Translating a World on the Edge

For the last week or so, I’ve been watching The Three Little Pigs on Netflix. It’s Disney’s original 1933 version and my grandchildren love it as much as their parents did. You know the story. The first little pig builds his house of flimsy straw, the second pig builds his house of destructible sticks, and the third little pig builds a model house, a house of sturdy bricks. The first and second pigs hurry to get through quickly so they can go to play. The third little pig builds slow and methodically, mortaring between each brick. He doesn’t have time to kick up his heels. And then comes the Big Bad Wolf. He blows down the haphazard houses of the first and second little pigs and threatens to eat them. So they run for safety to their brother’s house of brick.

My husband and I met at seventeen and married…