Walking in Yekaterinburg

 

Walking the Iset

The Iset is the river that flows through Yekaterinburg (named after Peter the Great's wife, Catherine I), Russia where I’ve been living since late autumn. Along the river is my favorite place to walk. I’ve only walked about a mile of it, which can get repetitive. There are a couple of small, wooded parks along this stretch of the river that I occasionally stroll through. They help break the monotony, though it is hard to get tired of looking at and listening to a flowing river.  

Here are three different views of some art on display in one of the parks along the Iset.

Thank God for winter. With the onset of Russian winter, a part of the river pools in a wide-open area and freezes, and people use this as a short cut. No bridge needed! This is not allowed, but many locals do it to save themselves hours of time of walking all the way around, so I figured, while in Yekaterinburg . . .

On one side of the road, the river runs freely; on the other side, it pools and, while still flowing, looks more like a pond or lake.

I walked on frozen lakes when I lived in Minnesota. I remember following my boyfriend onto a frozen lake for the first time, gingerly putting one foot at a time out in front of me and tapping the ice before committing my 120 or so pounds to it. And I listened closely for splitting sounds. Over time, I got more comfortable. I learned some of the science behind being on ice. The ice needs to be 4” thick to support a person up to 200 pounds, 5” for a snowmobile, 8-12” for a crowd or small vehicle and 12-15” for a truck or SUV. But this business of walking over flowing as opposed to standing water was new to me.

As wind will ripple the surface of a pool of water, so it ripples the snowy ice, reminding me that what is underneath me is flowing. 

It’s a little less than a mile to walk from our apartment to the river. How I dress is, naturally, determined by the weather. This is the only time I ever check the weather because otherwise, what difference does it make? When it was 27 degrees below zero, I wore everything in my closet. I did look a little strange, but I stayed warmish. The day I started writing this post, it was 27 above, so I left my down coat at home and ventured out in a sweater and light jacket. (Mom, I'm not in Phoenix any more!) I didn’t want to wear my mask (my cold weather mask) because the day was so sunny and bright, and I needed my sunglasses. They fog up when I wear them with my mask. I’d forgotten to check the wind speed before setting out. It was gentle, but that still makes it colder. To determine wind direction and speed, all a meteorologist would need to do is attach a wind gauge to my forehead. If I’m walking north, the wind will be northerly; if I’m walking east, the wind will be easterly, etc. I understand my great-great-grandpa walking uphill both directions to school.

The first time I contemplated crossing the frozen Iset, I stood on the sidewalk and looked at all the people walking across and those sitting, looking intently into their ice holes, fishing. It must be safe, I thought to myself, look at all of them. So, I chose a well-worn (but not too well-worn) path and crossed. I started out slowly, just in case, picked up speed and finished quickly, just in case. And I prayed, God help this fool. Gratefully, I made it across and this became my new route.

I like walking in Yekaterinburg, whether along the river or the city streets. People walk here, rather than saunter. Most places I walk, I'm always winding my way around others and I rarely get passed. Here, I get passed every time I go out. I love it (unless they’re smoking). In so many cities, people stroll along the sidewalks so slowly, it makes me crazy with impatience. And they do it three and four abreast taking up the entire breadth of the sidewalk. Four women in Munich walked into me carrying my groceries home, causing me to land in the street, then yelled something in German at me! Sometimes the most efficient way to get by is to play a surprise game of Red Rover with them and burst through from behind to the other side.

This chubby guy was welcoming people into a restaurant.

This pair of statues represent the two main characters from a popular Russian story/movie called The Twelve Chairs. Briefly, it's about a man whose mother, on her deathbed, told him that she'd hidden the family fortune, her diamonds, from the Bolsheviks in one of the dining room chair cushions. Their furniture was taken from them by the communists after the Russian revolution. He sets out to find them in hopes of regaining the fortune. It's full of funny escapades and witty characters.

Above are three views of The Stonecutter's House. there are several charming, elaborate wooden structures similar to this scattered through Yekaterinburg, each with its own story.  

