En la biblioteca

I attended Catholic high school from 1969 to 1973.  We learned “Spanish ALM”, which the teacher presented on 45 RPM records played at the front of the classroom.  We learned a new lesson each day.

The first lesson had the dubious title, “Antes de la clase”, which if memory serves, means, “Before class”.  Students mingle around chatting with each other in Spanish ALM.  The first line is, “Hola, chica, como estas?” which apparently signaled the familiarity of the speaker with the female listener.

In 1980, I started law school at UMKC, across the state from my childhood home where the high school had been located.  At an early-days party, someone asked me if I spoke a foreign language and I assured them that yes, I did — I spoke Spanish ALM.  The person looked confused.  With no more encouragement than their puzzled countenance, I spoke that first line:

Hola, chica, como estas.  .  .

From across the room came line two:

Bien, gracias, y tu?

A countryman!  We hollered lines across the room with gleeful abandon, little regard for those caught between us, and only a slight alcoholic slur.

The second lesson of Spanish ALM involved the speaker’s quest to find the library.

The first line:  Donde esta la biblioteca. . .

Apparently, the faculty and staff of the school which features in the Spanish ALM lessons does not give orientation to new students, so that they wander lost until another student appears to rescue them.

I got lost yesterday myself.  I stepped into a depression and found myself floundering, sinking lower and lower.  I retreated, shut down, buried myself.  Eventually I found myself alone at home, contemplating my reflection, with its broken glasses and the knot on my left eye.  Other faces drifted through the mirror.  I found myself thinking of my little brother, who would be 54 in 17 days had he not surrendered to his own depression; of my mother, who died of medical malpractice 20 days before her 59th birthday, half my lifetime ago; of my friend Elizabeth Unger Carlisle, a post-conviction remedies attorney who specializes in death penalty appeals and who has had an excruciatingly painful month of loss.

I had slated myself to stay home for the insulation company today, and had a trial case full of files and work.  In the way of things, my contractor’s wife re-scheduled the delivery of their child, and he arrived at 8 this morning with the insulation guys on his heels.  I retreated to the public library, which I had no trouble finding.  In the silence of its large lobby, with coffee at hand, I’ve gotten all my work done.

I’ve also soothed my soul.  Life continues.

08 December 2015,

from the Plaza Library, Kansas City, Missouri

1208151344

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