tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368031125003710792024-03-12T08:53:54.071+04:00kolokolchikione woman's mother's teacher's thoughts on life faith love food language.
comments welcomeКатяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.comBlogger254125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-64582383927519263642024-01-17T21:08:00.002+04:002024-01-17T22:10:02.989+04:00a nice bacon, lettuce, and tomato where the bacon is nice and crispy...<p> One of the less serious, but still frustrating, manifestations of culture shock is unexpected cravings for food. Before I studied abroad in the 90s, we were warned, for example, that we would miss peanut butter and should plan ahead and pack some. </p><p>I don't recall missing peanut butter that semester, but I did develop a serious craving for root beer about eight weeks in. It started as just an idle thought one day, "Root beer would be nice, maybe I'll buy some," as I was walking into a grocery store near campus in center of Moscow. Not much of a soda drinker in general, I hadn't ever really looked at the shelves in that part of the store, so I didn't know I had just set myself up for disappointment. There was no root beer to be had there, in any other grocery store I visited, or in any cafe or bar. And once I realized that I couldn't have it, that it was impossible and out of reach for another eight weeks, I craved it fiercely. Days might go by without a thought of root beer, but then it would pop into my head again and take up prime real estate until I could distract myself. </p><p>One element of culture shock food cravings is, of course, the dynamic of the forbidden fruit. I wanted the root beer so much precisely because I couldn't have it. Similarly, speaking stereotypically, US expats in some parts of the world crave peanut butter, Australian expats crave Vegemite, and southeast Asian expats crave durian. People living far from home crave the things that are difficult to find and expensive to ship. But there's also an element of social dislocation driving these cravings. </p><p>In my childhood, my mom, my sister, and I would split a pitcher of root beer and a large pizza for dinner at the local pizza place in our town. When I walked into the grocery store in Moscow that day, I wasn't thinking about my mom and sister consciously, but, I realized many years later, the desire for root beer was the surface-level symptom of a deeper homesickness. At that point, it had probably been years since we'd had pizza and root beer together, but somewhere below my conscious mind, halfway through my time away from home, I was reaching for that sense of family and togetherness. The root beer was a comfort food.</p><p>Living in Armenia, I haven't experienced a culture shock craving as fierce as the root beer in Moscow in 1998, but I'm also much more connected to friends and family thanks to cell phones and social media. There are things I can't get here, but for the most part, I enjoy the other things that are so much more abundant, so it feels like an even trade. </p><p>I have, however, been sad about bacon. There are many, many kinds of processed meats available in Armenian grocery stores, but most of them are in the bologna part of the spectrum, which is not my favorite. Frustratingly, there is a brand called BACON (written in Latin letters even!) that sells ready-to-eat deli ham and salami-style meats, but not actually bacon. Occasionally, "bacon" shows up as a topping in the burger section of restaurant menus in Yerevan, but what they mean in terms of cut and cooking temperature is not the same as what the word "bacon" means to me. </p><p>Then, yesterday in the fancy grocery store: </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjngbQyBRlVSXfwi7O8wNk4rLGUSuQ8lNt_lpT-YGYFqGRSbw-dBYRB_TSoxV0KjcE0dgwL1O7zpqXzNkSGbxit0VnXrUIQTxPO7o1DDZ-FSzniT64EeS34LBwEdljKM5oZEr25AhMPIvTexPuWqoVFUnHd3dg1PA6oHR-D-S8n4n_jLby2ymKYldx9_-F3/s4032/IMG_1541.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjngbQyBRlVSXfwi7O8wNk4rLGUSuQ8lNt_lpT-YGYFqGRSbw-dBYRB_TSoxV0KjcE0dgwL1O7zpqXzNkSGbxit0VnXrUIQTxPO7o1DDZ-FSzniT64EeS34LBwEdljKM5oZEr25AhMPIvTexPuWqoVFUnHd3dg1PA6oHR-D-S8n4n_jLby2ymKYldx9_-F3/w300-h400/IMG_1541.JPG" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">That, my friends, is honest to goodness, US-style, thin-sliced bacon! I bought two packages. I did a little happy dance right there between the processed meats and the macaroni. I will probably go back to buy more to stash in the freezer and to vote with my drams, as it were, so they hopefully continue to carry this product. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And today I splurged on hothouse tomatoes on the vine and leaf lettuce for BLTs. </div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTbR-o6OdXIaeU120bPnOaqsbyZIDqMaVqKEgeS8kvHHjKK0_CMEgZIli6r2Xw3mKwLg3ej-7_72kk0iCyGsSAQyutL9b8JoMRZCJVDLDrHGRDi9Mcy1Tx23z8P15c_9hk9v1WbRy61nHYDuLlIpiGNfNJMmPXv6YFr0qQvTWmDzKlmkYgAiAR6nqRoJ3h/s4032/IMG_1543.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTbR-o6OdXIaeU120bPnOaqsbyZIDqMaVqKEgeS8kvHHjKK0_CMEgZIli6r2Xw3mKwLg3ej-7_72kk0iCyGsSAQyutL9b8JoMRZCJVDLDrHGRDi9Mcy1Tx23z8P15c_9hk9v1WbRy61nHYDuLlIpiGNfNJMmPXv6YFr0qQvTWmDzKlmkYgAiAR6nqRoJ3h/w300-h400/IMG_1543.JPG" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Rice cakes are, of course, much inferior to a whole grain sourdough or a poppyseed Kaiser roll as BLT support vehicles, but this is my auto-immune dietary reality. Lack of gluten notwithstanding, these BLTs were so, so delicious, and I am very much looking forward to more of the same tomorrow. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Culture shock craving are particularly challenging because they are so unpredictable. I did not know I would miss bacon until I realized I couldn't buy it here. And if you had asked me in August of 1998, I would not have guessed that I was going to miss root beer. They're also challenging because of their inscrutability. When I was pregnant and craved pie or potato chips, I knew that what my body really wanted was fat and sugar or salt, and I could satisfy that underlying nutritional need with other things on hand, like peanut butter on Saltines. Culture shock cravings aren't about nutrition, though. They surface a soul need, not a body need. And today, the bacon-shaped hole in my soul is full. </div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com0Yerevan, Armenia40.1872023 44.51520911.876968463821157 9.3589589999999987 68.497436136178848 79.671459tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-78631026528316071762023-11-12T16:36:00.000+04:002023-11-12T16:36:35.152+04:00pack heavy<p> There is sort of a cult of minimalism when it comes to packing. If you read travel blogs, memoirs, or magazines, you are frequently treated to articles about how to get by for the longest time on the least clothing in the smallest bag. The same goes for content aimed at digital nomads. Some frequent travelers swear by the maxim "never check a bag!"</p><p>When I read these articles I always think of Lone Star, "Take only what you need to survive."</p><p>Some of the tips in these articles are helpful. Packing cubes, for example, have changed my life. The idea of wardrobe capsules with elements that mix and match in multiple ways has helped me to have a wardrobe that spans the range of my Hashimoto's weight cycles without taking over the entire universe. </p><p>Sometimes, like when your space Winnebago crash lands on a desert planet with no habitation in sight, it makes sense to take only what you can wear on your body and carry in your two hands. But that's not most of us most of the time. In the last several years, I've made several long-term moves and done a lot of short-term travel in between. That's a lot of packing!</p><p>Maybe some people truly are minimalists and need few things to accompany them through life. I'm not one of them. </p><p>When Anna visited me in Yerevan last Christmas, she kept being surprised by the things she recognized--the mandala Gwen crocheted, my favorite fancy deck of playing cards, my pocket knife, the Mickey Mouse cork replacers tiny Abigail picked out for me at Disney. Anna knew that I had moved to Moscow in September 2021 with four large suitcases on the plane and 5 cubic meters of stuff in a shipping crate. I left the next March with only two large suitcases and retrieved another small suitcase worth of stuff when I returned to Moscow that August to empty my apartment. She knew that I had left all my books in my campus office and donated clothes, shoes, bedding, and yarn to charity. Two large suitcases and one small one were all I brought with me to Armenia. And Anna was surprised by the particular objects that had made the cut.</p><p>Each time I have had to move in the last two years, I follow the same packing algorithm:</p><p>1) first the critical identity papers and the few print books I need to do my job</p><p>2) then shoes appropriate to the current weather and the next season</p><p>3) then the clothes that currently fit for the present season plus the clothes for the next size and season </p><p>4) then my knitting and sewing tool cases and jewelry box</p><p>5) then weigh and assess weight limit and remaining space in order to pack kitchen essentials (eating spoons, rubber spatulas, wooden spoon, US-sytem measuring tools) and personal enrichment (more books, yarn, and in-progress sewing and knitting projects)</p><p>The last thing I do before zipping a suitcase during pre-move prep is look around, asking myself, "what can fit that won't put this bag overweight?" It's the tiny items that make a space feel like it's mine.</p><p>There is irony in the fact that I'm writing this now. I've been thinking about this post for a several weeks, letting the thoughts bump up against each other in my mind. And now that the gentle knocks have become an avalanche, I'm sitting down to write in my comfortable apartment in Yerevan as refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh are starting over in Armenia with very little (some were able to fill their cars with the objects of life, but many came with only the clothes on their backs) and as civilians in Gaza are sheltering from aerial bombardment, not knowing how much will be left of their homes when they venture out to check. </p><p>I don't want to discount the importance of having a go bag with identity documents, medicine, cash, and clean socks and underwear, or the willingness to leave everything behind when the situation warrants it. Ultimately, no personal property is as important as the preservation of life. </p><p>But when we're not fleeing genocide, I think minimalism might be overrated. Checking a bag for your vacation doesn't make you (me) any less a seasoned traveler. </p><p>So, in contrast to the popular minimalist mantra of the travel industry, I encourage you to use the biggest suitcase you can confidently manage on your travels, toss in an extra book, pack your trusted snacks, always have a second pair of shoes and a jacket, always pack your swimsuit and the serious sunscreen, and bring the things you might want, not just the things you know you need. </p><p>Go ahead and pack heavy. </p><p><br /></p>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-41256535537262445302023-09-28T12:14:00.000+04:002023-09-28T12:14:04.671+04:00guns and butter<p> I was recently chatting with someone like me, a relatively recent transplant to Yerevan, about the current tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The worry here is that, having won swift capitulation from the ethnic Armenian enclave in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan will cross the border into Armenia proper to annex some or all of the Syunik province to connect the exclave of Nakhijevan with Azerbaijan proper. Though there is a lot of fearmongering, and many people are riding their own personal worry-go-rounds, this scenario is not unlikely. My friend Ruben explains some of the background in <a href="https://meduza.io/en/feature/2023/09/22/people-matter-more-than-territories">this interview he gave to Meduza</a>, an opposition media outlet in the RF.</p><p>My fellow transplant was struggling to understand how in the last 30+ years since the fall of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan had become such a military might and Armenia had not. "Have you ever heard of Guns and Butter?" I asked. My interlocutor had not. </p><p><a href="https://www.simulationtrainingsystems.com/schools-and-charities/products/guns-or-butter/">Guns and Butter</a> is a role-playing game that simulates world (or regional) geopolitics. Teams of players represent nation states (real or fictional) and each team is given a brief about its natural resources, its needs, and its assets. Teams have to decide whether they will spend their budget on guns or on butter. They can trade with other teams, they can form alliances, they can eavesdrop and spy on each other, they can declare an attack. </p><p>Guns and Butter mostly gets played in political science and economics classrooms. When I played in my World Geopolitics gen ed at American lo these many years ago, we had notecards and pencils. I imagine there have probably been technological innovations to the gameplay in the intervening decades. But I'm sure the simulations probably tend to play out the same way. Inevitably there is one group that goes hard for guns. They spend all their upfront money on guns. They sell their natural resources to neighbors and use that money for more guns. They rebuff any overtures toward alliance or collective security. And then they attack their neighbors. The players in this group respond to the ambiguity and lack of structure in the simulation by reaching for the power of violence. Their choices are driven by the fear that if they don't buy guns, other groups will. Kill or be killed. This group usually wins the simulation, but their fictitious people are starving because they have no butter. </p><p> Azerbaijan, I said, has spent the last thirty years investing in guns; Armenia has invested in butter. While Azerbaijan has built a military dictatorship with a large, well-equipped standing army trained to be merciless, Armenia has built a liberal democracy with a flourishing civil society. There have been growing pains in Armenia, of course, and vestiges of Soviet attitudes about polity still create roadblocks from time to time. But Armenia has seen peaceful exchanges of power from one administration to the next, and its parliamentary system survived snap elections in 2021. Yerevan is a city full of arts and innovation--hundreds of museums and galleries, theaters, concert halls, universities, business incubators, financial institutions that act as a regional hub. Armenia also has cultivated connections with its world-wide diaspora, whose numbers are greater than the population within the borders of the republic, and created a path to repatriation that many have taken advantage of. </p><p>My interlocutor asked whether I though the US is guns or butter. And my assessment is that the US is guns all the way. The arms race of the Cold War was an extended game of Guns and Butter. The US and the USSR each always wanted to present the image of having as much military might as the other because as long as mutual destruction was assured, no one would fire first. The <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/salt">SALT treaties</a> came about when these two superpowers started to realize how ridiculous mutually assured destruction is as a strategy. </p><p>In the middle chunk of the twentieth century, from Roosevelt's New Deal to Johnson's Great Society, the US invested in butter as well as in guns: the WPA, the CCC, the FDIC, the NEA and NEH, the NIH, the Clean Air and Water Acts, the EPA, unions and labor rights, OSHA, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act--these are all investments in butter. (Eisenhower's interstate system is a great example of simultaneous investment in both guns and butter.) We built a thriving middle class and a world-leading public education system. But the US hasn't been keeping up this investment in butter in a long time. We're coasting on our past investments, and the butter is running out. <a href="https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/see-how-student-loan-borrowing-has-changed">Student debt</a>, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2021-millennials-are-running-out-of-time/">declining generational wealth</a>, <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/why-life-expectancy-in-the-us-is-falling-202210202835#:~:text=A%20dramatic%20fall%20in%20life,just%20over%2076%2C%20in%202021.">declining life expectancy</a>, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/27/us-personal-savings-rate-falls-near-record-low-as-consumers-spend.html">declining household savings rates</a>, <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/wvu-cuts-higher-education/">public universities gutting their faculty</a> are all indicators of insufficient investment in civil society.