Walking in the extreme cold is an experience. My eyes get teary if it’s windy and my tears freeze on my lashes. (For some rather spectacular pictures of frozen lashes, google or Bing search frozen lashes images.) My nose runs when I’m just sitting indoors, but something happens (contraction of nasal passages and such stuff) when I go outside that my nose turns into a dike that needs a finger stuck in it. (But I'm trying not to do that, especially in public.) I take plenty of tissues with me when I walk, but getting the tissue to the nose is no easy task. When it was 27 below, I had to debate whether I thought I could get my gloves, hat and mask off before the drippage froze or my fingers frostbitten. (I can’t get my mask off without taking off my gloves because my gloves stick to the Velcro; I have to take my hat off because it covers part of the mask fastening. It’s complicated.) I don’t like the idea of the drippage building up in my mask right above my lips, so I often wind up taking it all off (from the neck up) and blowing my nose. We have precious little Puff’s Plus with us here, so I ration them. Douglas is not allowed to use them. (He blows his nose only when coming in from the cold, about twice a day. He can use the thin, stiff, local stuff.) Yesterday, I dropped one of my Puff’s Plus—an unused one. It was windy. I gave chase. It flitted from snowy patch to icy patch with me in pursuit until I finally caught it. It was dirty. I was in a quandary over what to do with it. Throwing it away was not an option. Putting it in my pocket with the (various stages of) clean ones was not an option, so I held onto it hoping it would dry in the wind. (I could brush it off and use it later.) All the way home, I looked like I was surrendering.

You might need a magnifying glass to see my lashes, let alone the frost on them, but it's all there.

A couple of weeks ago, I started seeing a change in the ice. Where there had been snow everywhere, there were spots that looked suspiciously like water. Maybe it’s just ice from which the snow has blown, I thought. I pondered this before setting out. Was it melting? It was still below freezing, in the twenties. I still saw people walking across. I still saw people sitting on their ice holes fishing. An igloo someone had made stood near the shore, as did a gazebo that had been set up on the ice on which no one was allowed to walk. (Go figure.) I decided to chance it, and I crossed successfully.

Men enjoying the final days of ice fishing on the Iset River.

It’s now officially spring and I know the ice won’t last forever, so every time I start to cross, I give the river the once-over. As long as I see people crossing it without suddenly disappearing into it, I’ll cross. Last week, on my way across I got my boot wet, and my toes. This happened when I strayed slightly from the set path to get out of someone’s way coming from the opposite shore. Lesson learned. Don’t stray from the path. I thought I learned that in all those fairy tales I read. But how can the path be so firm and a few inches away be so slushy and wet?

On one of my walks, in keeping with one of my coping mechanisms to combat depression during this pandemic, I decided I needed a change. So when I got to the open area, I decided not just to cross the river, but to crisscross it. There are several worn paths that people use crossing to and from various points. With the advent of the slush and wet toes, part of my new routine is inspecting the ice by looking over it and determining whether or not I see any arms waving frantically from the river. If I see more people casually crossing than frantically waving arms, I cross. That day I crossed about eight times. Fun.

I'll leave you with one more street picture for Easter. It still amazes me to walk down the street and see something a grand and beautiful as the churches and locals, quite used to them, of course, just passing them like any other building.

Have a blessed Easter and enjoy some jelly beans for me.

Lent: Fasting and Slowing Down

This Lent, I decided to drink nothing but water. I'd fallen into a practice of having a daily Pepsi or Coke, when I couldn't find Pepsi, and nightly cognac. I've switched to diet Pepsi to cut sugar, and I haven't been getting schnockered from the cognac, but I don't want this to become a thoughtless habit. there's been a bit of cheating, but I'm doing all right.

I've also been enjoying daily Lenten readings every morning with my mother. The first Friday of Lent, it suggested a fast. I decided that, since it wasn't too  late (I hadn't had breakfast), I'd fast that day. I almost made it to sunset. (I was getting addle-minded and a little weak, so I had some simple Russian brown bread, with butter. Then some raisins. Then some M&Ms.) The next Friday I did better; I made it to official sunset. In order to keep myself occupied without expending too much energy, I've been doing everything very slowly on Fridays. This has been a surprisingly pleasing, mindful experience. The first Friday, I ran errands. Usually when I walk, I look ahead at the lights. If it looks like it's getting ready to change, I alter my pace so I can avoid standing and waiting to cross the street. It's been quite cold here, often around 20 below, and you can often stand at a light for 90 seconds. But that day I didn't rush. I just experienced the cold, looked around and lived it, appreciating that I wasn't cooped up indoors. The second Friday, I took a two-hour walk along the Iset river. I made sure to walk away from home slowly, so I'd have a nice long walk. I emerged from an underpass tunnel and saw this:

The Sevastyanov House in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

There are birch trees along the Iset across from the Sevastyanov House, the patterns of which remind me of a harlequin in black and white. (So many of these pictures look like I took them in black and white, but I didn't.)

A view of the Iset through a wrought-iron railing on an overpass.

