I like asking people where they’re from, especially if they have a foreign accent; because of my work, there’s a decent chance I’ve been to their hometown, and if that’s the case we have some common ground.
What amazes me is how no one ever asks me what I was doing there, even when the place is not a major city or a popular destination. I recently met a young woman at the gym, and when I asked her my favorite question, she answered “Romania.”
“Where in Romania?” I asked her.
“Cluj,” she said.
“I’ve been there,” I told her, and she showed no surprise or delight at my familiarity with her hometown. It was as if she was always meeting Americans who’d visited Cluj. Not only did I know her hometown, I knew – because I’d been there on a tour of Transylvania with a Hungarian friend – the Hungarian name for it: Kolozsvár. This information I kept to myself.
Since her retirement, Hania's become a big fan of the morning traffic report.
At the Polish festival in Esplanade Park on Sunday we approached a small group speaking Polish. The woman closest to me put out her hand and I looked down at it with a kind of shock. Not wishing to be rude I clasped it in my own, and experienced the frisson of a forbidden pleasure.
I had a session with a speech therapist this week, not about my speech – which has been minimally affected – but about my swallowing. I’d been told she would have exercises for me to do and I was curious as to what they could be.
The main one was to put the tip of my tongue on the roof of my mouth, just behind my front teach, and then swallow my saliva. I did it, with difficulty. But also with less pain than I had when swallowing normally. Over the next few days I found it easy to exercise because it produced the most pleasurable swallows.
Last night, in a dream, I successfully nibbled on a cookie.
My surgeon told me that mine was not “minor surgery” and he was correct. I spent five days in the hospital and now – two weeks later – I am still very far from back to normal. The main thing is the pain in my throat, followed by the discomfort of the scar running along the base of my neck on the right side. Hania says it looks as though someone tried to cut my head off and lost interest halfway through. Then there are the side effects of the medications that involve parts of the body far removed from the throat. I have had no solid food since March 28, a diet that has caused me to lose 10 pounds (despite my intake of high-protein shakes). But, waking up this morning, I had the impression that things were getting better.
The other day in the parking lot I saw one of those white oval stickers with the initials of a place printed in black and the name of the place printed in much smaller letters underneath. This one had – instead of KW (Key West) or LBI (Long Beach Island) – WTF (Welcome to Florida).