</p><p>Personally, I'd rather live in a butter society. Guns are overrated.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://food.fnr.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/food/fullset/2014/8/12/0/fn_butter-thanksgiving-01_s4x3.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.616.462.suffix/1407858612320.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="462" data-original-width="616" height="462" src="https://food.fnr.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/food/fullset/2014/8/12/0/fn_butter-thanksgiving-01_s4x3.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.616.462.suffix/1407858612320.jpeg" width="616" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><i>Photo ganked from <a href="https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/packages/baking-guide/baking-with-butter">The Food Network</a></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-23795319245068443392023-08-19T18:11:00.004+04:002023-08-19T18:11:31.713+04:00my gram<p> This week I'm itinerating, visiting friends and family on a brief trip to the US. One day, I drove from my sister's house outside of Kalamazoo to my aunt and uncle's house outside of Syracuse, and I stopped outside of Buffalo along the way to see my grandmother. </p><p>Gram will be 99 this September. She's living in an assisted living community, and her world keeps contracting. Since a fall in 2016, she's been losing hearing and vision, so she cannot do the knitting and crochet that used to occupy her hands. She can't read the paper every day or listen to the news that used to keep her mind busy. Hearing and sight are reciprocal senses. Usually as a person loses one, they use the other to compensate. For my grandmother, losing both at the same time is a particular hell. </p><p>She has hearing aids, but she--of course--refuses to wear them because she says they create an echo. My Uncle Pete has adopted a decibel level that makes me want to reach for earplugs when he talks to her. I've noticed that a lot of what she does hear, or pretends to hear, is actually guessing from context. She hears some of the words, and fills in the others. I imagine that this process must be exhausting for her--listening intently and trying to fill in the blanks. I've found myself limiting what I try to tell her because she cannot guess what she doesn't expect, and when she realizes communication has failed, she gets frustrated. </p><p>On this visit, I hadn't told her I was coming. (I also didn't tell my uncle; hopefully he believes her when she tells him I came by.) When I walked into her apartment, she was asleep on the sofa with the classical radio station playing baroque music loudly enough to wake the dead and to be heard by the nearly deaf. She woke easily when I called to her because her sleep these days is rarely deep.</p><p>me: Hello!</p><p>her: Hello! Who are you?</p><p>me: It's Kate.</p><p>her: Who?</p><p>me: KATE! Your granddaughter</p><p>I think that I am prepared for the moment when she one day will not remember me, but every time we have this exchange, my heart is in my throat. Thankfully, this is not that day. </p><p>her: Oh! Kate! They let you in? We're under quarantine!</p><p>She tells me how someone has a "bad cold" so everyone has to stay in their rooms for five days. This is day one and she's bored and mad about it. There is a flier on the table explaining that a small number of staff and residents have tested positive for COVID, so to curb spread meals will be brought to each individual apartment. I know that the pandemic has been explained to her. She had COVID herself last year. But her guess-based hearing means the complexity of the situation is beyond her reach. </p><p>her: It's like--do you remember a couple of years ago, the almost national shutdowns because someone had an earache? It's like that. We used to be able to go out and play pinochle and do puzzles, but not now! I can't go out with you. </p><p>me: That's okay. I can just stay here with you. </p><p>I'm surprised the receptionist didn't say anything to me when I signed in, but I was already wearing a KN-95, so maybe she thought I knew. I would have worn a mask anyway. We should all be wearing masks when we enter the living space of society's most vulnerable people.</p><p>She asks if I'm back visiting family, and I say yes, also noting that she remembers I live far away. I tell her that I was with Mom, and now I'm going to Melissa's. </p><p>her: Melissa is far!</p><p>me: Just a couple of hours. It's okay. </p><p>her: Peter is closer. You could go there. </p><p>me: Yes, but Melissa is expecting me.</p><p>her: You were with your mom. Where's your mom? </p><p>me: Michigan</p><p>her: That's far! How are you going to get back there tonight?</p><p>me: I was in Michigan. Now I'm going to Melissa's. It not that far.</p><p>her: Right. </p><p>We talk about how everyone is--Melissa, my mom, my sister, my kids. </p><p>Then she showed me around the apartment. She does not remember that I helped her move into this apartment a year ago. I join her in her reality, and react as though I am seeing everything for the first time--the bed that Mel and Pete set up, the dresser drawers that Chris and I managed to get back in all the right spaces, the mementos of her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren that I unpacked and set on shelves where she can see and touch them. </p><p>She shows me the mini-fridge and the microwave. She is very proud of the tea towel she has hung in front of the microwave to block the sun from bouncing into her eyes in the afternoon. We sit back down on the sofa, and she picks up her nap blanket. We talk about how I made it for her, the kids and I sitting on the floor tying two pieces of fleece together--a tiger print on the front and plain green on the back. Siberian tigers are her favorite. Just last week, she called me on the phone to tell me how much she appreciates this blanket and that she uses it every single day for her afternoon sofa naps. She tells me all of this again. Does she remember that she called me? I have no idea. I don't mention it. Then, abruptly, </p><p>her: If you're ready to go, I can walk you out.</p><p>me: Okay</p><p>I'm not ready, but she is clearly done with the effort of being visited.</p><p>me: I thought you're supposed to stay in your room. I can walk out myself.</p><p>her: They can yell at me. I'll walk you out. </p><p>me: Okay! Let's put on this mask you have on your walker. </p><p>She puts in on upsidedown and inside out. I rearrange it, gently pressing the wire around her nose, and telling her the blue side goes out. </p><p>her: Oh! Isn't that clever! Nobody ever told me.</p><p>I wonder if that's true.</p><p>As we walk down the hall, I notice that she's slowed down. She used to be a speed demon with that walker, zipping past mere mortals, but now she's just the speed of a regular able-bodied human. </p><p>her: You're home visiting family. Where do you live now?</p><p>me: Europe. </p><p>her: Where?</p><p>me: I live far away. In Europe. </p><p>I think trying to tell her about Armenia will lead us down a frustrating path. She won't hear it clearly and won't be able to guess. This is easier and not completely untrue.</p><p>her: Right! You moved to Russia and fell in love, and you stayed.</p><p>me: Yeah</p><p>I don't disagree with her. This is close enough to the truth. I am glad, though, that she's not watching the news these days, so she isn't hearing about the current geopolitical situation, so she's not worrying about me being in Russia. </p><p>When we get to the lobby, she tells me that I have to sign out in the book. As I'm doing that, she tells the receptionist, "That's my granddaughter!" </p><p>I lean down to hug her over the walker. I've been taller than she is for thirty years, but now she's shrinking, and I notice how far down she is, and how slight. </p><p>me: I love you!</p><p>her: I love you, too. </p><p>I walk out into the portico and pause while the inevitable tears prick my eyes. Every visit, every phone call might be the last, and I am hyperaware that my choices have made visits and phone calls very difficult. I am so glad that I got to see her face and hear her voice and hug her this week. But I'm so sorry that I can't share more of my life with her. Ten years ago, she would have loved to see pictures and hear about the new places I'm visiting, about the things I've been knitting. My grandmother has always been a curious person who enjoyed learning about the world, but a life based on limited sensory input and guessing makes learning about new and unexpected things so difficult and frustrating that it becomes impossible. </p><p>her: When I go on to greener pastures, you can have this tiger blanket back. </p><p>When she goes on to greener pastures, I will be a mess. I am already a mess over how little there is of her now. Old age is not for the faint of heart.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIcA0DkxQ5zM5bNPvtrd-GzpC2urVqytt9I3G_rmIREPWwmE7Pb3r590LMDxb0Mo93duQe2bgJUA0LYxuyJWvqYuuGQjMb8NdPPsbZDCYwVDJ28VT0qDZlyAA6kQ_XL712nZkBlpsW3gM2mpKPQE9BHjUPdThkFqPfCvFzGjlnDpmAw8TG9x0Ur_-SYt0I/s1280/IMG_5772.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIcA0DkxQ5zM5bNPvtrd-GzpC2urVqytt9I3G_rmIREPWwmE7Pb3r590LMDxb0Mo93duQe2bgJUA0LYxuyJWvqYuuGQjMb8NdPPsbZDCYwVDJ28VT0qDZlyAA6kQ_XL712nZkBlpsW3gM2mpKPQE9BHjUPdThkFqPfCvFzGjlnDpmAw8TG9x0Ur_-SYt0I/w400-h300/IMG_5772.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>I didn't get a picture this time, but here we are in 2019.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><p></p>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-45792330118472544932023-07-21T00:58:00.004+04:002023-07-21T01:04:56.891+04:00beginner blues<p></p><br />As a language teacher, I find brand-new adult beginners to be the most challenging group to work with. It's hard to fill a class session with engaging activity when the students' tool boxes hold so little vocabulary and even less grammar. As an adult language learner, I am finding being a beginner to be similarly challenging. And I think Nazeli, my tutor, is a saint who is worth every dram I pay her.<p></p><p>For the first nine months I lived here, I was functionally illiterate. I could not wrap my head around the alphabet, so I couldn't even recognize how many of the signs on shops and the labels in grocery stores were Russian or English words transliterated into Armenian letters, words that I could have understood if someone said them out loud. </p><p>When the spring semester ended in May, I got serious about making progress and hired Nazeli. After meeting for two hours twice a week since then, I now mostly understand the alphabet. Having as much alphabet as I have now has already opened the city up for me quite a lot. Signs and labels have become learning tools instead of inscrutable rebuses. Still, there are several letter pairs for which I understand the difference but cannot hear it most of the time. This is totally normal because these sounds are not considered distinct letters in English, but it's frustrating nonetheless. </p><p>I will write down a word, and Nazeli will say, "No, not k, k!" This will happen again and again throughout the lesson. She usually keeps her cool, but sometimes I can hear the consternation behind the patience. She's actually saying two different sounds, which correspond to two different Armenian letters--կ (voiceless velar stop, unaspirated) and ք (voiceless velar stop, aspirated)--but I hear them both as k (voiceless velar stop). In US English both the aspirated and unaspirated versions exist, but aspirated stops come only <a href="https://web.pdx.edu/~connjc/Rule%20for%20English%20Aspiration.pdf">at the beginning of a word or the beginning of a stressed syllable</a> and unaspirated stops go everywhere else, so US anglophone brains generally don't differentiate the aspiration. (You can feel the difference if you focus on it. Try saying kick and pop while holding your palm an inch away from your mouth. The k and p and the beginning of each word come with a little puff of air (that's the aspiration) that the k and p at the end of the word don't have.) So I can say both կ (voiceless velar stop, unaspirated) and ք (voiceless velar stop, aspirated), I just find it really really difficult to say each of them in what feels to my anglophone mouth like the "wrong" part of the word, and actually difficult to say the unaspirated stops on purpose at all, as when reciting the alphabet or spelling a word out loud. In US English the aspiration or lack of it isn't a difference that carries meaning, it's just a thing we do in certain parts of a word. In Armenian the difference carries meaning. </p><p>I also now have an extensive vocabulary of animals, birds, food, body parts, and cityscape. At this point, I don't actually need to know the names of all the zoo animals or the contents of a primary school classroom. What I really want is an illustrated alphabet book with vocabulary for grown-ups. </p><p>An English language alphabet book for grown-ups would have words like: </p><p>Aa -- apple, apartment, alliance</p><p>Bb -- bookkeeper, budget, bank draft</p><p>Cc -- car, car keys, canvas bag</p><p>Oo -- office, open floor plan, opposition party</p><p>You get the picture, right? Alphabet books created for native-speaker children learning to read a language they already speak are better than no books at all, but they really aren't what adult learners need. