Today I am as old in years as all the Jewish people

About ten years ago, I read a poem by Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko dedicated to Babi Yar, the site of a Nazi massacre of 100,000 Ukrainian and Russian Jews. I was so moved by its indignation, its pathos, that it's always stuck with me. And today, I went there.

Babi Yar today is a winding, grassy, mowed ravine just a few hundred meters from a metro station on Kiev's green line. People on cell phones walk past it on their way to and from work or school, and couples push strollers along the same ground where children, women, men were slaughtered 60 years ago.

I sat on the edge of the ravine, dangling my feet over it, and tried to fathom 100,000 people. Tried to fathom the people who pulled triggers and pushed bodies down the slope – what did they think in that moment? And what did those people, those fathers, mothers, those children, think as they saw bodies piling up, what were their last thoughts, their last words, as they tumbled down into the gulch?

I wanted to say a prayer in that moment, but for who? For the people who died? For the people who killed them? It all seemed so cliche somehow. In the end, I prayed for all of us, for, as FDR put it, “not just an end to war, but an end to the beginning of all wars.” For people today who kill and are killed in places like Sudan, for those who are trying to do something about it, and for those who just don't know what to do about it.

I stepped over the edge, walked into the middle of the ravine, looked back at the monument and remembered the end of Yevtushenko's poem:

The wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar.

The trees look ominous, like judges.

Here all things scream silently,

and, baring my head,

slowly I feel myself

turning gray.

And I myself

am one massive, soundless scream

above the thousand thousand buried here.

I am

each old man

here shot dead.

I am

every child

here shot dead.

Nothing in me

shall ever forget! …

In my blood there is no Jewish blood.

In their callous rage, all anti-Semites

must hate me now as a Jew.

For that reason

I am a true Russian!

Read the whole thing here. Seriously, read it.

Flavors

Yesterday, I ate calamari-flavored potato chips.

Today, I ate mushroom-flavored potato chips.

They tasted surprisingly like calamari and mushrooms, and were surprisingly tasty.

The end.

Kiev Temple

And now, to the point of our arduous journey to Kiev: the dedication of the newest temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The night before was a pre-temple-dedication cultural extravaganza, held at the largest concert hall in Kiev. There were dances and dramatizations from Ukraine, Russia, Armenia, and Khazakstan. President Monson was extremely relaxed and casual. As he entered, he greeted the piano player, and then sat down and played a little Chinese chopsticks. And after his short talk, he actually gave noogies to his interpreter.

The Ukrainian choir director, on the other hand, conducted furiously, passionately. It made me smile. There was a dramatization of the history of Kiev, including the baptism of Rus by Prince Vladimir, who, according to legend, investigated a series of religions before choosing Christianity for his people.

Russia’s section of the program was unabashedly passionate and over the top. The section presented by Ukraine had a distinctly Westernish, Mormonish feel to it, but when the Russians came out with their dramatic poses and a passionate love song to God, it was something completely different. And it really made me smile. In Russia, bigger is better, deeper is better, more passionate is better! It’s a little too much for us cool Westerners, but that’s kind of what I love about it. It’s 100% from the heart.

Yulia looked around at the hundreds of people in the audience, leaned over and commented that it was really warm in the room. Yeah, I said, it is kind of stuffy in here, but she said, no, I meant the feeling. It’s like family. And it really was.

After the actual dedication the next day, I started chatting with a woman who I thought was one of the American senior missionaries I knew from Moscow -- shoulder-length hair, lots of makeup, big eyes. It was only when she asked to interview us that I realized it was Carol Mikita of KSL in Utah. I knew she looked familiar!

So she talked to Julia, Alla and me about our trip to Kiev, and we might be on the worldwide newscast between conference sessions! Here's what I told her (more or less):

“I wasn’t sure whether I was going to come to the temple dedication. I spent the summer in Moscow and then traveled to my mission to visit people, and they said, we’ve chartered a bus to go to the temple dedication and there are extra seats -- come with us! And so I did. It’s so great to be here with them. I was on my mission twelve years ago when this temple was announced. It’s been a long time coming, and it’s so great to be able to share it with people who have waited so long and who it means so much for.”

(These three families from Rostov got sealed in the temple the day after it was dedicated -- and I got to see it. Neat.)

