picoliv

Passover sedar. This year it was quiet, just our family with a delicious home cooked meal and our new lovely blue plates and place mats.

We rarely eat in our dining room, which is unfortunate because the lighting is beautiful.
The painting in the background is one of my favorites. It was a gift from a well-known Chinese painter whom my grandmother befriended in Chinatown shop. She has a knack for making friends. This painter sent us many paintings from his studio.

My sedar plate.

Ben's sedar plate. We made these four years ago.

Pouring the wine *coughoranginacough*

This time of year is always very painful for me. The snow has melted and the earth has warmed, the air bubbles and life grows big and full. Ideas and plans churn like frothy orange juice. But they are plans, the reality is that there are still two more months of school left and ten exams. Stress to be had, grades to bring up, nights of little sleep and hours of procrastination. The truth is, when you stay at home doing school (and rigorous school, not cursory half-butted homeschooling like some assume) your home becomes a prison, not a haven. See these walls you know so well, that you could trace in the dark, with smudges of fingerprints, lines of accidental pencil marks?

Do you see the fraying carpet, the dust settled on the window sill? Can you picture it?

The smudges are prints of foreheads banged against walls, the pencil marks are counting the number of days, the fraying carpet is from a constant war with the office chair, the dust is left because you don't want to be reminded of windows and open space when you're trapped inside.

THAT is the truth. I will buy the roses myself, thank you very much.

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OK, so that's an exaggeration. Limitations of language, you know? Sometimes you have to exaggerate in order to conjure a feeling. See: Virginia Woolf, Paul Auster, Laurence Sterne. Try getting to know someone by instant messaging them. It only works for so long. Eventually, the crashing waves must retreat, leaving mangled ditritus and tangled seaweed nestled in wet sand.

ok ok ok that's ANOTHER exaggeration. I don't really believe that. I think I'm in a cynical mood this fine spring evening.

BUT something I always remember is - you can IM someone for two hours and you won't know as much about who they are, what their essence is, than if you spent 10 minutes talking with them face to face.

Why is that? If you're an externally sensitive person, you probably are aware of nuances. How does he carry himself? Does she face you or does she stand at angle from you? Does he make eye contact? Do his pupils dilate? Is her face angled up or down? Does she fidget, lick her lips, scrunch her nose?

Tone of voice: aggressive, passive, dismissive, forced? Confident, gentle, sincere, light hearted?

All o f these cues form a current of noise coming from each person. It's all intuition. You can't learn to interpret the noise. You're either born with the ability or without, though it can be fine-tuned with practice. The noise tells you about someone's character - who they really are, beyond the pleasantries and banter.

If you're still reading, let me give you a brief example.

I'll spare you boring background details. Here's the essence of the story.

A man comes to a relative's house that I'm visiting. I am introduced to him, I watch him talk to my aunt and parents. I observe.

I am told his man will be baby-sitting five of my young cousins while all the parents go out to dinner. I am immediately taken back. Don't let him do that. Do not let him baby sit your kids.

Oh it will be fine, relax.

Later, the parents come home early. What happened?

The man called. Asked when the boys' parents were coming home. Said he couldn't handle it anymore and was going to leave.

Thankfully everything was ok and he didn't leave the five little boys alone in the apartment.

How did I know?

The noise. It never fails. You cannot lie.