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxIpW2woIKZm9NPDgZpwLOgMScvKhDNl7oYwA3wHueetpdgtvAb5TsragacdZW8u41g-X-6EBRLUNuK-Oj5mJ8-MLedH5x93LHWg78BS1J6RNRXxVq-NMLvzVoPz0_1VpGsYw9vLrNvTzdWhXJvFGoAHyzVlifpOTx1h1tA38pMoY7DkdNXuFkJLMEFTs0/s2851/IMG_0696.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2236" data-original-width="2851" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxIpW2woIKZm9NPDgZpwLOgMScvKhDNl7oYwA3wHueetpdgtvAb5TsragacdZW8u41g-X-6EBRLUNuK-Oj5mJ8-MLedH5x93LHWg78BS1J6RNRXxVq-NMLvzVoPz0_1VpGsYw9vLrNvTzdWhXJvFGoAHyzVlifpOTx1h1tA38pMoY7DkdNXuFkJLMEFTs0/w400-h314/IMG_0696.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Beyond vocabulary, a limited grammar set is also an uncomfortable constraint. I only have verbs in the present simple (I go everyday) and present continuous (I am going right now), and I have a limited understanding of the case system for nouns. <p></p><p>Part of my homework every session is to write sentences, Don't get me wrong--this is a perfectly logical assignment to give. But writing sentences within my pool of vocabulary and grammar is a bit like trying to say something with only a set of magnetic poetry tiles. My ideas keep outrunning the inventory of magnetic bits. </p><p>I can successfully construct sentences like</p><blockquote style="border: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>A1: Շունը ունի ծորս ոտքեր, բայց ես ունեմ երկու ոտքեր և երկու արմունկներ:</p><p>A2: <i>The dog has four legs, but I have two legs and two arms.</i></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>B1: Մենք նսարում ենք նսարանի վրա զբոսայգի մեջ Կոմիտասի արճանի մոտ:</p><p>B2: <i>We sit on a bench in a park near the statue of Komitas. </i></p></blockquote><p>But if I try to say something like</p><blockquote style="border: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">C1: This morning I was looking out the window watching the birds, and they made me happy.</p></blockquote><p>it comes out like</p><blockquote style="border: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>*C2: Այս արավոտ ես նայում եմ պատրաստումը: Կան թռչուններ: Ես ուրախ եմ:</p><p><i>*</i>C3: <i>This morning I look the window. There are birds. I happy am. </i></p></blockquote><p>I don't have the Armenian syntax for complex sentences or relationships of time. Only lots of experience writing haiku of questionable quality where weird syntax, juxtaposition of images, and line breaks do a lot of the work. </p><blockquote style="border: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>Through the window</p><p>Morning birds wheel and turn</p><p>Happiness is this</p></blockquote><p>As a person whose job for the last 18 years has been to guide other people through the awkwardness and challenge of language learning as adults, I know that all of this is normal. As a person learning a new language as an adult, I'm bored with simple sentences in the present time frame. </p><p>In many ways, I can see that I have made a lot of progress. I can be more polite to people in public. I've met some doggos because I've learned to use կարելի՞ է (may I?) to ask permission. And when I have to ask a clerk or delivery person to speak Russian or English, I can ask them in Armenian, which buys a lot of goodwill, and makes the rest of the conversation easier. </p><p>Learning a new complex skill is hard and slow, and I'm grumpy about it.</p><p><br /></p>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-44040329655526186922023-07-03T00:24:00.005+04:002023-07-03T00:31:19.865+04:00meeting halfway<p> There's a phenomenon I used to call the "cute American discount," and I've experienced it almost everywhere in the world I've traveled, but I think it may need to be renamed. At 44, I'm closer to crone than maiden, so I don't get to call myself "cute" anymore; most people don't clock that I'm from the US, instead guessing all kinds of other nationalities; and it doesn't always involve money. Let's call it the "earnest foreigner phenomenon."</p><p>This usually happens outside the cosmopolitan cities, in places where foreigners are less a quotidian part of the landscape. Recently, a classic earnest foreigner phenomenon occurred on my solo trip to Lake Sevan. On a warm, sunny Friday, the peninsula was packed, and the stairs up to the monastery complex were full of tourists speaking Armenian, German, Russian, Italian. At each landing on the staircase, a local vendor was hawking souvenirs and trinkets, but not a lot of commerce seemed to be happening. </p><p>On my way up, I was struck by one vendor's display of bells hanging in the tree across the path from her booth. When I stopped to admire them on my way down, the woman popped up from her chair to come talk to me about them. </p><p><i>Ի՞նչ արժի սա:</i> -- I asked the cost, pointing to a bright silvery bell with a delicate pattern on its shallow cap.</p><p><i>Յութ հազար դրամ:</i> -- she replied, apologetically, like she thought her own price was too high. Then she pointed to a different, less shiny, smaller bell that was only 5,000 drams instead of 7,000 (400 drams to 1 USD, so all of this is less than $20).</p><p><i>Նու...ես սիրում եմ սա զոնգ:</i> -- I affirmed my choice of the first silvery bell, and reached into my bag for my wallet. </p><p>When we moved back across the path toward the booth, the woman I had been talking to spoke to someone I hadn't noticed had been lying on a pallet in the shade of the sales table. </p><p><i>Ես եմ վատ, շատ վատ:</i> -- This second women wasn't feeling well in the heat, but was clearly the one the booth really belonged to. </p><p><i>կներեկ, կներեկ ինձ:</i> -- I tried to apologize for disturbing her rest, but I was at the end of my Armenian, and didn't want to switch to Russian. The women deflected the apology, and we exchanged cash and change. </p><p>My new bell tucked safely in my bag, I navigated a glut of tourists to resume the trip down.</p><p><i>Ա՜ղջիկ, ա՜ղջիկ:</i> -- I heard the voice of the first woman calling "Girl, girl!" and turned to look. She waved at me, so I went back up to the landing, filing away the information that it's possible to use this word for adult women this way in Armenian. When I got there, she gestured to a board full of souvenir magnets, and when I didn't respond quickly enough, she chose one and presented it to me with some words I didn't catch. </p><p><i>Շնորհակալուտյու՜ն, շնորհակալուտյուն շա՜տ:</i> -- I thanked her as I accepted the magnet, and we smiled at each other and waved again as again started down once more. </p><p>Now, these women are old enough that they probably attended school in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic and likely speak excellent Russian. Given the location of this souvenir stand in a tourist zone, they may even have basic commerce English or other European languages. But when I started the interaction in Armenian, even though my Armenian is limited and riddled with errors, they stayed in that language. I didn't start the interaction by speaking in Russian or English and expect them to join me there. I took the step out of my comfort zone into their language. And they appreciated that I tried.* </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaorxDR_pK-CkSxGykQ4WB_xFi54Pf4GJJlrzdlnSLzunNg9TZAwmzXJ7tFhSAKod_tXdz2urCz6cQet_xt34HVjg-IGAl_BFR_drFqyWiBGvpvLSI2FvxDxBr4vnsjrrXcuC-3TK6bzO08e4G-wnTzmK8R_LvUDDZLH5q4D0V9a5eZhe64hGcoxXmX5Fj/s4032/7F397CED-4CE7-4A96-AB3A-4FF2C4753DBE.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaorxDR_pK-CkSxGykQ4WB_xFi54Pf4GJJlrzdlnSLzunNg9TZAwmzXJ7tFhSAKod_tXdz2urCz6cQet_xt34HVjg-IGAl_BFR_drFqyWiBGvpvLSI2FvxDxBr4vnsjrrXcuC-3TK6bzO08e4G-wnTzmK8R_LvUDDZLH5q4D0V9a5eZhe64hGcoxXmX5Fj/w300-h400/7F397CED-4CE7-4A96-AB3A-4FF2C4753DBE.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And now, in addition to this bell hanging from the arm of my <a href="https://kolokoli.blogspot.com/2022/11/chair-chair.html">Lamp that Stands</a> and the magnet on my refrigerator, I also have the memory of a warm interaction with two strangers in a language I am struggling to learn. The earnest foreigner phenomenon.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It happened again the next week while I was traveling with Chris & Kendra. On our last day in the Lori region, we hiked from the town of Kobayr in the bottom of the Debed Canyon up to a twelfth-century monastery built into the canyon wall, which is currently under restoration. The hike is a kilometer of relatively gentle rise on a one-lane unpaved track and then a hundred feet of stairs.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Three separate times we had to press ourselves into the underbrush at the edges of the road to allow the restoration crew's vehicles to pass. And as we got to the bottom of the stairs, they were taking turns bringing themselves and their materials up in a <a href="https://flic.kr/p/2oKkkab">very scary construction elevator</a>. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The Kobayr Monastery complex is amazing in its current state, and I can only imagine what glory this crew will restore as they continue their work. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ0B2LaCr7GMbdVih0BHaS50aiDkw0O00D3xUf7jUxGcBGKD_QkqMR0XMExUh9RYpXXZbJnNt14lPkBaM0Kk9klFZrZfnaGXAl4yqsgQfKORoZNMOgTJb4-dgERoWRUm7krbUNUKNZliC0EXm5zBpnKaZBgD1dmW63ZQ-Eurz4KzZA7y-GETzpIEUqhvnY/s3319/2023-06%20Slatt%20visit%20for%20sharing%20-%2078%20of%2098.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3319" data-original-width="2238" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ0B2LaCr7GMbdVih0BHaS50aiDkw0O00D3xUf7jUxGcBGKD_QkqMR0XMExUh9RYpXXZbJnNt14lPkBaM0Kk9klFZrZfnaGXAl4yqsgQfKORoZNMOgTJb4-dgERoWRUm7krbUNUKNZliC0EXm5zBpnKaZBgD1dmW63ZQ-Eurz4KzZA7y-GETzpIEUqhvnY/w270-h400/2023-06%20Slatt%20visit%20for%20sharing%20-%2078%20of%2098.jpeg" width="270" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We explored the main level chapel, churchyard, and the base of the bell tower slowly, taking in the intricate carving and well-fitted stonework. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQIE4AykoQOA6S8v5q5ig0lFqMazbFtSPj8lpw3w-d20pg2YSs-PskcXZWAQjCzZNOfevWPQyN6DQCRQfbB5TXDk_7HfzuroIVQm_AboNj2vU-MC1AyWHlqhsiO3CjTfvrlq1dkVbUdVOi3OPz5nODrFx7ULQVBS_8Axay4VQ-mB8aEgKbkjhijrdL-Jry/s4928/2023-06%20Slatt%20visit%20for%20sharing%20-%2071%20of%2098.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4928" data-original-width="3264" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQIE4AykoQOA6S8v5q5ig0lFqMazbFtSPj8lpw3w-d20pg2YSs-PskcXZWAQjCzZNOfevWPQyN6DQCRQfbB5TXDk_7HfzuroIVQm_AboNj2vU-MC1AyWHlqhsiO3CjTfvrlq1dkVbUdVOi3OPz5nODrFx7ULQVBS_8Axay4VQ-mB8aEgKbkjhijrdL-Jry/w265-h400/2023-06%20Slatt%20visit%20for%20sharing%20-%2071%20of%2098.jpeg" width="265" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Eventually, Kendra and I made our way to the next terrace up the stairs between the bell tower and the canyon wall. We were happy to admire the view, then these guys caught my eye and waved at me. </div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-HmVUIoDHLftkAM-lYogjaFEC1mrJz3k2K7d6mxRX9GZbJi3gYpiyIyHp2SORfQrW604c6UGdpT_npjofCnLQTowVLU-TbU7bWeAH_2O3mKe3plyUemowBlaGiF7MHkvKVrC8sXs04vEUOtOx7l0ioAnLNh1x0UweXc1uX2HKiOfvDuFres6JJ3K6hveC/s4032/2023-06%20Slatt%20visit%20for%20sharing%20-%2080%20of%2098.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-HmVUIoDHLftkAM-lYogjaFEC1mrJz3k2K7d6mxRX9GZbJi3gYpiyIyHp2SORfQrW604c6UGdpT_npjofCnLQTowVLU-TbU7bWeAH_2O3mKe3plyUemowBlaGiF7MHkvKVrC8sXs04vEUOtOx7l0ioAnLNh1x0UweXc1uX2HKiOfvDuFres6JJ3K6hveC/s320/2023-06%20Slatt%20visit%20for%20sharing%20-%2080%20of%2098.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>We're being invited into the bell tower.</i>--I said to Kendra, and we made our way in. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The restoration crew, men ranging in age from twenty-something to sixty-something and one young boy, had created an impromptu picnic table and had a common lunch spread out before them--tomato and cucumber, brown bread and lavash, smoked fish, smoked meat, local cheese. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">One of the younger men, standing up, held out a bottle of clear liquid toward me, a question in his eyebrows. I nodded my head, stepped closer, and held out my hand to take the porcelain demitasse cup he poured into. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>Это водка или самогон?</i> -- I turned to the table and asked if I was about to drink homebrew or the commercial stuff. I would have drunk it either way, of course, but I would have steeled myself for the usual harsh tang of homebrew.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>Водка! Водка конечно!</i> -- the younger man turned the bottle and pointed at the official label, looking a bit affronted, but the older men laughed, and one of them winked at me conspiratorially so that I knew that he knew that this was not my first rodeo. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> </div>I drank and handed back the demitasse cup. They offered more. <div><br /></div><div><i>Спасибо, но нет</i> -- I demurred -- <i>я за рулем</i>, and I made the steering wheel gesture to reinforce that I was the day's driver. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Ну тогда надо что-нибудь съесть!</i> -- they insisted I take something to eat, and I reached in to nab a ripe, juicy wedge of tomato. </div><div><p>We chatted more in Russian. They asked about where we were from--all of us from Washington, DC, but I live in Yerevan. For ten months already. Yes, I've studied Russian for years and lived in Moscow. </p><p>I asked about the restoration project--they've been at it for a while, but they're making progress. They enjoy the work. </p><p>When Chris made it up to top of the bell tower to join us, the younger man stood again and offered the bottle. </p><p><i>You're being offered vodka.</i> -- I explained -- <i>You should take it because it's really good. </i></p><p>Chris accepted the offered cup and, to his credit, emptied the generous pour in one shot, earning respect from the table, who all gestured toward the food. </p><p><i>You have to chase it with a snack</i>. -- I interpreted, and Chris took a morsel, nodding his thanks to the crew. </p><p>We spent a few more minutes admiring the view and taking pictures, and the crew went back to their meal. </p><p><i>Շնորհակալուտյու՜ն, շնորհակալուտյուն շա՜տ:</i> -- I thanked them in Armenian as we left. </p><p>That initial gesture by the younger man with the vodka bottle was a test, and as the older men surmised, this was not my first rodeo. Vodka, stereotypically speaking, is a men's drink. Russian women, at least the respectable ones of my generation and older, often don't drink vodka, or at least not in the company of men. In my travels on overnight trains, in regional cities, and in remote villages throughout the former Soviet Union, I've found that my willingness to violate this stereotype--sometimes shot for shot--usually leads to good conversation, impromptu language lessons, and lots of stories.