A supposedly fun thing I'll never do again

Add to the list of supposedly fun things I’ll never do again: A 22-hour road trip with 45 friends on a bus. Add in Soviet-era roads; waiting four hours at the border between Russia and Ukraine; two group sing-a-longs; and rest stops with squat toilets that you have to pay to use, and you have an idea of the luxury travel I enjoyed this weekend.

Trip highlights included:

*Rest stops. And not just for the rest. It was amusing to watch the mothers and grandmothers in the group venture into the bushes to avoid paying a 50-cent fee to use the bathrooms. That was the first rest stop. Later, after dark, we pulled over for another rest stop, and as I got out of the bus I realized that there was no rest stop at all. We were pulled over onto the shoulder of the road and people were scattered among the trees doing their business like it was the most normal thing in the world.

*Eating kolbasa sandwiches and sharing a teacup of juice with the Hausbiulins, each drinking out of a different side.

*Showing Roma the PhotoBooth application

Funny thing is, when they all got back on the bus tonight to head back to Russia and I stood waving and blowing kisses on the sidewalk, I actually felt a pang of sadness that I wasn’t going back with them.

But I guess that didn't really have anything to do with the bus.

Rostov’s believe-it-or-not

On Thursday I met up with Lyudmila, Alya and Ruslan, some of my dearest friends from my mission days in Rostov. We met in Gorky Park, in the center of the city, and caught up over ice cream and juice. I met Ira, Alya’s daughter, a 100% sweetheart:

And then, because we had a little extra time, Alya suggested we visit the Peter the Great Kuntzkamera exhibit in the museum nearby. I didn’t know what Kuntzkamera meant, but a museum exhibit sounded lovely to me, so I agreed. We bought tickets and stepped through a red velvet curtain into the exhibit space, which was filled with … wax statues of people with odd deformities.

For example (and I wish this picture had come out a little clearer but I took it on the sly), this man with two heads, and this man with an unusually large mouth. There was also a dwarf woman, a man with a huge pointy nose and ears, and some others -- all exact replicas of real people and real deformities.

We moved onto the next portion of the exhibit: deformed fetus pictures. Um. I won’t go into detail, and I wasn't about to take any pictures -- I could hardly look at them. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, we rounded the corner into a room with wax heads depicting various skin diseases on the right side, and jars containing actual deformed fetuses in formaldehyde on the left. Alya, her four-year-old in tow, studied all the descriptions, fully intrigued.

Just when I think I know what to expect from Russia and Russians, I get another weird surprise. I kind of love that about Russia. Keeps me on my toes.

Hug me

They say that if you are going to adopt an orphan, you are better off choosing one that hides in the corner from you than one that runs up and gives you a hug. The hesitant child has healthier boundaries and fewer attachment issues, while the affectionate one is more likely to burn your house down one day.

All the same, when a little boy named Sasha jumped into my arms, wrapped his arms and legs around me, and held on even when I moved to put him down – I couldn’t help hugging him back a little longer, a little tighter, wondering how often, if ever, he got a hug long enough that he was ready to let go.

And as I held him, I felt something inside of me release, and I realized it’s been a while since I had a good, long hug, too.

I went with Raya last week to the orphanage to deliver some blankets that the Relief Society women’s organization in Rostov made for them. Here's Raya (in red) and other members of the congregation presenting the blankets to the director of the orphanage:

The orphans are divided into groups of about ten children, and one small wing of the orphanege served each group. Here is the bathroom for one of the groups -- ten little cups, ten little toothbrushes, ten little towels.

The tables were all set for lunch.

And this ... this is a little mini sauna for children. They sit on that little shelf (height-adjustable) and put their heads out the top. Then the door is closed and the steam is turned on. The director told us it helps panicky children calm down.

And here are some of the kids:

There would have been a few more pictures of the kids, but as soon as that last pictures was taken, I was swarmed by small children with attachment issues who wanted to see themselves on the screen, millions of little fingers grabbing and groping the camera, and the battery died a few minutes later. But I still won’t forget all the little eyes looking hopefully up at me, the little arms reaching out, the sense of all the little people in this world looking for a little love.

(Insert rousing rendition of “We Are the World” or "The Greatest Love".)

