Here is my Evocative Object

A bell just went off. We were habitually late to our French class. In fact, we never liked it. Our teacher had favorites; well, we were not among them. She wasn’t our favorite either. In fact, most of our class did everything we could to avoid actual French in a French class. We would sway her into long philosophical discussions about the meaning of life, just to avoid quizzes on super complex French numbers, which sound more like a math lesson than anything else. Can you image that to say eighty you have to actually say twenty times four.

And so, Ann and I were dragging our feet up the stairs to the fourth floor where the classroom was located. We were unprepared. Undecided whether to skip the lesson completely, we moved as slowly as justifiably possible for a 16 year old. With a left-over sandwich in one hand and a bottle of soda in another, we finally entered the classroom. We walked in, our books in hands, as it was considered disrespectful to unpack your books in class once you were late. “Le Petit Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry”, it said on the board.

This story, broken into small chapters had been scattered throughout our French textbook. We were reading it piece by piece, as our vocabulary arguably grew stronger. With my record of missed French classes, a time well-spent in the park across the street from my school, I never got to read the full story in French. Just some pieces of it. I did read it in full in both Russian and English later on, and I never forget.

Holding it in my hands, eight years later, it not only brings back the musky smell of school cafeteria, the guilt of missed classes, the joy of school years, the insecurity of teenagehood, and the never ending love for language, but also forces me to reflect on the nature of human relations so playfully described by Exupery in what the world sells as a children’s book.

“You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.” This widely quoted phrase pops into my mind every time I mentor a student, every time I meet a new person, and every time I pet my cat. The Little Prince has been a point of connection and departure for several of my life endeavors. I presented it to three of my friends: 1) as a separation gift, 2) another as a reconnection gift, 3) and yet another as an evocative gift, to Ann on her birthday, 8 years after both of us entered that classroom.

We both went back to study French after getting over our “teacher” issues. We live thousands of miles away from each other. But as we open the crispy pages, regardless of what language conveys the story, we are brought together in that one cherished place both of us used to call second home.