These beautiful ice crystals form on the water all along the banks of the river. Here's a closeup:

They remind me of decorations on a cake. 

I sneaked across the frozen river. It's not allowed, but plenty of people have made a nice trail, so I took my chances. Like sand dunes, you can find plenty of pictures of nature's artwork, but somehow it never gets too dull.

There are small parks along the Iset, and some spillways. Not exactly waterfalls, but I cn pretend. There are nice signs of life along the river: fishermen, ducks, beautiful pigeons that are camouflaged white with gray and black splotches:

And art:

Snow in any language means fun.

The mindfulness on Fridays has calmed me. I did laundry and, as I carried it upstairs from the dryer, thought with each step how one task was completed. We had clean sheets and towels to go into the weekend with and we'd both feel better to have more clean clothes to choose from. I perform more self-care regimens on Fridays to give my body the attention it's not getting through food. I've continued working on a writing I began a year or so ago about what I thought Jesus might have experienced and thought when He went into the wilderness alone for those weeks. That gives me a reason to feel the hunger rather than ignore it. 

In one of my bloglettes early in the pandemic, I wrote of experiencing the isolation and limitations of the pandemic. I wrote of some of the freedoms that could come of it. This might sound random, but stay with me. I've had two very minor surgeries in the past month and a half. What looked like a large pimple on the back of my wrist wouldn't go away, so I had it excised, twice. The first time by a dermatologist who assured me is wasn't cancerous. The second time by a plastic surgeon after it was biopsied and determined to, indeed, be cancerous. The dermatologist kept turning my head away with her hand so I couldn't see her working. I told her, as best I could in Russian, that as long as she held a scalpel in one hand and my arm in the other, I was going to watch. The plastic surgeon didn't care that I watched. He even got a pillow for me so I could better see him slice the surrounding area, pull it back with a long tweezers and alternately snip and cauterize the tissue beneath until it was removed. I've long hated injections, but living in all these countries requires that I keep up-to-date on recommended vaccinations. I've discovered that they hurt less if I watch. Watching this procedure was so fascinating that I was more comfortable than I would have been looking at a sterile wall saying la-la-de-da I'm in my happy place to myself, while imagining what was going on.

So, I'm slowing down during my Friday fasts, even focusing on them, and, like watching the needle go in and studying the snipping and cauterizing, it makes it less uncomfortable, gives it an element of interest, even fascination. Sometimes I worry that after the pandemic is over and we can all go out and be together again, everything I can do now (all the self-care, taking walks, exercising, reading, practicing recorders) will remind me of the pandemic isolation. I hope not. Perhaps all this practice on mindful focusing will help when that time comes. Perhaps it will prove to be preventive. 

Poor Douglas

If you're new to reading this blog, Douglas is my husband. He's a Foreign Service Officer serving in Russia. We started out in Vladivostok. We were evacuated to Moscow during the pandemic where we spent about nine months. We've now been living in Yekaterinburg for about six weeks. Like the rest of you, we don't know what's going to happen next. Also like many of you, he works remotely from home most of the time. For the most part, I stay quietly out of the way.

This morning after breakfast, he announced that he was heading upstairs to get dressed. This should have been a clue to me that a meeting was imminent, but I missed it. I went up to play a Christmas song, New York Fairy Tale by The Progues, which has been in my head for several days in hopes of ridding myself of it for about eleven months. I found it and played it, loudly. I heard a door firmly shut. This hint I did receive and I turned the volume down, a bit. In the song, reference is made to another song, Rare Mountain Dew. I decided to follow Fairy Tale with The Dubliner's version of Rare Mountain Dew. I didn't want to fall down the modern rabbit hole of Irish music, so I exited out before forces beyond my control pulled me further in. It was then that I heard voices. For real. I realized that as I was singing along with "you scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot" and skipping to "to my hi di-diddly-idle-um, diddly-doo-ri-diddlum-deh" Douglas was in a meeting listening to, and talking with the Consul General and other colleagues. After the meeting, I apologized to him. He said he hadn't noticed. 

And there, folks, you have one of the fundamental differences between Douglas and I. I will sit here writing (or what-evering) and be distracted by the neighbor's refrigerator kicking on and off, while Douglas can be oblivious to "you're a bum, you're a punk, you're an old slut on junk lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed" (yes, it's a Christmas song!) while he's working. I wish I had that kind of focus, I really do.