Ghosts, part 2

I just realized that the subconscious influence behind my last post was a collection of pictures I saw recently. Photographer Sergei Larenkov started with photos of the siege of Leningrad in WWII, then photographed the exact same places today and combined them in Photoshop, reminding people of the history that happened on the same streets they walk down every day. The result is haunting, and cool:

See more photos from the collection here and here, and an article about the artist here.

Quantum leap

So many unfinished blog posts, so little time ...

I've escaped the heat and smog to Rostov-na-donu -- the city where I served 9 months of my mission, all in one area. I feel like I'm in a time warp. Where am I? Who am I? What year is it? Where did all these supermarkets and billboards come from?

I was kind of disoriented at first, and exhausted by Moscow both physically and emotionally, but a few days of Raya Hausbiulina's amazing cooking and stories revived me. Turns out a Russian grandma was just what the doctor ordered.

I rode the 71 bus from Zorge to Tsentralniy Rinok the other day, craning my head to see out of the dirty window. If I peeled back the layer of billboards and storefronts and new buildings pasted onto the familiar landscape, I recognized the same crumbling balconies, the same worn dirt paths. I remembered buying ice cream on the corner of Stachki and Zorge – I knew the shape of the corner, I could almost see the ghost of a woman pulling the squat cone out of her portable freezer – it was a cold day in February. It was like the image was superimposed on the current August scene, and if you tried to focus on it too closely it would disappear, but if you let your eyes blur then it appeared right there.

The trees around our apartment were much bigger, and I remembered walking through the park nearby to visit someone who was selling eggs at a rinok in the middle of winter. We brought hot chocolate to her. I remembered a pile of watermelon, taller than I was, on the sidewalk in the summer, and buying chocolate at a kiosk from someone who wanted us to invite them to visit America. I remembered walking in the chastni sector singing “country roads,” eating mulberries right off the trees, and walking through the meat section of the market near Druzhinikov Square. I wanted to peel back the façade of modernization – because that’s all it seems to be here, is a façade pasted onto the same old crumbling landscape – peel back the years, see myself walking through the square to Alla Ivanovna’s apartment or talking to Ruslan, Alya and Lyudmila and the elders at the bus stop about how to properly eat sunflower seeds.

Ghosts were everywhere, and for a moment, all moments were present, and I knew that the core person I am now really is the same person I was then, as much as I may or may not have changed. The trees around the statue of the working class man waving his flag at the beginning of Zapadny region have grown tall enough to obscure the foot of the statue, and riding past them I lost my sense of time and place -- for a moment they became the trees on the way from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, and all moments were present. If I had exited that bus and found myself in Jerusalem or Moscow or Washington or Peru, it would have seemed completely normal.

And it was comforting, in a way. More to come about people, experiences, thoughts.

Congrats to the happy couple!

Yay for Zach and Heather!

(Blogger and iPhone and Microsoft and Russia are conspiring to make it impossible to turn this picture right side up. I can't fix it now but will repost soon. In the meantime, please celebrate by standing on your heads.)

UPDATE 9/3/10: I'm back in the land of internet connectivity and just went to change out this upside-down photo, but it's sort of grown on me. Enough of you liked it that I think I'll just post the right-side-up version here along with it (thanks to b. for helping me right it, even if I couldn't post right away):

Congrats again! Love you guys!

Moscow burning

There's a scene near the end of the novel Master and Margarita where the devil sits on top of the Vorobyovi Hills in Moscow and watches fires burn in different parts of the city. Apparently Bulgakov originally planned to have the entire city go up in flames (perhaps as a statement about Moscow, the guardian of Orthodoxy, the “Third Rome, never to be a fourth”).

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about that almost-scene in the last couple of weeks. I can’t describe what it’s like to walk along the street and not be able to see the trees or buildings you know are just a few hundred yards away. What it’s like to feel an itchy sensation at the back of your throat and know that all kinds of particles are filtering into your lungs each time you take a breath. What it’s like to be so hot, -- so very, very hot -- and so tired, so ready to drape yourself on a chair and just sit and stare. It’s still around 100 degrees every day, no air conditioning, and I’m starting to feel a little crazy. Especially now that I’ve closed my window so as not to breathe in air that I’m told approximates smoking four packs of cigarettes a day.

