My favorite school tradition in Hungary is the serenade. This is where graduating seniors sing to their teachers (and, on one occasion, vice versa). In the “old days” (up to about a decade ago, from what I hear), the students used to go to the teachers’ houses and sing outside. The teachers would then invite them in and offer them a beverage (tea, lemonade, soda, sometimes beer or pálinka).* That practice was abandoned, but the school serenades and end-of-year banquet have taken their place. First of all, students serenade individual teachers just before their last class with them. This is happening in the photo above (I was the serenaded teacher). Sometimes the serenades are more formal and practiced, sometimes more spontaneous.

Then, in the midst of the individual serendades, there is also a big serenade one evening (we held it on Tuesday). There, all the seniors sing, class by class, for all the teachers, and the teachers (holding candles) sing a few songs in return.

At the end of the serenade week (that is, today), we hold the graduation ceremony. This year, the schoolwide and citywide ceremonies are on the same day, one after another. The schoolwide ceremony is much like a graduation in the U.S., except that parents typically aren’t present, and before the ceremony begins, the seniors and their homeroom teachers walk hand in hand through the school, from classroom to classroom, singing (and the classrooms are decorated with flowers). The citywide ceremony is a grand procession through the streets, with songs and flowers, and a final release of balloons. I will be in the procession for the first time, since I am the “pótosztályfőnök” (approximately: substitute homeroom teacher) for one of the classes. In past years, I was on the sidelines along with large crowds of parents, teachers, and students.

The seniors don’t have classes after this week; their exams begin. The underclassmen continue with their classes through mid-June, and exams continue until the end of June. When the seniors finish their last exam, another ceremony takes place, followed by a banquet (an informal gathering of students and teachers, hosted by the students, at a local restaurant). Our school year officially ends on July 3.

I have to end here, since the festivities will shortly begin!

*Alcohol is never provided at school events involving students. However, at the end-of-year banquet (for graduated seniors and their teachers), it is common for students and teachers to have a drink together; this symbolizes the students’ transition to adulthood and a new stage of education. From what I hear, alcohol was sometimes also part of the home serenades as well.

First of all, last night I went to Martfű (about half an hour away by train) to see a gala folk dance performance featuring the Tisza Táncegyüttes and several other groups. Two of my students and a former student were in it; they have been dancing for years, and you can see their love and expertise. They put so much zest, skill, and care into each gesture, each step, each syllable of the songs (they are often singing and dancing at the same time) that I couldn’t help getting caught up in the joy. The performers (in different groups) ranged from about 5 to 50. With the dancers in their late teens, you could see their work and talent taking distinctive form. They know how to work together, but each has a particular personality that comes out through the dances.

The week has been a bit of a whirlwind. Monday was the Shakespeare festival, a rousing success. That evening, my cats escaped through the window (the screen popped open and rolled upward while I had fallen asleep at my desk and actually fallen from the chair). I retrieved Sziszi right away but couldn’t manage to get Dominó, although I spotted him many times that night. The next day was my birthday, and while I sat outside early in the morning and late at night, I didn’t see him at all. On Wednesday night, my neighbor and I saw him, but he wouldn’t let me come close. On Thursday I went out with his favorite treat, chicken ham, and he came out from under a car to me and cuddled against me when I picked him up. He seemed delighted to be back home; he rolled over and over.

On Wednesday, for the professional development week, I gave a demo lesson (observed by two colleagues) in which my students and I read and discussed Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “The Fish.” My colleagues were duly impressed by my students’ ability to understand and talk about this complex poem in such a short time. We began by looking at the first and last lines (“I caught a tremendous fish”; “And I let the fish go.”). I told them, “So our goal is to figure out how the poem goes from here to there.” We considered the vocabulary closely, looking not only at the meanings of the words but at their role in the poem. At the end, I asked my students to connect the poem, in any way they saw fit, with Rilke’s “Archaic Torso of Apollo” (which they had already read); not only did they have a lot to say (a student pointed out that Rilke’s “You must change your life” actually happens—the changed life, that is—in Bishop’s poem), but just when I thought we had brought an end to the discussion, a student had more to say: she pointed out how, in Rilke’s poem, the speaker perceives the beauty of the torso right away, whereas in “The Fish,” it’s a gradual perception that ultimately becomes so overwhelming that the speaker has no regrets when she lets the fish go.