</p><p>On this day, Chris and I passed the test, and now both we and they have fun stories to tell. Us about the oddity of doing vodka shots with strangers in the ruins of a twelfth century monastery. And them about the Americans! who came to their monastery and drank with them. </p><p>Had I been carrying any food in my backpack--even just the dried fruit, corn cakes, and chocolate Kendra and I had stashed in the car a lot of stairs and a kilometer away--I would have added it to the table, and they would have made room for us. That story would have been even better. </p><p>These kinds of moments of connection don't happen to me every day. I never expect them, but at this point, I'm not surprised. I can feel an interaction starting to go in this direction and do my best to stay open to the possibilities. It is invariably worth meeting people halfway. </p><p>_______________________</p><p>*They may also have appreciated that I didn't haggle, which I generally don't do because 1) I hate it, and 2) my salary is well above the local average so I can afford not to. Not haggling is an act of social justice.</p></div>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-59649048798645940532023-06-08T23:40:00.002+04:002023-06-08T23:44:41.961+04:00new growth<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Hey everybody, meet Lancelot! He is a sword fern, and I owe him an apology. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9L2vbtcwWENY_6GO6_AseVhkYxoP0Ezsge669J61QbsdzzkeLAd4jdUfT2Xgo9oPDwzhr4DnvWLiZZFbFg2kz2iQgpA_O67vURA_fCrf_eyvdzGYA-6_raHbKFi1gE7Yn-jTy23qojuqLxVjtosO3iSpwO1SALCc9WmfMpWCVhWU7tftjnTbGXmEKFw/s4032/B016E2DC-B3AE-4EA6-9149-BF37364AFEF0.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="A bushy, bright green sword fern dominates a white coffee table, crowding out a nearby snake plant and letting its leaves cascade over a darning project, sewing tools in an altoid tin, and a conch shell." border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9L2vbtcwWENY_6GO6_AseVhkYxoP0Ezsge669J61QbsdzzkeLAd4jdUfT2Xgo9oPDwzhr4DnvWLiZZFbFg2kz2iQgpA_O67vURA_fCrf_eyvdzGYA-6_raHbKFi1gE7Yn-jTy23qojuqLxVjtosO3iSpwO1SALCc9WmfMpWCVhWU7tftjnTbGXmEKFw/w300-h400/B016E2DC-B3AE-4EA6-9149-BF37364AFEF0.jpeg" title="Lancelot, the very extra sword fern" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Lance was the first plant I brought home to the this apartment, but he was pretty scraggly back then, and he dropped a lot of leaves on the floor on his way to filling himself out to his current state of very extra flooftasticacity.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Last week I noticed several naked sticks in various parts of the pot, and I grabbed the kitchen scissors to snip them out thinking that these were old things that needed to be removed. As I was snipping away at a dozen of these branches, though, I thought, "Huh, there are no brown leaves on the floor. Where did the leaves go?" </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBOKeGMdgosTZA_SmY6QlD0TUanHQAA3ym5wAFHJ7u5hhG7aLkr1Csumx83_U2vAfDYV8kFHMRUPP-WMKGyd6W643Hh7C8LVAItY9f3L-qczZ9T-3vNQEKdgyhTfKwO5DLGUOVamta7u3FhfiVd3gl5aN2tb7NPGe5kf5NHNlauYRSFVSK0F9BD9Xnaw/s4032/94449A2F-88EE-4243-9140-EAE214C23CE1.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="In a closeup of the top of the sword fern, some new skinny, naked green shoots are visible among the bushy leaves." border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBOKeGMdgosTZA_SmY6QlD0TUanHQAA3ym5wAFHJ7u5hhG7aLkr1Csumx83_U2vAfDYV8kFHMRUPP-WMKGyd6W643Hh7C8LVAItY9f3L-qczZ9T-3vNQEKdgyhTfKwO5DLGUOVamta7u3FhfiVd3gl5aN2tb7NPGe5kf5NHNlauYRSFVSK0F9BD9Xnaw/w300-h400/94449A2F-88EE-4243-9140-EAE214C23CE1.jpeg" title="Lancelot sends out new shoots anyway" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div>Then as I was walking to the kitchen trash with a bundle of naked stalks I had just cut, I noticed that they were green and supple, not brown and brittle. And I realized that I had just lopped off a dozen new shoots. Not my brightest moment.<div><br /></div><div>The nubbins I had interpreted as the places where leaves had fallen off were actually the places where leaves were just beginning to poke out. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitG359dS8FED10rN88gMEEZf-dVFvU9C3wHZ1WjFonmWwyL3_rCrTW3FhYfkJbttVquOV96b04DOEVt4V-LWNsxQRoG3HOShNJnn3bZXKOLXxvyO-q5Iv0OcGg4YAHAy2oNQtrIrGhIrEoG3lKlRve31uEpN46H8AbkN-e1qLmIZtg99ge5AlzawDcpw/s4032/D755FED3-40A8-4782-938E-4C773A9F389F.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="A closeup shows a delicate, tightly rolled grey-green leaf extending from one of the skinny green, slightly not naked shoots. My hand between the new leaf and the rest of the fern creates contrast." border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitG359dS8FED10rN88gMEEZf-dVFvU9C3wHZ1WjFonmWwyL3_rCrTW3FhYfkJbttVquOV96b04DOEVt4V-LWNsxQRoG3HOShNJnn3bZXKOLXxvyO-q5Iv0OcGg4YAHAy2oNQtrIrGhIrEoG3lKlRve31uEpN46H8AbkN-e1qLmIZtg99ge5AlzawDcpw/w300-h400/D755FED3-40A8-4782-938E-4C773A9F389F.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Lancelot, thankfully, is a bold knight and has since sent out several more new shoots, and today I caught this tightly rolled leaf getting ready to unfurl. He appears to have forgiven me.</div><p>This drama of the ill-timed shearing is a reminder that growth doesn't always look the way we expect it to. To be honest, before this, if you had asked me what growth on a sword fern would look like, I wouldn't have had a good answer. I think I imagined something like the way a wild fiddlehead fern grows by unrolling a fully formed stalk and leaves. </p><p>But Lancelot isn't a fiddle head, he's a sword fern. His new growth doesn't gracefully uncurl bottom to top until it stands upright, it shoots out chaotically in all directions, bare stalks making their way through the floofy ones before unfurling leaves in a random order and flopping into the existing mass of green. This growth is chaotic, this growth takes the clearest path it can find, this growth pushes other older growth out of its way, every new stalk is its own knight errant on an adventure seeking space and sunlight. </p><p>When I first left the US on my own in 2021, and officially became an empty-nester, I knew that I had a journey of personal growth ahead of me, not just a journey of geographic travel. The personal growth journey I imagined for myself was, I think, more like the fiddlehead fern--graceful and relatively orderly. The personal growth journey I've actually had, though, is more like the sword fern--chaotic, random, floofy--and sometimes I've cut off my own new growth because I didn't recognize it for what it was. </p><p>Thanks for the lesson, Lancelot, and sorry about the untimely snips.</p><br /> <p></p></div>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com0Yerevan, Armenia40.1872023 44.51520911.876968463821157 9.3589589999999987 68.497436136178848 79.671459tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-52542430578565433972023-04-13T00:57:00.003+04:002023-04-13T11:52:42.738+04:00fifty<p> Dear love, </p><p>Today would have been your fiftieth birthday, and I keep thinking about your fortieth birthday. You had such big plans for a weekend float with our canoe friends, but were thwarted by heavy rain and flooded rivers. <span></span></p><a name='more'></a>You were a sad moping monster after we made the call, so I made another call, and Amy & Clay dropped everything to come spend the day with us and Erin & David, grilling kebabs in the makeshift (and probably illegal) fire pit you dug behind Three Bananas Cottage in Lafayette while all of the children ran amok. It turned out to be a really good day for us in spite of epic rain and flooding across the state that week. We didn't know that would be the last of your birthdays we had together.<p></p><p>Today would have been your fiftieth birthday, and that means this is the tenth time the kids and I have marked the day without you. This is your tenth not-birthday, the tenth time we're remembering that your life stopped gathering more years, the tenth not-aging-ever-again-day. The tenth beginning of Family Grief Season. </p><p>And we miss you so fucking much. </p><p>Even though it's not your fault, even though you didn't choose to leave us, I have sometimes been really <a href="https://kolokoli.blogspot.com/2014/06/angry.html">angry</a> at you, which, even if it is irrational, is a totally normal part of grief. Angry over relatively minor things like the fact that even though I'm still doing all the laundry, I also now have to be in charge of the floors, which we agreed would never be my job. Last year, I finally decided to solve this problem with money and bought a robot vacuum. Erin named him Sweepnir, and he's the best cleaning buddy I've had since you. But also angry over bigger things like all the milestones and challenges I had to guide the kids through without you. The deal was supposed to be that I did the heavy lifting while they were babies and toddlers and you would do the heavy lifting in the teen years. But no. You weren't there. </p><p>Mostly now, though, I'm just sad. Sad for you that you missed so much and sad for them that they didn't have you to guide them and to balance me out. You and I were a good team, and we would have kicked ass together at wrangling teenagers. You finally would have been able to use your full powers of snark! I'm bummed we all missed that.</p><p>The kids and I did okay, though. Our friends and family stepped up, and we were never truly alone. Brea & Chris and Steph & Dave and Jannine and Amy and Julie rallied immediately. Jill and Mel came for extended stays that year. Rachel & David helped me plant the grapes and adopted the chickens. John, Dave, and Tim helped me clean out the garage. Brian and H adopted the heavy machinery, including the fire truck. Erin made sure I finished my dissertation, and her David encouraged the children's wild, messy science experiments. Sasha and my mom helped me manage ballet and gymnastics. Everyone helped me sell the houses. Chris & Kendra helped me teach Sofia how to drive, while Chris helped Anna learn to be a bike mechanic and an activist. And Chris and Jim and Jeff and Charlie have sized up the boyfriends the girls brought home and been there with hugs as needed. </p><p>You've missed so much in ten years! You've missed broken bones and high school and first jobs and first dates and graduation and moving to college and fender benders and piercings and tattoos. You've missed so much gymnastics and ballet and diving and power lifting. (How did these two become such athletes with us for parents?) You've missed them becoming actually great musicians, which is a travesty because you listened to a lot of squeaky twinkles and didn't get the reward.</p><p>I have to tell you, though, our kids are so amazing. And I see so much of you in them. Anna approaches sewing like an engineer. She builds garments the way you built machines. And I can tell when she's thinking through a design because her hands move in the air, like yours did. Sofia can take anything apart. Her spatial intelligence has saved me so many times from packing for a road trip to moving furniture through tough spaces to identifying the source of the squeak in my spinning wheel. She's a crack shot with a shotgun, and she drinks coffee. They're bicycle-riding, scratch-cooking, campfire-loving, grease-monkey free spirits who are generous with their time and talents. They have the best parts of you.</p><p>Anna, Sofia, and I are not living the lives we would have lived if you had lived. I <a href="https://kolokoli.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-glimpse-of-freedom.html">sold</a> <a href="https://kolokoli.blogspot.com/2014/05/seeing-myself.html">your house</a>, and I've fallen out of touch with some of our friends. My life certainly looks nothing like we planned for us. It looks, actually, more like the life I might have lived if I hadn't married you. You would totally hate it! </p><p>The lives Anna, Sofia, and I are living are, nonetheless, rich and full, and you're still in them because you live in the stories we tell. And we talk about you a lot, which is weird for the people who didn't know us before. For the kids and me and our friends, you're just you who happens to be dead, but for new people you're a bit of a shock. </p><p>You dying was my worst fear. But you knew that, and <a href="https://kolokoli.blogspot.com/2013/07/unusual-grief.html">you helped me prepare</a>, so when it <a href="https://www.fox17online.com/2013/06/27/man-dies-after-15-year-old-unlicensed-driver-hits-his-car#ixzz2XS2Q7g00">happened</a> I had a plan. That was such a gift. I still miss your presence--your laughter, <a href="https://kolokoli.blogspot.com/2010/04/talking-to-you.html">your eyebrows</a>, your hand on my shoulder, your body next to mine. I miss arguing with you and laughing with you and working together, even <a href="https://kolokoli.blogspot.com/2013/05/marriage-is-phenomenally-difficult.html">when it was hard</a>. I miss us. I was <a href="https://kolokoli.blogspot.com/search/label/widowhood">a mess for a long time</a>, but every year gets less bad. Well, every year until this one, actually, but 10 was always going to be a bitch, and here we are. </p><p>As you requested, I had you cremated, but I didn't follow the rest of your instructions about the can of paint. We scattered some ashes under the magnolia tree and some on the swamp at your parent's house, but most of you is in the cemetery with your grandfather. Your dad marked your spot with a brass gear, and Sarah later had that embedded into a headstone. It's a shady, peaceful place, and settling you with him felt the most right.</p><p>The kids are planning to visit you there in June. I gave them directions like your dad would have--go to this intersection, keep driving past the cemetery, then drive around behind the strip mall, and keep going until you see the gate in the cemetery fence. I'm sure they'll find their way.</p><p>Much love, </p><p>me</p><p>P. S. Look how beautiful they are!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw_YsbdRswaiBrqLQuBq57rgraFkZ6ggSSpVvUifIBej9rxhNs70GUqYtH5DRTJEaA0ZhdEqrJQBs2IhhRYNhD6v_bMxp_ay_cSczqOLoHFyeu4vxzF1Mjo0KnmhXh4GMvpEjXu3GcbD90QO1PaRFDqb8jqXRRPy0VZuu_gKcHj1yF7nZoDSjw9cgKNQ/s4032/73C27F91-3256-4C97-B24F-E10ABC928BFB.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw_YsbdRswaiBrqLQuBq57rgraFkZ6ggSSpVvUifIBej9rxhNs70GUqYtH5DRTJEaA0ZhdEqrJQBs2IhhRYNhD6v_bMxp_ay_cSczqOLoHFyeu4vxzF1Mjo0KnmhXh4GMvpEjXu3GcbD90QO1PaRFDqb8jqXRRPy0VZuu_gKcHj1yF7nZoDSjw9cgKNQ/w640-h480/73C27F91-3256-4C97-B24F-E10ABC928BFB.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><br /><p><br /></p>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-32011097440520678112023-04-10T22:59:00.003+04:002023-06-08T23:44:52.342+04:00trilingual<p> I met a friend at a coffee shop this week. When I walked up, the waiter greeted me in Russian, so I replied in that language, chose a table, and placed my order. When Ararat arrived, he greeted the waiter in Armenian and placed his order in that language. Ararat and I chatted in English, which is the home language of our friendship. Hearing this, the waiter switched to English to interact with us. </p><p>This is not at all unusual in Yerevan, and it amazes me every day. <span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>I remember in graduate school learning about manuscripts from the British Isles after 1066 that were trilingual. The late 13th to early 14th century <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harley_Lyrics" target="_blank">Harley 2253 manuscript</a>, for example, includes Middle English lyric poetry and ink recipes, Anglo-Norman religious stories and poetry, and Latin saints' lives. The languages and genres are intermixed and each of the three scribes whose hands have been identified in the manuscript contributes in more than one language. I remember wondering what it was like to live in a trilingual society. How would you know when to use which language? How would you tell who spoke what?