From what I understand, this is all due to a number of forest fires and peat bog fires in the Moscow region and across Russia. Apparently many of the peat bogs were drained in Soviet times in order to harvest the peat, leaving a situation where the peat can spontaneously start to burn if the temperature gets too high. And Moscow has had record-breaking temperatures with no rain for over a month. Depending on which way the wind is blowing, the smoke from the peat fires can cover the city. And let me tell you, it smells awesome.

But I don’t want to let a little smoke get in the way of my summer, so a couple days ago I set off in search of a modern art gallery that I’d been wanting to check out. I came up out of the metro and walked for something like two miles trying to find it, spending more than an hour in the smog. The city felt so desolate, so apocalyptic. I tried not to think of the treeless, hazy end-of-the-world scenario in The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I tried not to think of the anti-smoking ad in the metro here that pictures a hand squeezing a lung and a thick stream of greenish gook oozing from it, tried not to picture my own lungs and what they might now resemble. I tried not to hear Robert Frost’s lines about the world ending in fire echoing in my head. The music in my headphones was like a soundtrack to an apocalyptic film, blocking out all street sounds, and everyone seemed to be moving in slow motion.

I finally got on a trolleybus, not knowing where it was going, but hoping it would deposit me at a metro stop, any metro stop. It did, and I got on a train heading for home, sank into a seat, put on my headphones and closed my eyes, pretending to be anywhere else but there. Pretending I wasn’t covered in a thin film of salt and dust and moisture, pretending everyone else around me wasn’t either, pretending I wasn’t breathing in smoke, even inside the metro – trying to go somewhere, anywhere else in my mind.

I think that was the first day I came home and put my head in the freezer to cool off.

Photos from the Moscow Times.

Read more here http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/medvedev-fires-5-as-moscow-chokes/411735.html

and here http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/moscows-smog-worsens-as-wildfires-rage/411872.html#no

Enough with the tortured soul already

Ok, I started feeling like maybe the blog was getting a little too broody. Just to lighten the mood a little ...

There's a whole new genre of Russian jokes based on the New Russians (the newly rich business class, perceived as arrogant, stupid, dishonest, conspicuous consumers with poor taste). For example:

• Two new russians are at a concert. One says to the other, pointing to the director, "This is, what, Mozart?" The other says, "How am I supposed to know? You can't tell anything looking at him from behind."

• One new russian says to another, "Look at the awesome tie I got for a thousand dollars!" The other replies, "Idiot! I got the same tie right across the street for two thousand!"

I wish it would rain down, down on me

I want to live; I crave for sadness -

Against my bliss and love, in truth;

They sank my mind in idle gladness

And made my brow very smooth.

It's high time for life's derogation

To blow away the hazy peace;

What’s a poet’s life, void of desolation?

And what are void of tempests seas?

-Mikhail Lermontov, age 18

I watched an entire rainstorm from start to finish, curled up on the ledge of an open window 5 stories above the ground. From the sudden quieting of the birds, to the first big raindrops pinging the tin windowsill, to the people running for cover from the downpour, to the sun coming back out and everyone going back about their business.

There’s something about a rainstorm when there hasn’t been one for a while. It was a relief. It lasted about ten minutes, and I was sad when it was over. It was too quick -- I didn't have time to absorb the quiet that was almost sacred, when life stopped, people and animals disappeared, and it was just the elements, just the wind and the rain – and a couple standing on the path near the pond embracing. I watched them, imagining the double sensation of a kiss and the giant drops of rain on my face. I wanted to run out into the rain, too, to feel it on my hands, my face, my skin, my clothes, to gradually become completely wet.

I want to live! wrote Lermontov. I crave for sadness -

I want to live. Russians love suffering, Alla Vasilievna insists, because it’s part of happiness – indistinguishable from happiness – it’s part of life. I get that. I won’t go so far as to say I crave sadness in Lermontov’s madly romantic way, but I want to live, and to live completely. I want to feel it all, see it all, understand it all.

Now the construction workers are banging away again. Everyone’s out making noise and tinkering with the world again. I want to hold onto the feeling of the storm – the sensation of being alive again after a long hot spell. The presence in the solitude. The relief, peace, contentment, laced with a certain tingliness and excitement about what it all could mean – something new, something different, something dangerous.

Perestroika, physical and spiritual

Perestroika: The literal translation is "rebuilding."

The word you really hear all the time is remont -- it means "repair" or "remodel."

And it's going on everywhere you look in Moscow. Including here:

Hram Hristos Cpasitel (Church of Christ the Savior) is the largest Orthodox church in the world.

