The Language of Romeo

I teach English at our local high school. I hope Mrs. Finster, my English teacher from days of old, never finds out. She would be the first to testify to my lack of qualifications for the job; but in Israel it is enough that English be your mother tongue and the language they speak in the USA is close enough and so I got the job.

Israeli kids study English the way their American peers learn French and German, as a foreign language, and barely scratch the surface of American literature, let alone the classic works of our British cousins over the sea. There are a few English speakers in the student body and I suggested that we read Shakespeare together after school. Three girls in the 9th grade took me up on my offer and we sit together in the library every Tuesday afternoon. By popular demand we started with Romeo and Juliet.

I think that Shakespeare wrote the play in an international language that only the young and romantic can understand. I help the girls with the Elizabethan English, but it's obvious that the girls are much more fluent than I. I can read Shakespeare, but they understand Romeo and Juliet. They giggle and sigh and pick up on every detail. The guest list for Capulet's masquerade ball refers to Rosaline, Romeo's "ex", as a lady of the house of Capulet.
"Oh…" The girls exchange meaningful glances. Romeo likes the Capulet girls. These territorial nuances are very important in the 9th grade. I wouldn't know. It's been a long time since I was in high school.


Today someone reminded me of something long ago.
She had given me some ribbon, and I returned it with a bow.
Something small that she has treasured, some 30 years or so.
It was romantic; once I knew the language of Romeo.

Perhaps if I would have known how precious something small can be, I would have given more. Given more, remembered more. But back then I was forgetting more and remembering less; and now I teach English and little girls understand the words I used to know.

It's not as if I'm deaf and dumb. I've learned another language. One word and a hand on my hand can mean more than line after line of declarations of undying love. I didn't learn how to speak less and say more over night, and I didn't learn it alone. We learned it together, my Juliet and I. We created it word by word and it's a language that only two can know.

Hands

As life writes our stories, our bodies are the manuscript. It draws wrinkles on our faces along the creases of smiles and frowns and it colors in our skin. Experiences and lifestyle drum the rythym of our gait and shape our posture. Maybe that is why I'm not a telephone person. I need to see someone to really know who I'm talking to. I need to look into their eyes, to read their body language. And I need to see their hands. Hands are one of the things that define us as human beings. Besides the brain, hands are what set us apart from all other animals save the apes. The dexterity and versatility of the human hand has more than compensated for the vulnerable, weak and furless bodies God created us with. They have enabled us to build, throw, write, shoot, and an endless number of feats. Their role in society is second only to speech. A show of hands means consent and opened they reveal intention. Hands communicate, comfort, curse and worship. Hands shaken and hands held have volumes of meaning.

Hands tell a lot about a person. They have been major participants in virtually every enterprize, companions on every adventure and our life experience is carved in their lines, muscle tone and texture. The grip, the calluses, the scars, the skin tone; they bear silent witness of our journey in this world.
Hands can tell a story. I am gathering photos of hands, and I want to use them to paint a picture of their owners. Naturally, I'm biased; I know these people. This isn't science. Maybe it's art.

Maybe that's what hands are. Perhaps they are more than tools that we use to shape our world, as much as an expression of ourselves as our creations.
Maybe they are in and of themselves, works of art.

Hands

When I started this series about hands, it was more out of impulse than intent. I just noticed how interesting hands are sometimes. But what could they tell me, and what could I tell about them, or rather, about their owners?

Surprisingly, quite a bit. Sometimes I the hands were a venue to express what I wanted to say anyway; and then there times when I looked at the hands and they made me think about a side of the human being attached to them that hadn't occured to me before. And then there were hands that didn't give me much to say, but a lot to ask.

Thanks to all of you that "gave me a hand" with this project.

................Mel................................>>.................Brianna..........>>>>>........................................Leroy

Barry and Brenda..................................................Odelia..........................................................Brittany



..............Maayan..............................................................Xiu................................................................Pat



.....the English Staff...............................................Yael..........................................................Netanel

And special thanks to Stephanie that didn't lend a hand, but came up with that hogwash about me being a warrior instead.

(Links to the entries can be made by clicking on the Names.)

Barry and Brenda

These hands are very pale,
They never see the sun.
These hands are very busy,
They have no time for fun.

.

.

,

..

.

..

,

.
.These hands have a job;
They have a house to keep.
These hands are always working,
They have no time for sleep.

.

.

.

.
.

.

.

These hands work together,
one mind, one flesh, one plate.
To understand the one,
you have to see the mate.

The Ladies on the English Staff

You're not snobs,
just a bit better.
.
A little culture,
a lot of cultivation.
.
One has to know more than English
to understand you.
.
.
You teach your students a language,
and the rest of us the difference between a woman that speaks English
and a lady.