Kneel down
Okay, we’re already a little long on this episode so we’ll have to make this part quick. I picked a word that’s easy to explain, but you might not know it. JR didn’t know it, so maybe you need to know what it means too.
Your knees are the part of your body in the middle of your legs. The part of your legs that bend. When you kneel down, you bend your leg at 90 degrees and you support yourself on your knees. So in Roma, the whole family is watching TV. All the seats are taken. To the left of the couch, there is a dish left on the floor. Cleo kneels down to pick it up, when one of the boys puts his arm around her shoulders. She’s kneeling down because there’s nowhere to sit. But because she’s on one knee, she’s about the same height as someone who’s sitting. She’s kneeling down.
If it’s cold outside and there’s a fire in your fireplace, you might kneel down in front of the fire to get warm. If you want to talk to a child, or maybe greet your dog, and you want to do it at his or her level, you might kneel down to pet your dog or talk to a young child. If you are in church, you might kneel down in front of the altar. And depending on your denomination, you might kneel down for part of the church service in your pews. The pews are the seating area in a church. In the church I went to growing up, they had these soft, padded things so that you could kneel down comfortably at the appropriate time without hurting your bony knees on the hard floor.
There was quite a controversy in the National Football League here a few years ago where players would kneel down during the American national anthem as a way of protesting injustice by police. A lot of fans supported them, but others thought you should stand for the national anthem. They thought that kneeling down was a sign of disrespect.
That brings us to the end of today’s episode. I’m so glad to have you with us. Let JR and I know what you think about Roma. Oh—before I forget—JR wanted me to mention that Yalitza Aparicio is on the cover of Vogue (at least the Spanish-language version). So look for that in your neighborhood drugstore or wherever fine magazines are sold near you. I was going to say, let us know what you thought of Roma. [email protected] and [email protected] are our email addresses. Thanks for being with us; we’ll be back with another episode on Thursday.
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