Last Friday, Douglas called me from the Consulate to tell me that the long-awaited package from Moscow had finally caught up to us. Unfortunately, it was not the Halloween marshmallow pumpkin candies I was expecting from my Aunt Katy. It was from Aunt Katy, however. Douglas asked me if I wanted him to tell me what it was. This question can mean two very opposing things. It can mean that it's something that will either thrill me or disappoint me greatly. I told him to tell me. "She sent you something called Naked Males." He said. Naked males, I thought. My curiosity was piqued. But knowing that the word naked means different things for the various sexes - movies are full of nudity, but rarely will you see a penis, I asked, "Are there penises?" "No." He curtly answered. I later found out why he'd been so short with me. When he got home, he pulled it out. The gift. The one from my Aunt. It was a manicure kit called Naked Nails. Oopsy. My mistake. 

Everything is so up in the air right now regarding the fate of the Consulate in Vladivostok (still officially Douglas's post), and I hate to put any pressure on him (especially as I sit hear listening to him sing to himself, I've got the sword of Damocles hanging over my head), but we must get back to Vladivostok or to the States. We're out of Charmin and chocolate chips. I've thrown away two of my pajama tops for being threadbare and stretched out. While I admit the threadbare part can be sexy (especially after night sweats), the stretched out part is just unattractive. Without my books and the Vladivostok Consulate library as a backup, my Kindle bill is going up by about $16 a month. I know, I know, I could borrow through the library. I haven't figured that out yet. Anyone? Kaliope? 

This morning, Douglas and I walked to the Consulate together, him to work and me to exercise in the gym. I forgot to kiss him goodbye at home before we bundled. Easy to understand. I wasn't saying goodbye yet. Anyway, as we neared the Consulate I knew I wanted to kiss him before we went our separate ways. I thought ahead enough to not wait until we were inside where he might be shy or embarrassed about kissing me, so I asked him when we were outside the door. I saw his eyes roll just a bit. Not because he didn't want to kiss me, but because in order to kiss me, he'd have to remove his mask. In order to remove his mask, he'd have to take off his ear muffs. To get the ear muffs off, he'd have to doff his hat and to get any of that off, he'd have to take off his mittens. It was 27 below last week. Not as cold this week, but still ."I have needs." I said. So he did a very modest strip tease and kissed me. 

I don't deserve him.

I'll leave you with some wintry pictures of Yekaterinburg.

I found this hothouse in a nearby park. What a treat.

There are two ice sculpture displays within walking distance.

I hope this comes off as humorous in this picture as it did when I passed it on the street. He looks like he's holding out his hat for a handout, but is poised with a snowball for those who don't contribute!

Holidays in the Time of Pandemic

 

In 2020, because we couldn't go out to eat and lacked the forethought to order through Amazon the  number of weeks in advance it would have required to be timely, we celebrated my birthday around a fire pit eating Georgian khachapuri delivered to the Embassy compound. For Douglas's birthday, I baked him an apple pie. Our anniversary was spent watching a movie and eating a 'special' dinner of take-out burritos and chili soup from the American Diner in the Embassy. For Thanksgiving, I found some deli-sliced turkey, sweet potatoes, cranberries and one box of Stove Top stuffing that we ate on opposite sides of the apartment while Douglas finished a quarantine after a trip to Vladivostok. 

I was determined to have a festive Christmas.

The yolka in the parking lot of our apartment in Yekaterinburg. Yolka translates as Christmas tree, but it's more of a New Year's tree, since the Russians celebrate the new year with a decorated tree.

Then we were bundled off to Yekaterinburg where they needed Douglas to serve as management officer and act as post security officer. One job just isn't enough for some people in the eyes of their superiors, two or three are better. "Just bear with me during this and throw some food my way." Douglas told me just before his head sunk into his computer and he disappeared.

A detail from the yolka in the parking lot.

I try to maximize trips to the grocery store and only go once a week to avoid exposure to the coronavirus. Society's mouth-breathers have been thoughtful enough to make themselves obvious by leaving their noses hanging out over their masks as they walk around cloaked in their entitlement, so I can usually avoid them. I speak enough Russian to get by at the grocery store - I don't have to flap my arms or rudely squeeze myself if I want chicken or milk. (I don't think you want to know about the time I had to buy tampons while living in Germany.) Our oven here is about a third the size of a standard American home oven, so turkey is out of the question. Maybe a couple Cornish game hens cooked one at a time. For the most part, for Christmas dinner I stuck to things I knew. But I also wanted brown sugar. There's plenty of brown sugar on the shelves here, but there's no molasses in it. It's not unusual for me to draw a small crowd when I shop. It usually takes two or three to confer, read labels and figure out exactly what it is I want. I am grateful for the patience of the Russian people. I found brown sugar at the fifth store I visited - dark brown! Since I'm on the topic of sugar, you know the difference between regular granulated sugar and baker's sugar? Well, double or triple the size of the grains of our regular sugar and you have the only sugar available here. You must allow extra time for the sugar to dissolve when making everything or everything crunches.

