The other day my son, Porter, and his class were each writing notes of support to a school secretary who is going through cancer. I never saw his letter, but from what I can gather it started out encouragingly enough, something about we’re proud of you, we know you can do it. But then there’s a postscript where we meet Porter himself.

“P.S. Sorry about the nose hairs, I hear they’re the worst.”

No context, nothing. He was so proud of himself.

When I stopped laughing I said, “You have no idea if she’s even having chemo.”

“Well, she’s bald.”

By the way, losing your nose hairs really is the worst, and strangely enough turned out to be the hairs I was most eager to welcome back after chemo. Nobody had mentioned that constant drip, blood clots, and blocked breathing are actually staved off by the unsightly hairs, the same ones cartoonists exaggerate to signify a grizzled or unsavory character. But none of this is common knowledge, so I’m very much hoping she knows his heart is in the right place.

Recently Porter entertained me with a little vaudevillian ballet, performed with all the stunning grace of a seventeen-year-old boy who’s never had a lesson. “Tendu, Graaaaaand Plier, then Kicks,” lifting his leg not unlike a dog marking his territory. “I’m a male danseur,” he said, with a sly grin. He only knows that term because the day before I had told him there was no such thing as a “ballerino.” Our apologies to actual dancers out there, we admire what you do, but neither of us understands more than the surface, which means we don’t have a clue what it’s really all about. I did meet a real ballerino once, at the McDonalds in São Paulo, Brazil. Some big deal New York Ballet troupe was performing at the opulent opera house next door, a sister theater to the Palais Garnier of Paris. The ballerino and his ballerina friend were next to me at the counter as he attempted to order lunch in Spanish so broken it would have been hard for a Spaniard to interpret, let alone a Brazilian who actually speaks PORTUGUESE. I offered my assistance, but he looked at me like I was something he should kill with a newspaper, then went back to his little train wreck. He didn’t know what it was all about either, so I guess we’re even.

George Bernard Shaw said, “The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” The biggest problem with that famous quote is that four other people may also have originated it, and Shaw himself may not have used those exact words, but this only serves to prove the point: everything gets lost in translation, words, actions, and intentions. I’d like to introduce you to my mother, but that would be like dropping my favorite ballerino into a Brazilian McDonalds, so I’ll tell you stories and let you try to figure her out for yourself. Read More