</p><p>In the England of the Harley scribes, language choice was partly situational. Latin for ecclesiastical things, and possibly some legal things. Anglo-Norman French for royalty and nobility. Middle English for the hoi polloi. These contexts were, of course not walled off from one another. They overlapped and interacted in ways that required people to be able to use more than one language. At the very least, servants and nobility needed to be able to talk with one another. </p><p>Coming to live in Yerevan has given me a new understanding of what it’s like to live in a trilingual community, and what life might have been like for those scribes and poets I’ve been thinking about for years. Like London after 1066, Yerevan is a city with a local language and two imperial languages. Armenian (like Middle English) is the language of the local people, the ones whose families have been here for generations. Russian (like Latin) is the language of the old empire, the one that helped shape the present. English (like Anglo-Norman) is the language of the new empire. Unlike the Normans in 1066, the anglophone empire is a cultural one, dominating not with military force but with music, film, international scholarship, and international business. Some of the people of the Harley scribes' England, like the waiters and shop keepers I encounter every day, had to have been able to transition quickly among three languages at need, which is a whole different skill than being able to speak them at all. </p><p>I enter this space as a person who had the privilege to grow up speaking the language of the new empire and the good fortune to have learned the language of the old empire to a high degree of proficiency. So how do I choose? In general, if a person seems to be my age or older, I start with Russian because they did school in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic and would have learned it there. If a person seems younger, I try English. But mostly I don’t choose, when I walk into a shop, a restaurant, a market, the staff decides which language to use, and usually it’s Russian. </p><p>I’m a visible minority here. As soon as people see me, they know I’m not Armenian, and most of the time they guess Russian. Only after an extended conversation will it come out that I’m from the US, and only if they’ve gotten me to use Russian words I can’t pronounce or complex grammar I’ve never mastered. Then maybe they ask, or maybe they just give me the hairy eyeball and wonder. </p><p>It’s odd to me because Muscovites never mistake me for one of them. They also don’t guess American, though. Taylor says my wardrobe vibe is “comfortable, but high quality” like a middle-aged Scandinavian woman. She's not wrong, and Amsterdam is the only place I've ever been mistaken for a local. But it does make me a bit of an oddity everywhere else. </p><p>After being here for six months, I'm ashamed at how little Armenian I've learned. I can say, hello, good morning, thank you, yes, and no. I can also use the numbers 1 and 4, but I confuse 2 and 3, which, in my defense, are very similar. And I only managed to learn these numbers because of the World Cup coverage I watched. International football games don't generally have more than 4 goals on a side. </p><p>In other places where I've traveled without knowing the language, I have known the alphabet, so I could sound things out in Italy, Austria, Slovenia, or the Netherlands and make educated guesses based on Latin, Germanic, and Slavic roots. The Armenian alphabet, however, remains a nearly inscrutable rebus to me. And not grokking the alphabet means not being able to use menus, signs, and grocery labels as learning tools. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://matenadaran.am/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/getImage-5.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="561" height="800" src="https://matenadaran.am/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/getImage-5.jpg" width="561" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #999999;">A beautifully inscrutable rebus. Source: <a href="https://matenadaran.am/մատենադարան/թանգարան/պատկերասրահ/getimage-5/#main">Matendaran Manuscript Museum, Yerevan</a> </span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>My status as a visible outsider becomes a kind of crutch. As soon as they look at me, they expect me <i>not </i> to speak Armenian, so they don't make me try. They just pick an empire, and privilege props me up. And I let it.</p>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-6187488183285687402023-03-28T21:13:00.004+04:002023-03-28T21:18:21.910+04:00stick<p> One of the songs on both my "<a href="https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNwG1kiqLkCAVZfUp-i8oGWrSYrAXoUaT" target="_blank">Good-bye Songs</a>" playlist and my "Fun Music" playlist is Ingrid Michaelson's "Stick." </p><p>"Did any of me stick at all?" the singer asks a past romantic partner. </p><span></span><span><a name='more'></a></span><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GA6oR9muQok" width="320" youtube-src-id="GA6oR9muQok"></iframe></div><p><br /></p><p>But I think it's a question that is part of other relationships--friendships, family connections, teacher-student relationships. When I'm no longer there, have I left an impression? Did I have an impact? Did any of me stick? </p><p>This week, I got an email notification of a LinkedIn message from a former student in my previous job. I expected a request for a letter of reference or a multi-level marketing pitch.* Instead, when I clicked through I was pleasantly surprised to read a heartfelt note about this alum's recent experience of rereading Emily Dickinson's "<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47652/because-i-could-not-stop-for-death-479">Because I Could Not Stop for Death</a>," which she had first met in my World Literature course. We had a lovely exchange of messages about the experience of revisiting a text after time had passed and realizing that it hits differently. </p><p>As a person who has lived in four US states and two foreign countries; who has studied at three universities and taught at eight; who has been a waitress/hostess/busboy, a county park groundskeeper, and a toll road administrative assistant; I know that each of these places and the people with whom I interacted there have stuck with me. </p><p>It is because of my middle school friend Brea that I appreciate dance as an art form. It is because of my high school church friends Keith, Greg, and Theron that I have the particular opinions I have about gun control and that I can navigate a chair lift and a ski slope. Working in a commercial kitchen taught me the value of tidiness, and working in a sprawling park taught me to anticipate maintenance between emergencies. This list is endless, really. I am an agglomeration of interactions with the people who have mattered to me. </p><p>At the end of my last semester as an undergrad, I was sitting in the University Chaplain's office, and Joe asked me who I thought I would keep in touch with. "Be realistic," he said, "in five years you won't still be friends with all of these people." After thinking about it, I replied, "Chris and Lou, for sure. Probably Taylor. Maybe Mark. And someday I'm going to vote for Brad." And I haven't been wrong. Those friendships have stuck. (Though I've only voted for Brad if we count voting for the candidate he was working for.)</p><p>I have been changed, as another of the songs on my "Good-Bye Songs" playlist says, for good by all of these people and many others. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TZ0pXUb5jVU" width="320" youtube-src-id="TZ0pXUb5jVU"></iframe></div><div><br /></div>Michaelson's question is, at its core, a question of anxiety about identity and power. Did any of me stick? Did I have an impact? Does what I do matter? Will I affect the future? It is the antipode of T. S. Eliot's question "Do I dare disturb the universe?" <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/44212/the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock">Eliot's Prufrock</a> knew that his actions would have an impact, and ultimately didn't dare because he couldn't predict what that impact would be. A different kind of anxiety.<div><div><br /></div><div>The program I'm currently teaching (remotely) for is small enough that students will almost unavoidably take multiple classes with each faculty member, and now that I'm in my third year teaching here, many of the students are repeats on my roster. Their weekly journals occasionally reveal the ways that lessons from earlier semesters have stuck with them. It's a nice form of reassurance that the work I am doing is worth doing, that I have an impact, that some of me sticks with them. (Pro tip: If you find yourself thinking fondly of a teacher/professor from the past----reach out and tell them! Email, Messenger, LinkedIn, gold leaf on vellum, carrier pigeon--just pick one.)<br /><div><br /></div><div>Working remotely and living on the other side of the world from my nearest and dearest makes for a hermit-like life. (Well, a hermit with an internet connection and social media platforms. ;) )Though I've been in Yerevan for six months, I haven't built a community here. Some of the reasons have been beyond my control, but not all of them. I have always been terrible at being <a href="https://kolokoli.blogspot.com/2011/01/on-being-medievalist-sort-of.html">the new girl.</a> Living here will have a lasting impact on me certainly. But will any of me stick here? Do I dare to try? </div><div><br /></div><div>My anxiety is Eliot's and Michaelson's wrapped up together. <br /><p>_________</p><p>*For the record, I will always make an effort to write a good reference letter for a former student. MLM pitches, on the other hand, I will always delete. </p></div></div></div>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-55646625719961813002023-03-27T00:09:00.006+04:002023-03-29T15:42:00.958+04:00utility<p> After years of apartment living, two of the few things I miss about being a homeowner are the utility sink and the outdoor hose. In this apartment, I have a large shower stall that doesn't fully close, a two-bottom kitchen sink, a mop bucket, and a plastic basin the size of an infant bathtub. <span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>For most purposes, these suffice. None of my pots and pans are too big to fit in the sink, the plastic basin is perfect for soaking handknits that I don't want to put in the washer, and I've mostly learned how to keep the water inside the shower area. I don't have a garden or a garage for truly messy projects, so I don't usually need extra messy cleanup space. </p><p>Every once in a while, though, I come up against a use case for which all of my tools are less than ideal.</p><p>My balcony and the furniture that lives there continually collect the fine dry dust that is ubiquitous to this city. After a season of disuse during the winter chill, the dust was well on its way to the sort of depth appropriate to smiley faces and snarky comments written with a finger. </p><p>But spring is in the air, and I wish to return to my habit of eating breakfast on the balcony. So today, after Sweepnir and I had done the usual weekly cleaning, I brought the balcony furniture in for a shower. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTDO2Vr0Tqd7C_ZoAPNLzWKifkNho2qfyllZHY41iCgVn0pSf2oX1T7kBxml3n7hMOwhH-jU2GGZvrF4ALvJfUpHFzG0kqiyLpRuIuQpm3x1XziBBeGBf7srsw1BsCWjc2H6aMGeJNEf5eddtDIboXcgzs418Cz3lHWnEnTTamHKr9_6pp8dT-fehmQg/s4032/0403F6B2-7A0A-4044-B496-26F19ADAD2E5.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTDO2Vr0Tqd7C_ZoAPNLzWKifkNho2qfyllZHY41iCgVn0pSf2oX1T7kBxml3n7hMOwhH-jU2GGZvrF4ALvJfUpHFzG0kqiyLpRuIuQpm3x1XziBBeGBf7srsw1BsCWjc2H6aMGeJNEf5eddtDIboXcgzs418Cz3lHWnEnTTamHKr9_6pp8dT-fehmQg/w640-h480/0403F6B2-7A0A-4044-B496-26F19ADAD2E5.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Thankfully, the fine dry dust is easily dispatched by a half-strength stream of water, thought it might have been wiser to shower the balcony furniture *before* I mopped the shower area.....</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I'll leave the furniture to dry inside overnight so it doesn't drip all over my clean floors as I carry it out. In the meanwhile, I have swept and mopped the balcony, sending the dusty water through the tiny drain hole at the base of the far wall. </div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ-uZ7zd8JGp8t-43Afv9E7n7IkRvDIP8HCdP5QilinN0arDt9_ysnNmBaK935nOBpZS5uBRbvMnI2eF4XpVqqiwz4fU7nkUh-kdf3YR-LY2AtDy1hiBDFkqM-Gse6XA5jef3_CXCesoye7niYafqSDmlq8PsPcf8Cv6LFlKs_MO8ThIYJ7i_29Ml7fA/s4032/0CB658C0-8DBD-4A7D-B524-6CEB197C0BD6.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ-uZ7zd8JGp8t-43Afv9E7n7IkRvDIP8HCdP5QilinN0arDt9_ysnNmBaK935nOBpZS5uBRbvMnI2eF4XpVqqiwz4fU7nkUh-kdf3YR-LY2AtDy1hiBDFkqM-Gse6XA5jef3_CXCesoye7niYafqSDmlq8PsPcf8Cv6LFlKs_MO8ThIYJ7i_29Ml7fA/w640-h480/0CB658C0-8DBD-4A7D-B524-6CEB197C0BD6.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And my balcony flip flops are ready and waiting for tomorrow morning. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A utility sink and an outdoor spigot are useful things to have, but their absence just means turning other tools to multiple purposes. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In the first years after I sold Rambling Farmhouse and Rustic Lakehouse and moved into an apartment, people expressed shock that I was moving "backwards" from homeownership to renting, from house-and-property to an apartment. Occasionally, I still get asked about when and where I plan to buy a house again. But honestly, I don't know that I ever will. Long-term homeownership was not a net gain in wealth for me, and I don't mind paying a landlord to be responsible for risk and upkeep. </div><div><br /></div>As long as the balcony furniture fits in the shower, it's all good. <br /><p></p><div><br /></div>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-56528762013957983072023-01-11T23:27:00.002+04:002023-03-29T15:42:19.212+04:00progress<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">One of the greatest things about my apartment in Yerevan is the windows. They look out over the city's northwestern shoulder.<span><a name='more'></a></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnSvy4LuwF4Hhr05WYp7ejIVruxBvgRxvaVCo5hqPD5uJ9jmdLzIk6gJXm-6wyWeG3J-hSQ7iR5xSepRV590jYf4h8RyvFja3H9edE5bTOO2vQuWP9uNuBLyJtgmhoN0LhvNxnpmkyx6f_F6TCExCdQRfM3AxGYbOD8GTKtbqDtpnRNdWa__MHIgu40A/s4032/August%20Yerevan%20Sunset.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnSvy4LuwF4Hhr05WYp7ejIVruxBvgRxvaVCo5hqPD5uJ9jmdLzIk6gJXm-6wyWeG3J-hSQ7iR5xSepRV590jYf4h8RyvFja3H9edE5bTOO2vQuWP9uNuBLyJtgmhoN0LhvNxnpmkyx6f_F6TCExCdQRfM3AxGYbOD8GTKtbqDtpnRNdWa__MHIgu40A/w300-h400/August%20Yerevan%20Sunset.