So, our dinner of sautéed peppers, onions and zucchini with rice and salmon was colorful and delicious. But we had no Christmas decorations. Wait. Not true. My dear mother send me one of those cardboard Advent calendars with the chocolates hidden behind each window. We gave it a prominent place on our couch and surrounded it with gifts from Douglas's co-workers.

These are our Christmas decorations for 2020. The picture of the young women is a Peace Corps calendar with photographs take by volunteers around the world.

I'm not crazy-busy like Douglas, but there is plenty to do to fill my days, even when it's not Christmastime. When we're living as we are (so-called temporarily), we are provided with what are called welcome kits which are made up of the bare minimum of household supplies: four each of bowls, plates and utensils, popsicle sticks that somehow pass as knives, kitchen shears that can barely cut lettuce, burlap towels, blankets that are made of some sort of rubbery material, 14" mattresses with fitted sheets made for 8" mattresses,  etc. and I am grateful for these welcome kits. Really. But to leave behind Wusthof knives and have to wash dishes twice a day to have something clean to eat off of is taxing. Then there's the laundry. Our washer and dryer are each large enough for about three bath towels, so it must be done often. The units came with no instruction manuals. The dials for the washer have pictures:

In case you're wondering what all the Russian means, briefly: beside the picture of the pants, it says jeans'; beside the picture of the shirt, it says 'shirts.' You get it. I have deliberated for many minutes when I stand before it with a pair of pants and a shirt I want to launder.

The dryer is no clearer. Your choices include iron-dry, shelf-dry, closet-dry and very dry. Most cycles for each last well over an hour and a half.

Okay, back to the holidays. I've mentioned before that New Year is the big holiday in Russia. Christmas is more of a church holy day. 

I wanted sparkling wine for toasting the new year. This was challenging since I don't know Russian wines (she writes as though she knows American wines or Italian wines). It was further complicated by the fact that I'd forgotten to bring my reading glasses, so I couldn't make out сухое (dry) or сладкий (sweet) which usually appears in very small print on the back label. (Reading microscopic English is hard enough, but to make out the Cyrillic alphabet is just too much.) I did, however find a брют (brut) for P295 (295 rubles, about $4). Pretty cheap. I was suspicious. Well, I thought, maybe this is the two-buck-Chuck of Russia; maybe it's not so bad. I took it. There was another bottle nearer the checkout for P495 (about $5.35), so I figured I could afford that as a back-up. 

Fireworks are popular here, perhaps from the proximity to China, I don't know. So there were intermittent fireworks all night New Year's Eve. They aren't very spectacular, not that I've seen, but they're beloved. In Vladivostok, they were a regular occurrence all year round.

Douglas ended 2020 with the receipt of some very good news, news I'm not allowed to share yet. That's your teaser to read next month's blog.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Yekaterinburg, Russia!

Breaking with Tradition

 

When I was in my twenties and thirties, I performed singing telegrams. Around the 22nd of December one year, my boss informed me that I had a job Christmas morning. Christmas morning?! I exclaimed. Yes, he huffed. I’d never had to work on Christmas except to write a thank you note or two. I didn’t want to break with tradition. I wanted to spend Christmas morning with my loved ones, not dress up for the entertainment of a bunch of strangers. But I was an impoverished twenty-something, so I couldn’t very well decline. I was to dress up as a Santa’s helper and pass out Christmas gifts to a family. The father had lost his job back in October, and had told his family to brace for no Christmas as they were used to with gifts and nice food and such. They were braced. But the man found work, and to their great surprise Christmas morning, was able to put together a normal food and gift rich Christmas. My boss met me out in front the family’s house early Christmas morning, his truck full of gift-wrapped boxes that I transferred into a huge, red sack and lugged to the door. The surprise and joy and love that I saw on their faces more than made up for the fact that I had to work on Christmas morning. This isn’t work, I thought in spite of myself.

Long after my singing telegram days, I taught piano. It was the Thursday before Thanksgiving and I was confirming with clients that there would be no lesson the following week. My morning student (7:30), Leo, looked downcast. “Why not?” He asked. “Because it’s Thanksgiving,” his father smiled. “No school!” He added. But Leo wanted his piano lesson. So Thanksgiving morning, I dragged myself out of bed and drove to Leo’s house for one piano lesson. There was a bit of a scurry in the Rose household preparing Thanksgiving dinner, but it was worth it to have such a dedicated student.