It was built in Moscow in the 1800s and destroyed by Stalin in 1931 to make way for an enormous Soviet Palace topped by a colossal statue of Lenin, designed to be the tallest building in the world. But the palace was never built, and the foundation of the cathedral became a huge swimming pool. (Yes, everything is huge, colossal, enormous, mammoth – we’re in Russia, and bigger is always better!)

In 1994, after nearly five years of petitioning, the Russian Orthdox Church was granted permission to rebuild the cathedral on it’s original site, and in 2000 the new building -- an exact replica of the original church -- was consecrated.

From the guidebook I bought there:

A tragedy for Russian Christians, the attempt of the Communists to put up the Palace of Councils in place of the cathedral revealed the struggle between God who had become man to save humanity and man who was trying in vain to become God.

The gigantic “Babylon Tower” … was a symbolic antithesis of the Saviour cathedral, its anti-reflection. … Many elements of the palace were devised as antipodes of the cathedral’s elements -- the huge statue of Lenin instead of the cross crowning the cathedral, the representation of a five-pointed star on the ceiling of the Grand Hall, and articles of the Stalin Constitution carved on the walls of the foyer.

And then this symbolism of resurrection and repentance, which I found especially moving:

Many Muscovites who watched the [groundbreaking] ceremony [for the new building] on TV in 1994 could not believe their eyes: the miracle did occur. The main national sanctuary was being resurrected from its ashes, like a mythological bird Phoenix. ...

Today it is primarily a place of repentance, a personification of the country’s conversion from atheistic theories to the Law of God, to Christian doctrines of eternity and the City of God, to the traditional roots of the Russian Orthodox civilization. The cathedral, regarded as a martyr for Christ, has been resurrected on the site to show gratitude to God for saving Russia and overthrowing the utopian theory of the earthly paradise. It is a sort of memorial to Russia’s history, heroism and sufferings. It is the national Orthodox idea embodied in stone.

It's. So. #@&%. Hot.

It's been around 100 degrees every day for about two weeks now. Oh, and did I mention there is NO air conditioning? I kind of want to die. I'm looking at a pile of seven empty 5-liter bottles of water and calculating that I'm going through about 2.5 liters of water a day right now. I think that's roughly double the recommended 6-8 glasses, no?

Some folks here are drinking more than water:

Drunk Russians Drowning Due to Heat Wave
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/7891040/Drunk-Russians-drowning-due-to-heat-wave.html

AND (yes I'm on a weather rant) it hasn't rained, except for few brief rainstorms, which I'm convinced the Russian government is artificially creating by doing that thing where they put chemicals into the clouds and force it to rain. (I mean, why shouldn't the government control everything, including the weather?) The rainstorms last for about five minutes -- really big drops, but not quite enough of them -- and all they do is make the ground sizzle, then they stop.

And that's not all. In addition to all the crops dying from the drought, there are also shortages of electric fans (my friend saw a woman selling an old fan at a metro stop for 4000 rubles, which is about $130) and ice cream. Yes, they're running out of ice cream. Luckily I haven't been affected by this … yet …

So, I'd love to stay and chat but there's a cold shower calling my name. Or maybe a hot shower. It would still cool me down. You think I'm kidding, don't you …

The doorway

On Monday morning I meditated for the first time. Not like deep thinking (which I have actually done before, thank you very much), but like a guided meditation. Here.

This meditation used the sound of a bell to focus the mind and open the spirit. It sounded three times, with the idea being to feel the reverberations and welcome the sound physically into the body, followed by a period of remembering the sound and feel of the bell, the echo or memory of the bell. And then a mental letting go of the bell sound and opening to other sounds, followed by another focus on the memory of the bell.

It was during one of these repetitions, one of these moments of allowing the bell sound to come into you, that I felt it. It was fleeting, but it was as though a feeling of openness penetrated into the protective shell I’ve built to protect myself from life’s disappointments – especially from spiritual experiences that I may or may not be able to trust. At the beginning of the meditation, the guide said, “Cultivate the mood of wonder, of humility. Let this be the doorway to the practice.” That resonated deeply with me, and I think that inviting those particular emotions allowed that brief feeling of pure openness and centeredness.