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>August, 2002. See the red line at center and the sun to the right.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Almost as soon as I moved in, I started taking pictures of the sunset. It's just so photogenic.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Recently, though, I realized I was leaning out over the windowsill to really see the point at which the sun was kissing the earth. N.B. this is maybe not a great idea 13 stories up.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So I scrolled back through my photo stream to check that I wasn't misremembering, and I marked the same buildings with red and green vertical lines in each of these photos. </div> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkfP4OTl_yX3ADzkg-EXPMILALrSq2ANK8use5TYhcDD9Dp2k1421_Rm4tD-Qn_PrJBBINXFVcnEoPeAgS3UiuAThqAWU-V6EoJRkZ0ZV8fV291-NYjODkMnR0EYehIW7dG0Ii44sUY3H0CLY6wTJG6vHwvufyTMqEHPAIhLEFGh2dm_5zCop9D-62bg/s4032/September%20Yerevan%20Sunset.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkfP4OTl_yX3ADzkg-EXPMILALrSq2ANK8use5TYhcDD9Dp2k1421_Rm4tD-Qn_PrJBBINXFVcnEoPeAgS3UiuAThqAWU-V6EoJRkZ0ZV8fV291-NYjODkMnR0EYehIW7dG0Ii44sUY3H0CLY6wTJG6vHwvufyTMqEHPAIhLEFGh2dm_5zCop9D-62bg/w400-h300/September%20Yerevan%20Sunset.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>September, 2022. Red line now slightly right of center and of the light source.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I knew, of course, that the course of the sun is not constant through the year, that the line it draws across the firmament shifts from one day to the next. </div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQRxW6yO0lPvIwIDodKI5x-46hncfc171ATS5acInWRphhL0NYhFT9bwZBncZkpOPO-OIPCX-J5FxDCCCd_3tVI0_DEeWILF6E0Gb93KaoenczktuPW34-OYbb55veVWemM-zv2e0PIdZTj5P1qD3JTC26gJybvxEUOW-lqk-Zy6hJttA-pQa9rl4jTg/s4032/November%201%20Yerevan%20Sunset.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQRxW6yO0lPvIwIDodKI5x-46hncfc171ATS5acInWRphhL0NYhFT9bwZBncZkpOPO-OIPCX-J5FxDCCCd_3tVI0_DEeWILF6E0Gb93KaoenczktuPW34-OYbb55veVWemM-zv2e0PIdZTj5P1qD3JTC26gJybvxEUOW-lqk-Zy6hJttA-pQa9rl4jTg/w400-h300/November%201%20Yerevan%20Sunset.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Early November, 2022. The red line is now at the rightmost <br />edge of the photo, and a</i> <i>new green line to the left of the light source has appeared.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div>But I'd never <i><b>noticed</b> </i>it this way before. <br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkuUHFffDgy8S0T0RuGBLJyN49jiQb3Y9xRC59SR9s6-hMZf3puLdmrY5CrNKBjS9zTM0AeLaiMzy1diR4kgG1VBGXS2oxuOyDyVZCt_58p8pHljJOmh7CfDjpthrqu2NJ1sDqw_DyeYy0ABckZ8Pj_yTX95UXu_-mCDhKXMrliOrMut_csEMeWud1qw/s4032/November%20later%20Yerevan%20Sunset.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkuUHFffDgy8S0T0RuGBLJyN49jiQb3Y9xRC59SR9s6-hMZf3puLdmrY5CrNKBjS9zTM0AeLaiMzy1diR4kgG1VBGXS2oxuOyDyVZCt_58p8pHljJOmh7CfDjpthrqu2NJ1sDqw_DyeYy0ABckZ8Pj_yTX95UXu_-mCDhKXMrliOrMut_csEMeWud1qw/w400-h300/November%20later%20Yerevan%20Sunset.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Mid-November, 2022. The red line has disappeared, <br />and the light is left of the green line.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br />We say that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, but--clearly--that's a general statement, not a specific rule on the compass rose. <br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA3UzRQeM7wPPc08VmS4rH0MeCt2n7fjP9e29M5XRI0-NFIoYDT9NeJ3G1vwkD98BmkqBAoq5-JO85R9v4t_gjbWJ5LEu158PARxnMpoM0PLEoYGGEC7RzU7oZEApwh7C03PIngkTD8ObwWRbLDcFmnqpglcOFGRz1LCN87jFOI0eAfUeoStWbyo9C1g/s4032/January%20Yerevan%20Sunset.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA3UzRQeM7wPPc08VmS4rH0MeCt2n7fjP9e29M5XRI0-NFIoYDT9NeJ3G1vwkD98BmkqBAoq5-JO85R9v4t_gjbWJ5LEu158PARxnMpoM0PLEoYGGEC7RzU7oZEApwh7C03PIngkTD8ObwWRbLDcFmnqpglcOFGRz1LCN87jFOI0eAfUeoStWbyo9C1g/w640-h480/January%20Yerevan%20Sunset.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>January, 2023. This one is zoomed out to show both lines again.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div>There's a lesson here for me, the person who longs for stability and foundation but keeps finding mutability and shifting sands. Something about the way the solar progress changes in its constancy. <div><br /></div><div>But I don't have it in my fingers yet. <div><br /></div><div>Stay tuned.<br /><br /><p></p></div></div>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-86547977618293357282022-11-26T01:37:00.004+04:002022-11-26T01:37:32.147+04:00chair, chair!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLxOrnuN1B5BuG3xrAETkdyobsypancHSVNH0iKgkF-MqjKjil4f4V51Uhk5F9VSRymj6deiKlIehB5PRXLIolsDXcSuuVhstAYdKQAzjMJHICHIO4WvJLswdplB1QLVm8dG6kVtf8V5FSkm8kF-mWWfAH7_nKg3NDyzgt4Smnj59_ns7SYzLbMVBaPQ/s4032/DCC1EC29-9B4A-479B-BD76-203F9B184E93.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLxOrnuN1B5BuG3xrAETkdyobsypancHSVNH0iKgkF-MqjKjil4f4V51Uhk5F9VSRymj6deiKlIehB5PRXLIolsDXcSuuVhstAYdKQAzjMJHICHIO4WvJLswdplB1QLVm8dG6kVtf8V5FSkm8kF-mWWfAH7_nKg3NDyzgt4Smnj59_ns7SYzLbMVBaPQ/s320/DCC1EC29-9B4A-479B-BD76-203F9B184E93.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I am in the backseat of a cab, well a YandexGo, the post-Soviet world's Uber/Lyft equivalent. The backseat is 2/3 folded down, and I'm holding onto the wheeled base of the office chair I just bought to keep it from repeatedly banging against the compressed natural gas tank in the cargo area as the car navigates evening traffic on a rainy day. The top of the chair is lying on the folded-down seat next to me. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My apartment is beautiful, but the landlords clearly think of it as a place for sleeping and eating. Every time we talk, the wife in the couple is like, "You're working here? From the apartment?" There is no desk, only this oval dining table and its six (!) chairs. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The table is actually a pretty perfect work surface for me. I like to be able to spread out around my laptop, and I don't need a bunch of drawers, but these chairs are only comfortable for about an hour, so I've also spent a lot of work time on the equally un-ergonomic sofa. My spine thinks this has been a terrible idea.</div></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihnwvLk8nI2tCiQmJ55xjQYrA4klHgw50mVuXdMmtuUiCyJJcC8qpsEWY7UEgrb0oX107MKAkGOwOgA-XJag85pxB5L9Sy1XP61bMfF2DhpQ_NBy16uA4oZMCJFKp-rt_er9tfQCcc6OG8QdbB4IH97KDZppHDD8iZq25onUI8wwzU10tMlopthYzz_w/s4032/13277658-1CC3-41D7-B33E-D528FE396445.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihnwvLk8nI2tCiQmJ55xjQYrA4klHgw50mVuXdMmtuUiCyJJcC8qpsEWY7UEgrb0oX107MKAkGOwOgA-XJag85pxB5L9Sy1XP61bMfF2DhpQ_NBy16uA4oZMCJFKp-rt_er9tfQCcc6OG8QdbB4IH97KDZppHDD8iZq25onUI8wwzU10tMlopthYzz_w/s320/13277658-1CC3-41D7-B33E-D528FE396445.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Why, you may ask, if things have been so uncomfortable, has it taken me so long to acquire a new chair for this space?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Two weekends ago, I visited several furniture stores in the city center, and boggled at the prices. Then, I tried to order something online, but the store never contacted me to arrange delivery (and they also never charged me), so that was a fail. Today I ventured out of the center to Furniture Row, a two kilometer stretch of the road out to the airport lined with furniture stores on both sides. The trip was worth it for better prices and more selection.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div>Because I don't understand the expectations of normal human interaction in this culture, even going to the office furniture store for a chair is a whole thing. Stores in Yerevan all seem to have ample sales staff, who want to talk with customers and guide them through the store. Stepping into the store starts a negotiation about language. <div><br /></div><div>"Բարեւ Ձեզ," I greet them in Armenian. </div><div>"Բարեւ Ձեզ," they reply and then continue speaking Armenian, but I've nearly exhausted my vocabulary already.</div><div>"Можно с вами на русском?" I ask to switch to Russian.</div><div>"Конечно!" they agree with a smile, usually. If not, then we try English, and once German. </div><div><br /></div><div>But usually, we settle in Russian, which means now both of us are speaking not our first language. </div><div><br /></div><div>Today, identifying the chair I wanted was fine, but communicating about how to get it from the store to my apartment was more of a challenge for both of us. </div><div><br /></div><div>Then I mentioned that I was also looking for a floor lamp, except that I don't actually know how to say that in Russian, so I said "a lamp that stands *gesture toward the floor and then up*". She was like 0.o, but then the idea I was trying to express clicked for her, but this store didn't carry them, but other stores nearby did, but she didn't know which ones. </div><div><br /></div><div>So I paid for the chair and said I would come back to pick it up in 30 minutes, which is unusual behavior for shopping in the US, but seemed totally normal to the staff of MegaOffice. </div><div><br /></div><div>Nearby, I found a living room furniture store that had lamps that stand! We started over with the language negotiation, then this saleswoman wanted to test the lamp before she sold it to me. The search for a lightbulb expanded to no less than four staff people, and someone finally found this totally ridiculously gigantic bulb, but it has the right threads for the socket. Test successful! </div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWKcp2Tl-izea_nYA7V6Nh4IL5JMJHgsgPH3rUdrVt5S-wYknjz1VozsssvsGe5ETZkpW91b9dHs3uMJvnvNJtoE0WAmVEp3xT8yVl8iZCs-u7dHYBGpfAbOp5v4mtnJGE9g1zTA9Dk09pnkwo-ucEyMjD0wZutdol9VIyTUhEO4EuRipjFVXbzsqORg/s4032/EFAB9ABE-BC6D-40AF-A76C-C79148972281.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWKcp2Tl-izea_nYA7V6Nh4IL5JMJHgsgPH3rUdrVt5S-wYknjz1VozsssvsGe5ETZkpW91b9dHs3uMJvnvNJtoE0WAmVEp3xT8yVl8iZCs-u7dHYBGpfAbOp5v4mtnJGE9g1zTA9Dk09pnkwo-ucEyMjD0wZutdol9VIyTUhEO4EuRipjFVXbzsqORg/s320/EFAB9ABE-BC6D-40AF-A76C-C79148972281.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But this store doesn't have a credit card machine, and I don't have enough cash. I'm ready to walk out at this point, but the saleswoman is committed, and I decide to stick around because it has been shockingly difficult to find lamps for sale at all anywhere I've looked. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Can I do a bank transfer to one of the staff? My bank account is in Russia, so I don't think so. Is it Sber? No it's Raiffeisen. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Can I pay cash to the driver who can deliver the lamp tomorrow instead of taking it in the cab tonight? Sure. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We negotiate the pronunciation and spelling of my name, we find a messaging app we have in common. I give them two phone numbers, neither of which is local, but hopefully one of them will work. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Then I went back to pick up the chair and we had a renegotiation about whether I would take the chair in the cab whole (her preference) or in two pieces (my preference). The compressed natural gas tank in the cab's cargo area voted with me. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>So I have a new, desk chair, much better than before, and maybe tomorrow I have a lamp. And I've been reminded that this is still a largely cash economy, so I should carry more than I have been. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I've procured cash at the ATM, and I'll just plan to hang out at home tomorrow. I have lots of grading to do, so I'll be right here, in my new chair, humming the opening lines of "Arrival at Bath." </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> </div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisw2AEB2Au1HGbjtbqQNtu9omXLCtoaYG1Fooq3nII1DbGOhJFdK7mwptRrejUV6GfVZHa9I-AfhNl5utLTwSWkWYeWS8ubUmdRuQNSrxdysTib_gSt2Qv6uBMt8OhcL2EcxOCfmJhdI41zyJ1lvbfaLKNExxf0zOJci71LMspwveiQqe0rd7K69Y_xQ/s4032/57EF5A3B-6CDC-4983-A29F-CA535F65D80E.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisw2AEB2Au1HGbjtbqQNtu9omXLCtoaYG1Fooq3nII1DbGOhJFdK7mwptRrejUV6GfVZHa9I-AfhNl5utLTwSWkWYeWS8ubUmdRuQNSrxdysTib_gSt2Qv6uBMt8OhcL2EcxOCfmJhdI41zyJ1lvbfaLKNExxf0zOJci71LMspwveiQqe0rd7K69Y_xQ/s320/57EF5A3B-6CDC-4983-A29F-CA535F65D80E.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Hark! Hark! Chair, chair! </i><i>Where? Where? </i></div>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-65837571408388145992022-11-21T01:02:00.001+04:002023-06-08T23:45:11.205+04:00tradition<p> <i>me, Saturday, idly to an acquaintance</i>: The World Cup starts tomorrow. I'm thinking about trying to find a place to go and watch the opening match.</p><span></span><span><a name='more'></a></span><p><i>acquaintance, Sunday, via text</i>: Hey, do you want to come watch the World Cup at my place over coffee?</p><p><i>me</i>: What a generous invitation! But I'm going to decline. </p><p><i>also me</i>: *reserves a table for 1 on the patio at my neighborhood sports bar during the game*</p><p>I'm not an athlete, and I'm not a dedicated sports fan. I don't follow any particular teams or players. But I love the big events--baseball's pennant races and the World Series, the Super Bowl (though this one is mostly about the food at the party), the Olympics, the Tour de France, and--since 2014--the World Cup. There's an energy that the big events have, the concentration of the world's attention that is compelling in a way that a regular Monday night game just isn't, at least for me.</p><p>In 2014, I was writing a dissertation while learning how to parent pre-teens and manage a household on my own. And my kids were busy kids. Most evenings, I was their taxi driver around the city from school to gymnastics to violin to ballet to dinner to home. Every day, they packed their activity bags, and I packed my laptop and my library books. My dissertation was written 15 minutes at a time in a rota of coffee shops, waiting rooms, and parking lots all over Kalamazoo.</p><p>One evening, instead of going to my usual coffee shop for tea I carried my books into a pub and set myself up at an out-of-way table in the corner. There weren't many other people there--the bartender, the server, and a group of 10 eating together--but all of them were focused on the screens showing the competition in Brazil. And that collective energy filled the room. I spent a lot more time in pubs that month and drank more beer than tea for a while. </p><p>When I saw that text this morning with the invitation to watch today's game with one person, I realized that I actually don't want to watch with people I only sort-of know and be expected to socialize during the game. I want to sit in a crowd of strangers with half an eye on the game and half an eye on my laptop and/or my knitting, and soak in that collective energy. The gasp as the goalkeeper guesses wrong and the ball flies past his feet, the groan as the ball brushes the outside of the net, the wry laughter as the ball lands on top, and the concerned hush when a player is down. The collective energy of the game transcends language and culture. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB0CRslKdVeGw7Z1HcmjomGt0QYIPBvHttWuPHqLc-fjwrau3t0hDPNYBL6LkY-4NGizimVRkHAgHmlJ_KRA2h0J0FUvOyknAepvVHJrvacNGQBiUDMYMb_cElaEQLGId6IxEKteO1p3-wDlqmX5nVEYWTZBXge-sIfnmvaHEy3c_eD_4TwPGlpcJTNw/s4032/IMG_9432.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The bottom corner of a giant screen is showing a football pitch is visible at the top of the photo. Below it, diners fill an outdoor patio, and many of their faces are raised to view the screen." border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB0CRslKdVeGw7Z1HcmjomGt0QYIPBvHttWuPHqLc-fjwrau3t0hDPNYBL6LkY-4NGizimVRkHAgHmlJ_KRA2h0J0FUvOyknAepvVHJrvacNGQBiUDMYMb_cElaEQLGId6IxEKteO1p3-wDlqmX5nVEYWTZBXge-sIfnmvaHEy3c_eD_4TwPGlpcJTNw/w400-h300/IMG_9432.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>I won't watch all of this World Cup's games at the pub, of course, but I'll have them on in the background as I work at home in the coming weeks, and I'll probably hit the pub for at least one US game and one of the semi-finals. And I'll enjoy contributing to the energy of the crowd. It's my tradition.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeoOeTmpIchJwDj5dv3jsEVy8uVIIBJuRpdfSf10PHm_kh7JY5HRw4NyGQwnC3wofMF76n334xyRwnmVdi0GZbTvCVXIQe9m7lPOdz5dN9F4picqK6OwjlRfzoTQUjf4RBzE5JY84ulsmw3zKQq2jV0LS90Iq1AEdz3jMJU9575ylQRx6daGnGcDO1xg/s4032/IMG_9433.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="In the foreground, my face is raised to view the screen. I am bundled up in a hat, scarf, and wool coat. The diners visible on the patio behind me are also bundled up." border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeoOeTmpIchJwDj5dv3jsEVy8uVIIBJuRpdfSf10PHm_kh7JY5HRw4NyGQwnC3wofMF76n334xyRwnmVdi0GZbTvCVXIQe9m7lPOdz5dN9F4picqK6OwjlRfzoTQUjf4RBzE5JY84ulsmw3zKQq2jV0LS90Iq1AEdz3jMJU9575ylQRx6daGnGcDO1xg/w400-h300/IMG_9433.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-18094128877969183332022-10-27T08:05:00.003+04:002022-10-27T08:13:48.339+04:00time<p> Time zones are trippy. And the more you think about them (or have to deal with them) the trippier they become. </p><p>As a kid in the United States with a large family that scattered coast to coast when life on Long Island got expensive in the '80s, calculating the Pacific to Eastern time difference was second nature, and we visited Jill in California and Kathy and Tony in Phoenix enough that I became adept at avoiding jet lag. </p><p>But California to Pennsylvania is a measly three hours. Travel from the US east coast to Europe, to the Middle East, or to East Asia is a whole different ballgame. </p><p>I remember once in the early oughts calling Adam on a business trip in Japan--a thirteen hour time difference from Michigan--knowing I would be waking him up in the middle of the night. The front desk person at the hotel argued with me about putting the call through to his room and scolded me as though I was unaware of the time. I don't even remember what I needed to talk to him about, but I remember that at the time--a time before cell phones--it was important enough to wake him up since he would be unreachable once he left the hotel for the wheel rim plant. </p><p>The deal we had when I spent a semester in Moscow in 1999 had been much kinder. Once a week he would stay up until 11, and his call would wake me up at 7 the next morning. Late for him, early for me--even trade. Poor my host mother, though. She usually heard the ringing before I did.</p><p>It wasn't only about finding a time when both parties would be awake. The calculus was more complicated than that. We had to find a time when both parties would be someplace near phones, one phone with a known number, and one phone with an international calling plan activated.</p><p>When I moved to Moscow last year, Jim was flabbergasted by the eight-hour time difference, and his wonder that I could be going to bed just as he was finishing lunch, that it could be dark for me and light for him reminded me how trippy time zones actually are. I was flabbergasted by the ease of communication. Having my children and my best friends in my pocket all the time is a far cry from the days of weekly phone calls and $3 per hour Internet cafe visits. </p><p>These days, I'm living in Yerevan, eight hours ahead of my beloveds in the Eastern time zone and one hour ahead my students in the Moscow time zone, but this week, I'm in Vancouver for a conference, three hours behind my beloveds and ten hours behind my students. Yesterday, I went to bed at 6PM and slept until 1AM. Then I went back to bed--but sadly not to sleep--until 3, when I finally opened my laptop and started responding to student essays ahead of Zoom meetings in the Vancouver morning/Moscow evening. I write this as I'm keeping myself awake for two more Zoom meetings this evening Vancouver time with students for whom it will already be morning tomorrow. </p><p>For me, that's the trippiest part--when my today is your tomorrow, or my today is your yesterday. There's something about the border of midnight that throws the arbitrariness of the whole system into stark relief.</p><p>Nothing highlights the trippiness of time zones, though, more than the travel to and from Yerevan. From North America to Yerevan, flights and layovers take about 18-22 hours, depending on the duration of the layovers. When flying west, this gets compressed into around ten hours of calendar time. I left Yerevan before sunrise on Tuesday morning and arrived in Vancouver mid afternoon, still on Tuesday. When I return, this same amount of time will be stretched out over two calendar days. I leave Vancouver Tuesday evening and land in Yerevan before sunrise Thursday morning. I lived yesterday twice, but next week, I'll skip over a day. This is exceedingly trippy. </p><p>The summer that I worked in Indiana but lived in Michigan, it took me negative half an hour to get to work but an hour and a half to get home. That daily time warp was just humorous this whole day time warp is wild </p><p>The upside of all of this is that sometimes jet lag gives you gifts. Today, since I was awake anyway and had finished preparing for the days meetings, I went to the water for sunrise. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2MahyyKMqpnywtoRpxWDiXOwmC1LkNt5KY35qDZLUXeK1_USHeuyjQTzeSsMw0qAilTHux9S_x9193cKrI72Kbmj6VsZoBsRtP5ICCmEPtUg8oOlDzs30conCcOVsORH7ZUFO789bdo6qbYU8gSwVbdcXS4YcmQ8ARvDIHkZFIRoQBixB1hhvMq4Rpw/s4928/709DACFC-2180-4AFD-8BC4-5C78CFD97C0F.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="4928" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2MahyyKMqpnywtoRpxWDiXOwmC1LkNt5KY35qDZLUXeK1_USHeuyjQTzeSsMw0qAilTHux9S_x9193cKrI72Kbmj6VsZoBsRtP5ICCmEPtUg8oOlDzs30conCcOVsORH7ZUFO789bdo6qbYU8gSwVbdcXS4YcmQ8ARvDIHkZFIRoQBixB1hhvMq4Rpw/w400-h266/709DACFC-2180-4AFD-8BC4-5C78CFD97C0F.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Just me, the shore birds, and the joggers on the sea wall in English Bay. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzK9jmx4ZStoDKeJIDaK6c-Mvlo9tSvxO9kjU1qF0Y_M4WOOmJ8NqwTgqNIs93j8WqP5QN_MMSDy49FgEVdRA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It's actually not a terrible thing to have my perspective so turned around once in a while. It's an opportunity for a reset, for deciding over again whether to aim for lark or for nightingale.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-85104792892031309072022-07-17T09:33:00.002+04:002022-07-17T09:37:16.082+04:00adventure, restarted, again, see also--uncertainty<p> Last July, I was awaiting the paperwork to move my empty-nest life halfway around the world. There was a lot of uncertainty, but also a lot of anticipation. </p><p>Having returned to the US suddenly and unexpectedly because of the state of world geopolitics in March, I find myself in a similar position this July, again making preparations to leave the United States, again looking at rental apartments and city maps online, gathering more documents, making new lists of what to store, what to donate, what to take. </p><p>This time, Buttercup is not coming with me. I feel like I need to be more nimble than I was last year, and moving a pet across international borders is the opposite of nimble. So this week, we drove from Syracuse to Kalamazoo, where she will stay with my mom and revel in once again being the Only Cat in the House. She's already settling in well: </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcX2ySm0cCtlxyNpGvBacfAnxOlz9a-M86tRoc96PrmAjM8nJSU0pOtSUYvOLrhxP_4xShfrxPCzVscwAT1h_-ul6VGya3I41amEYSWpiV2L_gD_YVVi60tBCC9z5GAP0K4KIxhndPlU7UAmk6Gc6qM5o-WvGqrp0wEBqGXHlkkGXCywpP9qfKQFPIqg/s4032/IMG_8862.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcX2ySm0cCtlxyNpGvBacfAnxOlz9a-M86tRoc96PrmAjM8nJSU0pOtSUYvOLrhxP_4xShfrxPCzVscwAT1h_-ul6VGya3I41amEYSWpiV2L_gD_YVVi60tBCC9z5GAP0K4KIxhndPlU7UAmk6Gc6qM5o-WvGqrp0wEBqGXHlkkGXCywpP9qfKQFPIqg/w300-h400/IMG_8862.JPG" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>When I left Moscow, I didn't leave my job. I've continued to teach and hold writing center consultations remotely. In the coming academic year, I'll be taking on the additional role of writing center director (with a raise! and a reduced teaching load!).</p><p>I'll be working remotely from <a href="https://visityerevan.am/en/" target="_blank">Yerevan</a>, the capital city of <a href="https://www.lonelyplanet.com/armenia">Armenia</a>, which is fewer time zones distant from Moscow and has a reputation for excellent wine. (There are other reasons, but those aren't my news to break.) I may have the opportunity to retrieve some of the personal things I left in my apartment (on which I am still paying rent!) including all of my research library, my cello, my good winter boots. </p><p><i>( I don't speak Armenian, yet. But folks my age and older, who attended primary school in the Soviet Union, tend to speak Russian in addition to Armenian, and the younger generations tend to speak English as their additional language.)</i></p><p>People ask if I'm excited about Yerevan, and the answer is, "sort of?" I'm so in the details and logistics, that there is little space for excitement. Also, the lesson my adult life seems to be teaching me is that when good things happen for my career, the situation falls apart--I signed a contract and had to back out because widowhood, I signed a contract and a pandemic delayed moving, I moved and had to move back. My optimism is broken. The most positivity I can muster right now is thankfulness that I still have a job. </p><p><i>(I have applied for jobs in the US since I've been back, most of them at private high schools since the application cycle for English professors for AY22-23 was over by March, but all I've gotten is crickets. Many thanks to those of you who sent links to job ads my way!)</i></p><p>This Yerevan plan has been on my horizon for a while, but has only coalesced recently, and until last week, I was contemplating several different plans, each with complex arrangements for housing, travel, Buttercup, and remote work. A friend expressed awe at the variety of logistical contingencies I had researched and mapped out. This is a thing I have gotten *very* good at. It is also a skill I do not enjoy using. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-61017614236799122542022-05-30T00:34:00.005+04:002022-05-30T00:39:25.070+04:00gorge, a glimpse<p> Today we went hiking in the rain. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH8oVWr7stUVmF9os8KbP05NxeLUx5nuIingwrR9OCI98aBe-BmBPaMmKR1RPsUYJojHY9rK5PkUghA8znPQmdYPChzp5VGqa526Jp3wQXo-biYHC_gaZHzj-ji5Rzgy-V5XVsD2TlHFfj5jDV-zTv4A-K8JdbyX0v1Ymml2cl0UW_cB9dPCpGY3qQZA/s4032/B02D4616-9F2E-4EFC-810D-8EB0EC527B18.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH8oVWr7stUVmF9os8KbP05NxeLUx5nuIingwrR9OCI98aBe-BmBPaMmKR1RPsUYJojHY9rK5PkUghA8znPQmdYPChzp5VGqa526Jp3wQXo-biYHC_gaZHzj-ji5Rzgy-V5XVsD2TlHFfj5jDV-zTv4A-K8JdbyX0v1Ymml2cl0UW_cB9dPCpGY3qQZA/w300-h400/B02D4616-9F2E-4EFC-810D-8EB0EC527B18.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><div><br /></div>This might seem crazy to some of you. <div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdfCaLqvTYQ68z_t2MuD6rz5sb0vH-dbdbn2LJ4ehxR04qsgB5lD-F04uQJKCEJGQwiImTTADqDUo_WGeKpTtQ8vE7_cBmqLLoeYY3loE07Rf57NHPtIg73VpawmOG6KcNTWdPDoQ9aNvAv9eUI7B9C4t0u7V6iDe8aWT4hCUA5_yQwikZgfy96HgMcA/s4032/7E2F020D-BB37-49B4-92E0-35DA89C78C1F.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdfCaLqvTYQ68z_t2MuD6rz5sb0vH-dbdbn2LJ4ehxR04qsgB5lD-F04uQJKCEJGQwiImTTADqDUo_WGeKpTtQ8vE7_cBmqLLoeYY3loE07Rf57NHPtIg73VpawmOG6KcNTWdPDoQ9aNvAv9eUI7B9C4t0u7V6iDe8aWT4hCUA5_yQwikZgfy96HgMcA/w300-h400/7E2F020D-BB37-49B4-92E0-35DA89C78C1F.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><div><br /><div>But we looked at the forecast, </div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyAFXbqYjRkwqTb2PdvMdqgFRsgE_QZumEFUGetufqg2lytiQ4mDd0zQd3ksgryNwD99ehe3hUtXIaSBGLtn7Cr2T-m_Hj3J7PzUhW092_t3wv8FBKghCNfOiuEZHUadc6ck8oKCNN08Q8EjSdQR_Uji_YKKbrboZIpdlVL3g9pojUcnN5joDA74qIHg/s4032/355B4A81-59D1-4267-A169-0A782E0FC297.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyAFXbqYjRkwqTb2PdvMdqgFRsgE_QZumEFUGetufqg2lytiQ4mDd0zQd3ksgryNwD99ehe3hUtXIaSBGLtn7Cr2T-m_Hj3J7PzUhW092_t3wv8FBKghCNfOiuEZHUadc6ck8oKCNN08Q8EjSdQR_Uji_YKKbrboZIpdlVL3g9pojUcnN5joDA74qIHg/w300-h400/355B4A81-59D1-4267-A169-0A782E0FC297.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">and looked at each other, </div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK4LLeUFGYaqMkIfO3L_l8XRFMEvCXtqmO27pAvelrjtuPj27ZsWpSs79_zBBF9K7flWLXWi_im7F0ZTA1gLJeYvpUvQlo2YkofG7RVKTI3tnKenMSBvKXNsmHsIBY8k-qYh0lTfp5qwurPOt6bnJI_NIPU0B3ITDB7AZy5N1hmlEr1zYlVjhGDyzKyA/s4032/777D1C57-E530-4E5F-89FD-9553F55EC091.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK4LLeUFGYaqMkIfO3L_l8XRFMEvCXtqmO27pAvelrjtuPj27ZsWpSs79_zBBF9K7flWLXWi_im7F0ZTA1gLJeYvpUvQlo2YkofG7RVKTI3tnKenMSBvKXNsmHsIBY8k-qYh0lTfp5qwurPOt6bnJI_NIPU0B3ITDB7AZy5N1hmlEr1zYlVjhGDyzKyA/w300-h400/777D1C57-E530-4E5F-89FD-9553F55EC091.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><div><br /></div>and grabbed ponchos to wear and dry clothes to leave in the car, </div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_BpPAwOTKC7yKT9EYqPwBV38BpLig2tI8-ZWrYkK5eAHz738lrpSE3W1kQDmA3unH5WEjTB_zJtqx2p0Y6_62Yr7Iyw2lm11DxUTaniqFkV_hFBtBdg8xucVFw0iMOVB9aqVXPF7b0t1_YlOTu23JMX9c8ZpmFJpx_IM3Uu7iMO6Cy3Oahfn_D6WiJQ/s4032/28AD032C-4333-4CEE-8217-A2AA0E12A1D4.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_BpPAwOTKC7yKT9EYqPwBV38BpLig2tI8-ZWrYkK5eAHz738lrpSE3W1kQDmA3unH5WEjTB_zJtqx2p0Y6_62Yr7Iyw2lm11DxUTaniqFkV_hFBtBdg8xucVFw0iMOVB9aqVXPF7b0t1_YlOTu23JMX9c8ZpmFJpx_IM3Uu7iMO6Cy3Oahfn_D6WiJQ/w300-h400/28AD032C-4333-4CEE-8217-A2AA0E12A1D4.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><div><br /></div>and spent the sabbath here</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrwiS-zET3X62fDyZsx4CFIl4mDGksuu0yr4p5hkWtH_vxn8nrdLDLuKBYlNsJ5FOjzGAITLXV5vmrLvnuiBif6ybyhJrtOggk4_2KBVrTbecRWR2pCHOXxtvQGZGMIufNIUoZyqd4GXaoYxNGhgORoxMxZtj4CGwZ8v3GYDiwOn93nU70K6AAbjYMQg/s4032/36A4B2E2-2D07-4DBF-9728-CA96EB4CFDF4.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrwiS-zET3X62fDyZsx4CFIl4mDGksuu0yr4p5hkWtH_vxn8nrdLDLuKBYlNsJ5FOjzGAITLXV5vmrLvnuiBif6ybyhJrtOggk4_2KBVrTbecRWR2pCHOXxtvQGZGMIufNIUoZyqd4GXaoYxNGhgORoxMxZtj4CGwZ8v3GYDiwOn93nU70K6AAbjYMQg/w300-h400/36A4B2E2-2D07-4DBF-9728-CA96EB4CFDF4.