All week I was working on an exciting translation project that I finished today. It will be released soon, and I will say more about it then.

Speaking of translations, my translation of Sándor Jászberényi’s story “Nyugati történet” (“A Western Tale”) was published yesterday in the Spring 2023 issue of BODY. That’s the first of my Jászberényi translations to be published, as far as I know. In 2021 I translated his story collection A varjúkirály (King of the Crows); this is one of the stories. The translated book will find a publisher before long, I think.

I will leave off with some photos taken in the past few weeks.

I brought up sacrifice in a recent post but didn’t explain what I meant by it. The word can evoke strong reactions and associations: slaughtered animals on the altar, Christ on the cross, children’s guilt (“just think of how much we have sacrificed for you”). But there is a simpler way of thinking about it.

“Sacrifice” derives from the concept of “making something sacred” through an offering to God. Yet in secular terms it may mean that we are mortal and can’t have or do everything. Having one thing means not having something else; doing one thing means not doing something else. Not only do we have to choose, but we have to give something up.

We come under pressure to be and do everything, or at least to believe that we can (and to speak the jargon of such belief). Especially in U.S. American culture, with growth mindset, positivity, happiness movements, and such, it is shameful to suggest that we have limits.

Limits mean not having something, giving something up, letting something go. There is something sacred (even for the secular) in those relinquishments, as insignificant as they may seem, because we make them for eternity. True, at a different future moment we could take a different tack, but that’s already a different moment.

Understood in this way, sacrifices don’t have to be particularly virtuous, grandiose, or even conscious. They happen whether we like it or not, whether we know it or not. Sometimes they do stand out; sometimes they do involve some kind of greatness of spirit. But often they escape our notice or just dimly cross our mind.

Wait, someone might protest, aren’t you betraying the meaning of sacrifice here? Isn’t it supposed to involve the holy? Well, holiness hides in unlikely places. Maybe Abraham’s not sacrificing Isaac was a sacrifice in its own right. Maybe holiness lies not in grand acts, but in the willingness, here and there, even invisibly, to let something go. Or, in some cases, to insist on something, even to the point of alienating others. Or to live quietly, without fanfare.

This all seems to get confusing and equivocal: if anything can be a sacrifice, then sacrifice means nothing. But that isn’t so. Each person has to live out a life that won’t be anyone else’s. Within it, nothing can be undone. Some choices, directions are better than others, but every life will have its mistakes.

This gives no guidance about right and wrong, but at least it makes room for a certain kind of finiteness, the kind which in turn may open into infinity.

Most of us have gifts that can become faults when taken too far or brought into the wrong context. For me, a combination of seriousness, immersion, excitement, and brazen determination has allowed me to do things, both alone and with others, that never would have happened otherwise. Books, translations, dramatic productions, literary journals, literary events, musical projects, moving to Hungary and learning Hungarian—all of this took considerable enthusiasm and stubbornness. I never wanted to be selfish about it; I wanted to take others into account. Most of the time, people appreciated my dedication and relied on my judgement, even when I was treating the project as the most important thing on earth. Even when I pestered them repeatedly.

But there’s a recurring mistake I make every 8-10 years or so: I get excited about something (happily) and become temporarily insistent and impatient (not so happily). The latter part can throw people off and upset them. I see my mistake promptly, but it is done.

Anyone who knows me can picture this; when I was younger it happened frequently. After I hit forty, it happened three significant times: once in 2005 or so, once in 2015, and once this year (I am not going into details). These stand out because of their importance to me. There may have been smaller instances too, but nothing that reached this pitch.

The two previous times, I talked about the situation to a few carefully chosen people—people with no connection to those involved. Their advice was usually unhelpful (if not downright confusing), along the lines of “So-and-so isn’t worth your time and attention.” That seems to be the default response these days: labeling others as toxic or, at best, “not worth your time.” But it’s just an escape; it doesn’t get to the heart of the matter. When a misunderstanding happens, we usually have something to do with it. It isn’t necessarily all our fault; no good comes from complete self-blame. But some sort of fault is there. Also, others have dignity; they don’t deserve to be called “not worth” someone’s time. Everyone is worth someone’s time. That does not mean that everyone has time for everyone.