In some ways, it was like an old familiar friend. In other ways, it was a little terrifying. I mean, can’t it be possible to have both my protective shell and that openness at the same time? I mean, what’s so wrong about being careful with your heart, not just in a romantic sense but in a life sense? I want to be cautious and yet impulsive, protected and yet vulnerable, distant and yet intimate. Paradox? Maybe.

“Cultivate the mood of wonder, of humility. Let this be the doorway to the practice.”

And not just to the practice, but to life. A further explanation of the meditation:

“Do you have the patience to wait ‘til your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving ‘til the right action arises by itself? The master doesn’t seek fulfillment. Not seeking, not expecting, she is present and can welcome all things."

[Here’s the point where this blog post should end, both because of length and because of overshare. But I can’t resist wanting to sort out this other idea … and yes, if you read it and it makes you feel the need to share the name of a good therapist with me, please go ahead and leave it in the comments ... ]

I have deep angst about this trip (ok, about my life) that stems from wanting to do something, to be something, to make an impact, to please have some meaning for someone somewhere. And I am realizing that this desperation – born of loneliness, of cultural conditioning, of the pure desire to give to someone – is paralyzing. It makes me choke. And this seeking, this expectation, this need is intense – I am desperately in search of fulfillment, I admit it. And yet “The master doesn’t seek fulfillment. She is present and can welcome all things.”

It sounds so beautiful. Simply to be present and welcome all things, all people, all experiences. To be open with the mood of wonder, of humility, like a child. Not to find or accomplish something specific or to return with something grand or impressive. But to be alive, and to find meaning and connection in being open to the world.

But this is a difficult state of mind to sustain. Already in the 35 seconds since I typed that last line, my mind has started off down the road of justifying my desire to achieve something visible, something tangible, by tying it to the lofty desire to love and be loved, to give, to impact. But is it really for others I want this, or for myself? I feel afraid that by letting go of trying to do something impactful, I will sink into oblivion, into meaninglessness and loneliness. It’s like a struggle between the will to power and nirvana. The desire and ambition grip me, paralyze me. The letting go, the mediation is lighter, more open and yet now in it’s aftermath I seem to fear it more. I fear losing control, losing everything. Abandoning myself to the higher power and then simply disappearing. Alone.

And all of this -- all of it -- exists only inside of me, only in my mind, yet it affects everything. That's sort of weird, right?

“Cultivate the mood of wonder, of humility. Let this be the doorway.”

(June 2010, Peterhoff, Russia)

Meet Rosa

Rosa is my suitemate. We share a bathroom, a fridge and a door. We really can't communicate at all, but I've grown to sort of adore her.

Rosa is from Palermo, Italy. She's in Moscow for four months learning Russian. She has two daughters in their 30s, and her husband either died or divorced her -- I'm not sure which -- 20 years ago. Like I said, we can't really communicate. Rosa speaks an unintelligible mix of Russian, Italian, English and Crazy. She gesticulates wildly in a quintessentially Italian fashion and is passionate about, well, I'm not sure what she's saying, but about everything, it seems. She has a portable CD player, and I can often hear her in the next room either repeating Russian words or singing along as she putters about her room.

One day not long after I arrived, I answered a knock on our door, and there was a young, ripped Egyptian guy standing there. "Is Rosa here?" She wasn't. "Tell her I stopped by to say hello?" Um, sure. "Rosa is such a cool lady." Really? Huh. I mean, I don't really know her. Sometimes she invites me into her room to drink juice and "talk," which basically consists of me speaking Russian and her not understanding, her speaking Italian or her special mix of languages and me not understanding, and a few times we've actually used two dictionaries to translate words from Italian to Russian and then Russian to English. Usually they're words like "birch." I mean, I had already guessed "tree," but apparently she really wanted me to understand that she was talking about a birch tree. So you can see why conversation might take a while.

After the Egyptian guy stopped by, I started paying more attention to Rosa -- not just her quirks, but her essence, you could say. And I have to agree that she's such a cool lady. I love that she gets really big eyes, smiles, nods 50 times and says "ciao" when she sees me. I love that she sings along with her CD player everywhere she goes, that she talks to the TV in the cafeteria while she's watching auto racing, that she sketches the pigeons that land on her windowsill and shows me the drawings multiple times. I hope that when I'm Rosa's age, I'm still as passionate, as adventurous, as excited to travel the world, to try to learn new things and to connect with people as Rosa is. She's kind of awesome.