As I write this, Douglas and I have been living in an apartment on the Embassy compound in Moscow for about eight months. Advent is my favorite time of year. We’re supposed to move to Yekaterinburg, where Douglas will be working at the Consulate. When we arrive, we'll enter a two-week quarantine period relying on the goodness of strangers in the diplomatic community to bring food to our door. Sharing advent readings (The Womb of Advent by Mark Bozzuti-Jones) with my mom is helping to enrich this season. Thank you, Mom; thank you Mr. Jones for making the book available. 

I hope people can think beyond what they're used to doing this time of year to different ways of celebrating all the upcoming holidays. We say we’ll miss our traditions, but where do our traditions come from? Surely, we can make our own traditions.

Why does breaking with tradition have such a negative connotation anyway? One of my survival mechanisms during this pandemic has been breaking my normal routine once in a while. Douglas was out of town a few weeks ago. Normally, this means I goof off, eat junk and watch rubbish. Instead, I took on the project of organizing the Embassy library books. (I still ate junk.) It felt so good to see the excitement in people who were finally able to navigate through the books and find something they wanted to read. Yesterday, instead of sitting on the bicycle in the gym and reading Janet Evanovich, I went to the pool to exercise. Normally I swim two laps of each stroke, then jump around doing various water exercises I know. But yesterday, I decided to swim three laps of each stroke. Big deal, I know. It’s not exactly scaling Everest, but for me it was big. I’m very uncomfortable doing the front crawl. I panic-breathe. I don’t know why. As long as I’ve been a swimmer and even taught swimming, I can swim only one lap front crawl comfortably, then I’m exhausted and certain I’m drowning. (It’s a wonder I ever became a lifeguard.) Anyway, before I left for the gym, I lay in bed with my eyes closed picturing myself doing this (swimming three laps, not drowning). I knew I’d be tired; I knew I’d be panicky. I reminded myself of how drained I was in my first few Spinning classes, yet I learned to continue through it. When I got into the pool and began swimming, my body went into its normal panic mode on the second lap. My stomach hurt; my lungs were insistent on a free, open exchange of air and carbon dioxide. Now! I stuck it out. On the third lap, I tried something different. I focused my thoughts on breathing. You’re just exhaling in the water. I told myself. You’re just rolling and taking a breath. That’s all. You’re just exhaling in the water. You’re just rolling and taking a breath. And I swam the third lap. My point in sharing this is that it might help us to face the Christmas and the New Year holidays by spending time visualizing what can safely take place during this time. And, when the time comes, mindfully focus on the voices and music we hear and the aromas we smell rather than what may have been or what we had last year.

I don’t know what Douglas and I will do for Christmas and New Year this year. For Thanksgiving, I found some turkey at the deli counter of one of the stores I shop at. The same store also had some fresh cranberries and four sweet potatoes (I bought them all). Douglas found a lone box of Stove Top stuffing in our townhouse and brought it back with him. Voila! Thanksgiving! Douglas also brought back the makings for fudge, so we’ll have that for Christmas. We’ll have no Christmas decorations, except for an advent calendar my mother bought for me. Life in the Foreign Service has left us treeless other years (Tashkent, e.g.). New Year is big in Russia, so I'm certain we'll hear and see plenty of fireworks from our apartment.

I’ve mentioned this in another blog, but it bears repeating. Sometimes it helps me to see myself as a character in a novel. I remember reading Christmas stories as a child about how excited children were to find a peppermint stick and an orange in their stockings in the olden days. Where I grew up, oranges grew on the tree in my backyard, and peppermint sticks were given away free to children at many stores. But somehow, I could still imagine their excitement and I tried to feel it too, when I sucked on a candy cane or peeled an orange and smelled its goodness. One of the few social gatherings we can safely have today is a fire pit, as long as there are no more than ten people and we’re distanced or masked. So, when I take walks around the compound, I pick up branches that have broken off the trees so we can burn them. When my spirits are down, I imagine myself walking the old forests of Russia gathering much-needed fuel for our fire. I actually get quite excited to find a large branch that I know will burn for more than several minutes. I know it’s silly, but it’s also a very real, good feeling.

