeling and turn that glimpse into a gaze so you don’t wake up the next morning and just go about your lives exactly as you did before when you were ‘dead’ and didn’t even know it?
Why do we not act on those feelings? Why do we let them slip away while we simultaneously slip back into complacency instead of dropping everything right then and chasing after them? Is it because there’s too much risk in it? Is it because we worry that by so doing, we would not be able to fulfill our other responsibilities and therefore let others down? Is it because it perhaps requires doing something outside the norm and other people won’t understand? I get easily frustrated and overwhelmed sometimes with this heavy feeling that my life and the things I’m doing are not necessarily meaningless but not meaningful enough and I am not the big positive force in the world that I want to be. I get down on myself for not doing things every day that really matter. Like what are we doing sitting in classes for hours a day when there are people to feed, songs to write, the sad to uplift, and gardens to grow? Jaron wisely points out though, that the steps to achieving something great are more often than not mundane, monotonous, seemingly selfish, and boring but if you can have the foresight and the patience to wade through that monotony to the point of it paying off, you can do really really great things. I think it’s daunting to leave the beaten path, the surety and stability of a well-traveled road with its ruts already worn in for you to follow, and head off into the tall grasses of uncertainty where lies the possibility of losing your way or encountering danger. But somewhere there in the chaos of the tall grass lies also the possibility of finding something far greater than perhaps you’d have ever found while clinging to the safety of the road already traveled by so many who have gone before.
10. I love space heaters. I just love them so much. Would you believe that along with an immersion blender and a bottle of beer, that this blessed apartment came stocked with a space heater as well?! Amazing. I’ve developed quite the intimate relationship with this wonderful grey little gizmo. We never stray too far from one another and spend a large portion of every day in close contact. Wherever I go it goes and provides me with a constant stream of hot air like the Sirocco winds from the Sahara (minus the dust). The only thing keeping me from taking it to bed with me is the bold lettering on top that says “DO NOT COVER!” I fail to see the risk involved in this though. The only downside I can really think of to snuggling with it under the blankets is that maybe I die of shock when, as I’m falling asleep, I notice that the ten little icicles I’m accustomed to having attached at the ends of my feet as I climb into bed have suddenly become ten piping hot little sausages and actually, when you think about it, is that really even a downside? I mean dying in my bed blissfully happy with toasty warm toes? Doesn’t sound like too shabby of a way to go if you ask me. Not too shabby at all.
Next week: Extreme disparity in the animal world