I had my part in this. It seems that things go wrong when I want something not for a project, but at least partly for myself (and especially when I show any kind of hurt or disappointment). This isn’t because it’s wrong to want something for myself. Rather, others aren’t necessarily prepared for this, and I am not very good at conveying both clearly and gently that something is important to me. Also, others are not obligated to do anything just because it’s important to me; they may feel pushed (just as I feel pushed sometimes). It is hard to express a wish or need without seeming demanding and controlling. I understand this well; I recoil at subtle and not-so subtle personal demands and manipulation.

The ideal approach would be to state that it is important to me, but then let go of it and let the other person do whatever he or she wants. Take away all “shoulds,” take away any rush or urgency (unless there is a real deadline), remove them even internally, and go on with life. This is extremely hard to do, especially in our online hyper-connected world, never mind our culture of entitlement. But it can be done.

People do like to do nice things for others, after all, but they like to do them freely. I do too. The problem is that it’s so hard to ask for anything at all, or convey that it means something, without having it come across as a demand.

But even when you express yourself generously and briefly, you can be misunderstood. As soon as you bring yourself into the picture, people can perceive you as pushy or worse. Or, at the other end of things, your words may go unnoticed because you were so gentle about them.

In the end, how others react is less important than how I handle things. Yes, their reaction is important too. Others’ responses reflect my actions at least somewhat—and I don’t want to bother or hurt anyone. But even if I were perfect, which I will never be, misunderstandings will happen. I cannot always prevent or fix them.

I was thinking about this yesterday when reading Camus’ “The Guest” with my students. In the story, set in Algeria, the schoolmaster Daru is handed an Arab prisoner (accused of murdering his cousin) and instructed to hand him into the authorities. Daru, who lives between two worlds (being of French origin but an Algerian native) does not want to do this. He ends up giving the prisoner a free choice (and the prisoner chooses to walk in the direction of the authorities, to turn himself in). When Daru returns to the classroom, he sees scrawled on the blackboard the message, “You handed over our brother. You will pay for this.”

We talked about how even though we are fortunately not in situations where our decisions cost us our lives, the story is true for us too; we can never guarantee that our actions will be understood. People might take them as their opposite. This does not mean that they don’t matter. They matter, not because of how others respond, but because they shape us.

In all three situations mentioned earlier, I did not say a single bad word about the others involved (neither before, nor during, nor after the conflict), did not descend into gossip, and took a serious look at my own part. I tried to reconcile, and succeeded in part, over time.

But where my previous “bad advisors” may have been slightly right was this: It isn’t that the others weren’t worth my time, or otherwise defective; rather, they weren’t in a position to meet my needs, no matter how small or big, temporary or lasting. They had their own lives, worthy in themselves, not really overlapping with mine.

Sometimes my needs are so simple, a tiny gesture can make me happy for weeks or longer. But that isn’t the point. People have their radius of attention and are wary of expanding or overpacking it, because there isn’t time. This I understand well. There’s so much that can wear us out and take our focus away. I too have to limit my focus. I have so much to do and also have to make more room for my life. By “my life” I mean not only my work and projects, but rest, health, and people close to me.

Just look at this day. We had the day off for the March 15 holiday commemorating the Revolution of 1848. I have spent most of the day mulling over the questions of this blog post. It has done me good, but how much else there is to do too.

The mulling, too, is both a gift and a fault. I am good at looking at myself when things go wrong, not to berate myself, but to sort things out and put them in perspective. A person can do much worse than this. But I spend too much time on it. I wouldn’t call it neurotic—neuroticism repeats itself, whereas this moves toward understanding or peace—but still, it’s a bit too much. Also, it’s futile; I could double the time spent, and it would do nothing for the resolution. Sometimes answers really do come when you finally forget the question, as Csenger Kertai suggests in his poem “Dokkolás” (“Docking”). I believe that this will be the case here. Giving it a rest, a true rest, a full rest, will be the best gift, not only to the others, but to me. That in itself may seem a platitude, but it isn’t. Rest is profound and difficult. And needed.

The photo of the Hautes Plaines (“High Plains”, Arabic: الهضاب العليا, in northern Algeria) is courtesy of Wikipedia.