We have traditions because they were passed on to us. (Nothing new there, I know, but bear with me.) We either like them and continue them, or we don’t and we abandon them. But how do they become traditions? There's a different answer to that question for every tradition from Fourth of July fireworks to dying the Chicago river green for St. Patrick’s Day. It comes down to doing what we are able to do and enjoy doing on momentous occasions. While we are certainly able to gather closely these days, it’s risky. Why include such risk in a celebration of thanks or Christ’s birth or the new year or whatever? What place does the distinct potential spread of a deadly virus have in a celebration? Let’s say all participants know, acknowledge and accept the risk. Every individual still have their place in greater society and don’t have the right to pass on that risk to others. Instead of preventing the spread, they’re enabling it. It’s choosing chaos over some control. I don’t know if this virus can be controlled, but I do know that we don’t have to give it free rein as so many are willing to do. In five years, I’d rather recount the story of all the frustrating, disappointing limitations during this pandemic, then tell of throwing caution to the wind and giving into my desires only to get COVID or see Douglas contract it. I don’t want to face people’s questions, “Why did you do that? Why didn’t you just wait?” “Because I didn’t want to” doesn’t sound like a good answer. Nor does “Because it was Christmas.” (See above.) It’s called delayed gratification. Too many people (adults!) are like the children who, in the marshmallow test, eat the marshmallow right away, rather than waiting for fifteen minutes and getting two. These are probably some of the same people who shake their heads and laugh at these children for not thinking more clearly. Oh, the irony.

I’m thinking ahead to next year or the year after that when, after not having my favorite Christmas treats and decorations, I will have them once again with pent up abandon. How much better they’ll taste and look and sound after having done without. Not having decorations gives me somewhere to go when I attempt to meditate. I can picture our weinachtspyramide (Christmas pyramid) aglow and spinning, I can see the lights on the tree through the branches in the otherwise dark room, I can see the snow . . . well, if I just look out the window.

Weinachtspyramide

I’ll close with a couple more stories from my singing telegram days. I remember having to work Christmas Eve one year, again dressed as Santa’s helper. I think I was face-painting children’s cheeks while all the adults partied, which is what I wanted to be doing. When my two hours were up, I was gathering my stuff to leave and the hostess came up to me and handed me a gift, fully, beautifully gift-wrapped, paid me, tipped me and sent me on my way. The gift was a Victorian-looking music box shaped like Santa surrounded with toys. I was really into Victorian deco during that time, so I was ecstatic. I was too poor to rationalize buying such frivolous things for myself. It is still one of my favorite decorations and carried good memories.

I had to work a couple of Easter mornings, which I did not want to do. We were getting into sacrilege territory there. I remember one little girl who was so overwhelmed that she’d ‘caught’ the Easter Bunny delivering her basket, she didn’t know what to do. First, she crawled around her basket a few times singing to herself. Then she stopped, stood and looked up at me in full bunny costume. She scrunched up her face scrutinizing me, then said, “You’re not a real bunny,” and, not knowing how to properly address me, added, “Bunny!” Sweet.

I took this picture this morning. It reminds me of those rosette cookies that people make at Christmastime.

 

An Autumn Gift

Every autumn, I write a story for Douglas, my husband. There's usually an element of supernatural in them. This year, I decided to attempt a poem. I'm not a poet. I really ought to take a class. If it rhymes and is rhythmic, I get it - it's a poem. But I know that a poem doesn't have to rhyme. I love Emily Dickinson, and she doesn't often rhyme. So many poems look like prose that has been scattered about on a page. That's what I've got here. I hope you like my attempt. Happy Autumn!

Autumn comes in stunning death—a burst of beauty before dormancy;

Our world leans into darkness—the seen becomes the unseen.

Late afternoon loses its leisure and imparts urgency, dread.

The cozy buffer of leaves surrenders and exposes us to earth’s canopy, its overstory.

The bareness clicks and ticks in Morse-like rhythm, like giant women knitting.

Nocturnals chitter their restlessness; their time with the day-dwellers unnaturally increases, and when these worlds mix—it gets territorial.

But I won’t relinquish my time, though they claim it in its darkness.

Nor will they sleep through this new abundance.

Onyx ink blots twitch and pitch from branch to branch, from tree to tree, through earth’s breath to the pale moon!

—The restless displaced in nature’s spirit.

Bloodied spiders’ webs hang fat from trees, silently unthreatened, filtering the last glow of sunset.

How the poor, trapped creatures must have suffered . . .

The thought is quelched when the web takes a fearful flight, and its atonal call shreds my nerves.

The blood, not old, nor even fresh, is vibrant, pulsing.

Recalled legends of fanged moths and wicked angels manifest themselves as these ghost bats.

Still the black masks flit, more absent of light than the night,

And the ghosts, absorbing every spectral hue—

All light hidden merely in their being—

Evidence Nature enveloping Nature.

