10/29/2006 - Looking for a Bride?

Women in my grandparent’s neighborhood had to go to the well to bring water in heavy buckets. Water was needed for everything: laundry, cooking and bathing, regardless of the weather. That was why my parents finally decided one day to move into the city - they didn’t want us, girls, to grow without the comfort of the urban life.

My grandmother placed the old fashioned yoke between two empty buckets on the floor in the kitchen, bending her bony body over the wooden yoke to grab each bucket handle with the yoke’s hook. It was so neat to watch my grandmother’s movements especially when the handles acted stubborn, slipping from the hooks.

"Oi, ti mneshen’ka!" - My grandmother complained on her old fashioned village dialect, which meant something like "Oh, my God!"

She would repeat her attempts over and over until she was ready to place the yoke around her neck. Grandma looked always like Christ on the cross when she stretched her arms toward the ends of the yoke to secure the buckets. Then grandma would turn her right side forward to get through the door on her way out.

When I turned ten, I came to stay with my grandparents in our old neighborhood for a few weeks - I loved to visit my grandparents and stay in their old house.

I liked to wake up early in the morning and get out of the house to breathe in the smell of the farm. The smell of the freshly plowed soil mixed with dung was my favorite. Walking around my grandparents’ property, I always checked the barn where a cute cow blinked at me with her long eyelashes. "Moo-o-o-o-o-o".

I found vegetables in the garden and pulled out a bunch of fresh slender carrots. The easiest way to wash freshly picked vegetables was to dip them in the rusty canister filled with rain water that my grandfather set on the back yard to collect water. I never tasted carrots that were juicier than those crunchy orange sticks with green leaves, sticking out of my mouth, when I took the first bite.

Grandmother had already baked fresh pies in the Russian oven and waited for me in the kitchen with her face flushing - she had been too close to the greedy flame the whole morning.

Finally, my grandmother allowed me to go to the well. I proudly processed through the neighborhood with empty bucket hanging down below my knees, hitting my legs every step I took. Noticing how people tried to avoid me on my way to the well, I remembered that with the empty buckets I was bad luck to anybody who came my way: to see empty buckets was bad luck. I filled my buckets full - four gallons in each - and repeated my grandmother’s ritual, placing the bucket on the left hook first and then another bucket on the right hook of the yoke. 

Now, I am no longer bad luck for others, but I was bad luck for myself if I splashed any water on the ground: the belief was that the best bride is the one who walks so gracefully that she doesn’t splash a single drop.

I walked very carefully, but the full buckets were too heavy for me.

As soon as I took the first step with my left foot, at least two cups of water splashed out of the buckets. Right foot - same result. I tried to make my steps shorter just to see that it didn’t help - another puddle.

"Come on, girl! Let us see how good you are!" The neighbors cheered me up just to make me splash even more water and hardly made it home. To my embarrassment, I came home with buckets half empty. Nyah! I was not ready yet to be the best bride in the neighborhood. 

9/18/2006 - Envi

4/24/2006 - Where Were My Eyeballs?

My parents used to travel back and forth from Russia to visit my sister and I before moving to America for good. My mother enjoyed the high level of services in this country and quickly learned the benefits of being a customer. She couldn’t believe her eyes: People were actually polite and attentive! What she liked most was that she had a right to return or exchange low-quality items - something almost unthinkable for her! 

One day she came back to Russia and found out that my Dad brought home expired yogurt. Mom didn’t even want to listen to my fathers reasons - that it was not America and nobody would take the dairy products back - she sent him back to the store anyway.

"Where did you have your eyeballs?" the sales clerk yelled vulgarly at my father, looking down at him.

It became our family joke for years: "Where did you have your eyeballs?" We say it every time when we remember poor Russian services and compare them with the exceptionally polite and considerate customer service in this country. Last April my mother moved in with me to start a new life after we lost our father due to cancer. 

We signed her up for English as a Second Language class. To study English at 71, is it doable? Anything is possible in America, why not! But first thing first, we needed to buy a new bed for her and went shopping. My mother likes shopping! 

We found a nice mattress store and purchased two new mattresses sealed in plastic for just more than $700. The joy ended right there. My mother and I noticed a strong mildew odor in her bedroom as soon as we furnished it. Would you think of a new bed if you have a strong suffocating odor? I wouldn’t! 