So You Think You Can Dance ... Moscow?

I took a stroll down Arbat Street this weekend and discovered why the SYTYCD franchise has yet to branch out into Russia ...

(Highlight is at about 2:00 when one pretends to shoot the other, who is then miraculously resuscitated)

And yes, you heard right, they did mention Michael Jackson's name ... more than once. And yes, the music piping out of their tiny little speakers is directly from Super Mario Brothers.

You gotta give it to these guys for getting out there, though. Living the dream. I respect that.

Also, I feel kind of like the tall guy when I dance. Sort of all over the place.

(almost) White nights

The view from my window, 11:00pm.

Sister Pond

There’s something about speaking a language you don’t know well that makes life seem simpler, more straightforward, less complex. Suddenly, talking about everyday things like where you live and how many people are in your family is SO interesting. A simple conversation becomes a cultural exchange, a linguistic challenge. And as the Russian language slowly comes back to me, I feel so satisfied with myself for my little victories in small-talk, of all things.

I wonder if, for me, part of it is that speaking Russian takes me back to a previous time in my life when things really were more simple and life really did seem black and white.

Last night I went to the English club that the missionaries hold each week. I chatted with people in Russian afterwards for a long time, and found myself falling back into patterns of conversation and even of thinking from my missionary days. All my complex questions about life and God and the universe seemed so far away, and for a moment, the world was black and white again. It was so easy to invite people I just met to come to church and to sincerely hope they would. And the whole experience felt like a relief, like a return to childhood of some kind.

But that’s just it – it’s a part of my spiritual childhood, a part of my history, not of my present. My mission was a foundation, a jumping-off point for my adult life, and just like my childhood, it inculcated many good things that I’m grateful for, but it also sowed the seeds of misconceptions that have caused me pain as I’ve tried to sort them all out. There will always be fond memories, nostalgia, and the longing for lost innocence, but I don’t know if you can ever truly go back. And I'm making peace with that.

Not to completely switch tone, but since we’re talking about nostalgia, here’s a video I stumbled across of a Russian singer singing “Where does childhood go?” It’s truly horrible. I should probably be embarrassed for posting it. But it's fully on topic -- and fully Russian.

In Russia, many men now carry purses.

I'm not really sure what else to say about this.

Freedom

All we have to do now
Is take these lies
And make them true somehow
--George Michael

Alla Vasilievna wears the same white shirt with the same beaded necklace every day. She has short, dyed blond hair that she pulls while she's talking. She's at once a cosmopolitan world traveler and a deeply nationalistic Russian (unconscious racist overtones and all). And she's a terrific Russian teacher.

Yesterday's topic of discussion was freedom.

Alla Vasilievna asked us all what freedom means to us. Lena, a Cornell student and daughter of Russian immigrants to the US, said freedom is the opportunity to make of your career and your life whatever you want to. Tamara, a history professor from Germany, pointed out that poor people aren’t free because they don’t have the same choices rich people have. Terry, a native of Trinidad-Tobago now living in Washington, DC, said that he has very little, but that he is freer than people who are in slavery to material items. And Pavel, a lawyer from the Czech Republic, said that he doesn’t feel free in Russia because he always has to carry papers with him and because someone refused to sell him beer when a policeman was nearby.

And then, animatedly pulling at her hair, Alla Vasilievna explained that to the Russian psyche, freedom is not an obviously and inherently good construct in the same way that it is to people from some other countries. There is a fear, she said, of unchecked freedom, of anarchy. The idea of the “will” is an ancient one in Russian culture, but the word for “freedom” entered the language more recently and is not understood to have a necessarily positive connotation.

Alla Vasilievna also drew a distinction between personal freedom and political freedom. Personal freedom, she said, is the freedom to choose what you do, where you go, who you marry, etc. Political freedom includes things like freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, etc. According to Alla Vasilievna, personal freedom is important to Russians, but political freedom is "not as interesting." When I pressed her, saying the line is not very clear and using freedom of speech as an example, she even went so far as to say that as a Russian, she felt just as free under Communism as she does now, because she still had personal choices about her career, her family, and the rest of her personal life, and government is another realm altogether.