Their caves blown and mined, their trees cast into our homes,

The displaced seek out the illicit dwellings—whether of sticks or of bricks, by the feathered or fleshed—and those that dwell therein.

I, rationed by God, with two eyes, two ears can’t perceive them as they me.

My hands, fearful of these critters whose senses are keener even than my thoughts, don’t help.

Most threats lie within, nestled up against all our fears.

So, make of the Chiroptera what you will with your myths and legends

(flying rodents, their potion-rich wool; their thirst for blood)

What they are is enough.

We haven’t time to fear the shards of their calls.

The hunt is silent; only in the attack do they shriek.

I owe thanks to Rebecca Giggs of The Atlantic. I was inspired by her article Why We're Afraid of Bats (November 2020). Thank you, Ms. Giggs.

What I've Learned from this Administration

 

I promised this blog last month. I wasn't in the mood to write it because it brings me down. But hee it is as promised. Next month will be more fun. I hope.

I will never say Anyone, but . . .

I voted for Barack Obama, but I wasn’t overly concerned about John McCain winning the election. I admired John McCain even if I didn’t agree with him on everything; he was an honorable man. God rest his soul. I might upset a few readers in my next statement, but please stay with me; I have more to say that isn’t so divisive (the next paragraph, for example). Many people were so full of vitriol for Hillary Clinton, they couldn’t see past it to recognize the poisonous character of Donald Trump. I remember reading about the third-party candidates and shuddering at some of their platforms. My point is, while I wouldn’t necessarily vote for a candidate from the, say The Flat Earth Party, I need to at least look at their main platform before dismissing them.

Look at the big picture.

I need to figure out how to keep perspective when leaders let us down and disappoint me. I was one of those screaming at George H.W. Bush for going back on his campaign promise to not raise taxes. He lied to us!!!! He did. He should have never told us he wouldn’t raise taxes. He didn’t know the future. Michael Dukakis chose his words more carefully, that he would look at new taxes as a last resort. While candidates certainly need to choose their words carefully, I need to listen wisely. Just as no one knows how long we’ll be dealing with this corona virus or whether or not everything will be okay, no presidential candidate knows what’s in store for them personally or for the nation when they’re campaigning. So, I need to cut them some slack when they can’t deliver what they promised – what they probably want. George H.W. Bush wound up making one of those unpopular decisions that was probably best for the nation as a whole. Not having a sliding door to another dimension, I don’t know. 

Some ties need to be severed.

I’m realizing that there are people with whom I’m close, who had a strong influence in my formative years, who are very different than I thought. These people taught me to be honest, but support Donald Trump, one of the most publicly dishonest people I’ve ever known of. I was encouraged to get a good education, yet these people want another four years of this president who dismisses the science and research into environmental issues and this pandemic because he thinks he knows better. He said he wanted to Make America Great Again, yet he didn’t think enough of us to tell the truth about this pandemic. He said he didn’t want to create panic. These people taught me to believe in God and teachings of the Bible, yet they support this president who incites violence against fellow Americans (at his campaign rallies) and won’t denounce – and even has even complimented and encouraged – hate groups (Charlottesville). I was taught not to call names by these people who support this president who calls anyone who disagrees with him insulting names and publicly makes fun of the disabled. If I were paranoid, I’d say it looks like mass mental illness or mass hypnosis. I’ve heard of people distancing themselves from family and friends during this administration. I understand that. It’s hard to carry on loving, friendly conversations when you know what lies beneath. While I don’t want politics to stand in the way of a good relationship, I see how differing morals can prevent having any good relations with people supporting this amoral behavior. It’s not politics driving some people apart, it’s moral values.

We must learn to dialogue with each other.

I've written this before, but it is something that we all need to keep practicing. I used to be an arguer; I've learned to discuss - listen and share ideas. Unfortunately too many people won't participate in an exchange of ideas that differ. Some, like myself at times, don't have enough to back up their opinions or the truths they know and they are too uncomfortable listening to anything that runs contrary to their thoughts. They must feel like they are up against something rather than exploring. That's sad. That, once again, was me in my 20's. Some people are too bent on insulting someone who sees things differently or who actually knows more than they do. While I never did this to anyone's face, I certainly walked away from exchanges thinking awful thoughts about the other person. I'm still learning to look at the issue rather than the person. Donald Trump challenges me here. I'm hard put to find any redeeming qualities about him because I've not seen him display a single one publicly.

Please comment what you have learned from this administration whether it aligns with my thoughts or goes contrary to them.