I checked every corner of our new place, I sprayed bottles and bottles of Febreze - good stuff, but the mold was much stronger. The bedding was my next suspect. I washed it, and washed it, and I washed it again, but every time I entered the room I smelled the mold again. 

My mother got horrific headaches day after day, but I was not able to be attentive to her, having my own problems increasing day after day. My throat swelled and I finally lost my voice for weeks, and I didnt even sleep in the room. For a public speaker to lose her voice is the same as for a jeweler to lose her fingers. I make my living out of my voice. That was scary. 

Finally, we took the bed apart after we sent Mom to stay with my sister in Louisiana for two months. Only by accident we discovered that the problem was neither the bedding nor the apartment but the beds. Well, the beds were hardly three months old - that didn’t seem like a problem that couldn’t be fixed.

        "It is America - not Russia!" I told my mother, smiling, after she came back. All we needed to do was to see the store owner. But it was not as simple as I thought. It took me five visits to get nowhere?  

I soon could tell that the owner "stopped liking my face." This was not just the obvious observation of his attitude but his own words. "But this is a health hazardous situation!" I told him. "I do not want to keep molded mattresses in my apartment for so long. It makes us sick. I am allergic to mold."  

I felt I had a right to be heard even if he stopped liking me. I still believed that any store owner would naturally try his best to satisfy his or her customers. Instead we experienced deja vu: the American man suddenly transformed before our eyes into a rude and arrogant salesman (too familiar to us Russians), who yelled and screamed and laughed with a victorious sound.

"Get out of my store! You come here to threaten me with the Problems Solvers, you lie to me. You come from nobody knows what country, speaking nobody knows what language! I sold 50,000 mattresses and never had a mildew problem. You are the only ones who came back! Get out of my store!" He suddenly looked angrily and hatefully down at my mother, who sat innocently in the armchair, not having a clue about what was going on, and yelled again,

"Do not sit on my furniture! Get off my furniture! Get out of my store! Get out of my store!" 

He was so angry I had to call the police, not knowing that the owner could behave as he wished on his property. That was explained to me later by the city police officer.

"Arrest her! Arrest her for trespassing!" he continued yelling, even in front of the police officer.

"I can’t."

"I’d rather be arrested," I said and offered to turn myself in, envisioning how my friends would picket the mattress place. I knew I would win. It is not Russia; my dignity is preserved in America. 

After we left the store my mother complained: "Where are the new mattresses? Did the owner agree on exchanging it?" I hugged her and smiled, "Where were our eyeballs, Mom?" She looked at me with the sudden understanding, and we both laughed through tears.

4/24/2006 - New Kid on the Block

Change is hard, but radical change is even harder. Unlike our children, who get excited about trying and learning new things, we, adults, get nervous over the coming change and are too quick to react negatively, even knowing that change might be needed.

Fate changes our lives so dramatically that all we do is we blame God and people around. We want our lives, marriages, and former jobs back. The future seems scary, but the past looks familiar and comfortable.

My coming to America made me helpless, it took my support system from under my feet: I didn’t drive, I didn’t have money, I didn’t know how to live here so I had to learn to depend on my family and friends. Life taught me to become humble and patient. Life taught me to trust like kids do. It would be so easy to become heavily depressed " this road is well paved, but luckily I discovered that change transformed my inner-self: I felt like a child again. My friends told me that I was acting and looking much younger: “What a paradox!” I thought.

One day I found an explanation for that " I’ve read in one psychological research that immigrants become at least 6-7 years younger physically and mentally simply because they have to learn to live again - simply they have to learn to put their lives in God’s hands. They learn to live with kids’ curiosity that brings new thinking and disposition. Youthfulness and energy comes back naturally because of the every day joy of meeting new people, learning new skills, and learning to love again.

People say that one moving is equal to one earthquake, but what about many changes at once? What about losing your job, getting divorced, and sending your child to college, losing your loved one to cancer all at once?

Change is organic " this is how God created the world. It might be that in this change is the key to our constant search for transformation and longevity. Do not be afraid of change; trust that what you think is your failure might be your opportunity. Believe me it feels great to be a new kid on the block.