Now, I'm not a Russian, and I get that I can probably never completely overcome my own cultural upbringing and fully grasp another culture. But is this a bit of a stretch in defense of the Russian people? Alla Vasilievna added that Russians feel free because their country is so large and they have myriad options for travel or living within their own country, unlike smaller countries with close boundaries. And then she capped off her defense by asking each of us what we do when the sign says "don't walk" but there are no cars in sight? Apparently Russians tend to walk, but people from other European countries wait for the light to change. "Who is more free," she asked?

Today we talked about religion (that's a topic for another post ... or hundred posts). Alla Vasilievna mentioned that she is Russian Orthodox, and I asked her about practicing under Communism. She said that she went to church secretly because she knew that if she was caught, she could lose her job at the university or compromise opportunities for advancement. Which sounds to me, with my American predispositions about freedom of religion, like an infringement of personal freedom.

And yet, I believe Alla Vasilievna. I don't know to what extent she represents the rest of her country, but I believe that she secretly attended church and felt somehow personally free at the same time. And I'm fascinated by the idea that in this country, the lines between church and state, between personal and political freedom may not necessarily be drawn more thinly or thickly than in a place like America, but rather on another plane altogether.

Russia

It is impossible to comprehend Russia with the intellect,
Or to measure her with any common measure;
Russia has a unique posture --
It is only possible to believe in Russia.

--Feodor Ivanovich Tiutchev, 1803-1873

Where am I, you ask?

I'm in Moscow.

Why am I here? Great question.

A few years ago, at the recommendation of several friends, I started reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. She writes about her travels to Italy, India and Indonesia on the heels of a wrenching divorce in an attempt to rediscover meaning in life. But I found myself resenting Gilbert and all her exotic wisdom so much that I had to stop reading after the first few chapters.

Nice for you, I thought, that you can just pack up and travel the world to mend your broken heart. Nice that you have the means and the time and everything to do whatever you want. If I had that luxury, I could also write full-time about the purpose of life, have more spiritual epiphanies and sort through all my personal psychoses.

But I don’t have that luxury. I’m stuck here in what feels like a dead end life with crushing student loans, an hour-long commute to an unfulfilling job, a crisis of faith, disappointment upon disappointment in my personal life and no idea what to do next. And all I’m getting from reading your "inspirational" book is that if I want to find purpose and meaning and healing I need to have a ton of money so I can travel the world. What about the rest of us? What about people who have to find a way to sort things out on a budget, while still juggling life's responsibilities?

And yet, here I am. I’ve arranged for 16 weeks of leave from my job to work on an important-sounding writing project. I've put all my earthly belongings into a 5' by 8' wooden crate. I’ve scraped together enough money to get to Russia and (hopefully) survive there for ten of those weeks. Maybe I bought into it after all. Maybe a part of me really believes that leaving my life behind, even temporarily, and living a foreign life in a foreign country while writing about foreign people is the path to life's answers. Maybe I resented Elizabeth Gilbert because I wanted to be her. Or maybe I just bought exactly what she was selling, without even realizing it.

A few weeks ago, I said to M., Maybe after three months in Russia I’ll know exactly what I want to do with my life. I’ll have direction and answers.

Probably not, he said.

Wow, I thought. That's a little mean.

But he was right, and that's when I realized how hard I was trying to be Elizabeth Gilbert. Life's answers aren't just out there for the taking, growing on mango trees in Thailand or currant bushes in Russia. It's not like there's an on-demand channel for them. I'm just as likely to come back and be right where I started as I am to find answers to any of life’s questions, solve my crisis of faith and have clear direction for my career and my love life.

And you know what? It's a relief to think that maybe I won’t figure it all out this summer. Or ever, for that matter. And so in the end, the answer to why I'm here is that I want to be here. Sure, maybe I'm trying a little too hard to find meaning. Welcome to my world. And yeah, maybe I'm just running away. So what? (Thanks, Dad, for helping me come to terms with that one.) It comes down to the fact that I just want to be here, and I can. And so I am.

It's like this guy said, after quitting his fancy New York City engineering job (what is it with our generation?) to walk across America. (Yep, just walk. He loves walking, apparently. And he’s meeting people and seeing the country and getting to walk.) He said:

"I didn't want to be too ambitious about what I would figure out on this walk. I didn't want to tell myself that when I was done, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. But maybe in the back of my head somewhere, I'm kind of hoping that."

Amen, brother.