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">in the Vintgar Gorge.</span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p></div><div><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic;">"[...] what a piece of wonder a river is – A huge volume of matter ceaselessly rolling through the fields and meadows of this substantial earth making haste from the high places, by stable dwellings of men and Egyptian pyramids, to its restless reservoir." </span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-style: italic;">--Henry David Thoreau, </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-style: italic;">Journal, September 5, 1838 (<a href="https://thoreaufarm.org/2013/12/time-is-but-a-stream-what-a-piece-of-wonder-a-river-is/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">q</a></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><i><a href="https://thoreaufarm.org/2013/12/time-is-but-a-stream-what-a-piece-of-wonder-a-river-is/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">td. here</a>)</i></span></span></span></div>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-22615615144141832162022-05-28T02:39:00.003+04:002023-06-27T10:46:52.190+04:00patterns<p><br /> I'm sitting in Taylor and Stuart's guest room listening to the thunderstorm blend with the sound of the river rapids, while the geode slices of the wind chimes I gifted them eons ago slap against each other in the wind on the balcony, and I'm thinking about the way my life flows in patterns and cycles. </p><p>This week, the Sava outside the guest room window has been wearing away my learned cynicism, the pessimistic voice that says any time my life is going well, things must be on their way to falling apart. I keep the window tilted open. Taylor periodically walks through and closes it. And I open it again. I need the sound of the water on the rocks. </p><p>In May of 2013, I was in a really good place in terms of my career. My dissertation was still in process, but ahead of schedule. I had just signed a contract to teach for a different department, training that would open up my job prospects after graduation. I had signed a lease on a sweet apartment near a frolleague. I had a contract for technical writing and translation over the summer. My skills and knowledge were valued, and I was doing work that was both challenging and enjoyable. </p><p>When Adam died the next month, I lost all of that. And tied up with my grief were disappointment and anger over these <a href="https://whatsyourgrief.com/a-deep-dive-into-secondary-loss/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">secondary losses</a>. I eventually finished that dissertation a year late, but I had to abandon both contracts. Everyone was understanding and generous with me, of course, but I still resented having had my projects ripped out of my hands. Losing them cost me part of my identity, and the loss of that training opportunity curtailed that career path entirely. </p><p>Leaving Moscow this past March brought all of these feelings of anger and disappointment and grief roaring back. It felt so very similar. I had a full-time, continuing academic appointment. I had a cozy apartment in a great neighborhood. I had travel and writing in mind for the summer. Just at the moment of good career prospects and stability, of settling into a space and a plan, I lost all of that stability again, and I am so incredibly angry about it. </p><p>Why can I not have stability? </p><p>Why am I once more blown over by events out of my control?</p><p>Why have circumstances forced me to rebuild my life from shambles <i>*again*</i>? Reader, I am here to tell you, it does not get easier with practice. </p><p>The answer, of course, is <a href="https://katebowler.com/podcasts/">because bad things happen</a>. Full stop. The universe is not actually targeting me for destruction. I am not Job, caught in the middle of God's bet with Satan. This is life in a broken world, and it's on us to make meaning from our experiences as we work to heal the brokenness. </p><p>The difference this time, of course, is that the loss is not my private one. In 2013, my family's personal tragedy existed in a world that just kept moving around us. In 2022, my personal losses pale in comparison to the millions of refugees fleeing their homes, the as-yet-uncounted numbers of civilian casualties, and the victims and survivors of gun violence in the US. And so I give to <a href="https://www.msf.org/donate">Doctors Without Borders</a> and I write to my Congresspeople and I share reliable news and op-eds on social media because I am safe and housed and able to channel my rage and sadness in those directions. </p><p>But I am so so so tired of rebuilding. I just want to live in a world that has finally left the constant spiral of destruction. I crave stability in my own life, and for the world. We all deserve to stand on solid ground, and adventure should be a choice, not a response to destruction. </p><p>In 2015, as I was moving out of the wilderness of widowhood grief and finding my feet again, I visited Taylor and Stuart <a href="http://kolokoli.blogspot.com/2015/04/friendship.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">in Algiers</a>. Here I am again, life in pieces, in their guest room, reconnecting with my friends and talking through possible futures.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl6ZQipUaXasStUYz35z2KYtl3m8mB6sSmWB1nKg0zGrWHBzsa0gjBgEJYD6minmHowW7fTnUjPhAI1JK86A1GdVGqFfO40oo56zCnRrIQLWWMJ6sM2bTfTn0CMCgJp2R1ycmPTuTCuHNsNoiIWt1Fm6l5GEbCy5AMxQlavawwRLeFKDrYoTkXJgetZw/s4032/IMG_8423.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="The setting sun paints the sky pink in the background over a river. The water of the river is flowing toward the viewer, and finding mild turbulence over small rocks in the foreground." border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl6ZQipUaXasStUYz35z2KYtl3m8mB6sSmWB1nKg0zGrWHBzsa0gjBgEJYD6minmHowW7fTnUjPhAI1JK86A1GdVGqFfO40oo56zCnRrIQLWWMJ6sM2bTfTn0CMCgJp2R1ycmPTuTCuHNsNoiIWt1Fm6l5GEbCy5AMxQlavawwRLeFKDrYoTkXJgetZw/w480-h640/IMG_8423.jpeg" title="The Sava outside Ljubljana." width="480" /></a></div><p></p><p>I still have no answers, but I'm slightly less immobilized by my anger and despair, and that's not nothing.</p>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-15959976889009009462021-10-17T21:54:00.010+04:002021-10-18T00:40:01.182+04:00raisins and tears<p></p><br /> I cried in a coffee shop today. <p></p><p>For reasons I won't get into in this post, after three years of avoiding gluten, I'm testing the reintroduction of wheat to my diet this weekend. Up to this point, I had eaten a pizza, a cabbage hand pie, and a loaf of rustic bread. They were all so delicious. Carbs are glorious--especially soft, airy, glutinous carbs--and I have missed them so much. </p><p>After three days of all that culinary glory, I was pretty sure that wheat probably needs to remain a mostly-no food for me, but I had one thing left on my list of things to enjoy as part of this test, so while I was out running errands today, I popped into bakeries and coffee shops looking for a <i>булка с махом</i>. When I lived here in 1998, these poppy seed rolls were everywhere. Any bakery in the city would sell me a sphere of sweet, silky dough with streaks of poppy seeds rolled through and crystallized sugar sprinkled on top for 2 rubles. I ate one nearly every day. </p><p>Today, three o'clock snack time was approaching, and I had thus far struck out. No poppy seeds to be found in the pastry counters of any of the many places I had stopped into. If the baristas of the city have a group chat, they'll all be talking about the weird American in the floral fabric mask and the yellow backpack who walked in, looked around, and then walked out without ordering anything. </p><p>Three o'clock snack is sacrosanct. I needed something if I was going to get through the rest of today's errands and get myself back home, all on foot. </p><p>Having resolved to just pick something else, I walked into the next coffee shop I came to. </p><p>I stood in front of their pastry case nonplussed. No <i>булка с махом</i>. The apple strudel had walnuts. The cherry danish looked too sweet.</p><p>Then I saw it--<i>un pain aux raisins. </i>Decision made.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzCvL9c0hyxSi67wFQOGeA6LzS1kbSwFcNssoJmmqIxP_Xo_6B2rqYvbZySxJsAFSTOjNzNqr6aTYDpVIruweO4o-0Crs0VijPeevB896E25Kk-2xbA5IrHorBTtp09UDsZVGVRCIhpyWI/s4032/EBB79B65-F2F7-42A5-BF24-10D9F5EB074D.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzCvL9c0hyxSi67wFQOGeA6LzS1kbSwFcNssoJmmqIxP_Xo_6B2rqYvbZySxJsAFSTOjNzNqr6aTYDpVIruweO4o-0Crs0VijPeevB896E25Kk-2xbA5IrHorBTtp09UDsZVGVRCIhpyWI/w400-h300/EBB79B65-F2F7-42A5-BF24-10D9F5EB074D.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Adam started eating <i>pain aux raisins</i> when we were in Troyes, the capitol city of France's Champagne region, in 1999, and it quickly became his favorite. Hess Engineering had sent Adam to troubleshoot and solve the problems with a wheel rim manufacturing line they'd sold to Michelin for the plant in that city, and I joined him during the break between my fall and spring semesters. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Every day, I went to the bakery to buy pastry for the next morning's breakfast. I can still remember contrast between the soft pastry and the firm center of my daily <i>croissant au chocolat, </i>and the mess that <i>pain aux raisins </i>makes when you eat it. Puff pastry rolled into a spiral maximizes the area of outer surface that forms a crispy, flaky crust. But between the layers are raisins and sweet, sticky joy. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Recently, I was talking to my financial planner, who is an old friend of Adam's family, and she, having wrapped up the business part of our conversation, was waxing poetic about the adventure I'm on in this new stage of my life. How Adam must be so proud of me, how he would have embraced this adventure with me, but I was doing it anyway on my own. I did the telephone equivalent of nodding and smiling, of course, but that's all bullshit. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The only reason I have this life now is that he died eight years ago. Adam wanted no part of this adventure. I know, because we talked about it. He wanted roots in one place, he wanted to cultivate land and become embedded in a community. Adam travelled a lot, but only because work sent him and paid him a premium to do it. He enjoyed telling the stories he collected on those trips, of course, but what he loved most was returning home. It's a cosmic irony of our marriage that I had all the wanderlust and he had all the passport stamps. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This pastry on the table in front of me today was a connection to my past. It was a piece of the life that I no longer live. It was a benediction, and I cried. </div><p></p>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com5Moscow, Russia55.755826 37.617299927.445592163821154 2.461049899999999 84.066059836178852 72.7735499tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-60355776139903393342021-09-21T23:03:00.007+04:002021-09-21T23:10:37.824+04:00monastic<p> Friends keep asking me about my life in Moscow. How is it, Kate? Tell us about your adventures! Have you connected with the people we know? And I don't answer them, not really.</p><p>I don't know what to say. </p><p>My overwhelming impression over the last week is *quiet*. </p><p>I hear the hum of the refrigerator, the slosh of the dishwasher, the whoosh of the laundry. My slippers shush across the floor. Buttercup tosses her litter around its box. </p><p>The trolley rolls by, squeaking on its rails as it turns the corner. Rain falls gently, and cars splash through the ever-present puddles. </p><p>When I leave, and when I return, the tumblers turn over once, twice, again in the locks. </p><p>I could fill the apartment with music, with podcasts, with radio broadcasts from around the world. But I don't. Unless I open my mouth to speak to Buttercup, the apartment is quiet. </p><p>And it feels like rest. </p><p>It feels like a long breath in after all the hustling I had to do to get here, all the people I had to talk to, all the bureaucracy I had to beg from. </p><p>I've spent three afternoons on campus already, of course, but they feel dreamlike. Distant. A performance. (Teaching is always a performance.)</p><p>I'm finding a rhythm here in the apartment, taking care of myself, my cat, my space. Just me. </p><p>Leaving to gather food, coming back to prepare food. Washing dishes, tidying the kitchen, carrying out the trash. </p><p>Sit at the table for food, the sofa for knitting, the desk for writing and work. </p><p>Boil the water for tea plus extra, brew the tea, let the rest cool, pour it into the water bottles in the fridge for later. Safe water for drinking, for brushing teeth, for mixing the cat food. </p><p>Work email in the morning, messages with beloveds in the evening. </p><p>Sleep, wake, repeat. </p><p>It's almost monastic, this quiet rhythm I'm finding. My very own rule.</p><p>An adventure in becoming situated.</p>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-89314236269816224882021-07-15T05:18:00.007+04:002021-07-15T05:24:08.032+04:00clotheshorse<p>As I once again pack to move, I am returning to choices about what to keep, what to pass on to beloveds who will cherish my things, what to give away to strangers, and what to recycle or trash. Moving internationally necessitates deep cuts. These are not easy decisions to make.</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p> -- <i>content warning: this post contains discussions of weight gain, weight loss, and body size --</i></p><p>My decisions are further complicated by the practical implications of my autoimmune disease. <a href="https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/endocrine-diseases/hashimotos-disease" target="_blank">Hashimoto's thyroiditis</a> is cyclical in its early stages, meaning that sometimes my thyroid acts like it's hyperactive and sometimes it acts like it's hypoactive, which means that, among other significant symptoms, sometimes I lose weight, and sometimes I gain it. I got this diagnosis in 2017, but looking back, I can see hyper and hypo cycles as early as 2007. For me, these cycles seem to run about 3 years and swing 30-50 pounds, whether I am paying attention to diet and exercise or not. </p><p>30-50 pounds is a lot when you're only 63 inches tall. It's the difference between the size S-6-32E cluster and the size L-14-34F cluster. One of my coping strategies has been to build a wardrobe with capsules that fit me at each point along that spectrum. Like other people switch out summer and winter clothes, I switch size groups as needed. Each one is a modest number of items, and some items fit in more than one capsule, but when all pulled out at the same time to pack, it looks like this: </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbyhFhFAtTBRCSuWtDUL-GEgnrp_tgv6wwCWFrGTPl0TlQNxi1sNjp3XR_wnyyn0T4c6KvRRYTDAhAWVSLbnV5F-YUKFSAwIOlkDj9ia0vy-mlBDYZosKN2Ny64i8kSZdF_WoLVic6D0-d/s2048/clothes+now+and+larger.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbyhFhFAtTBRCSuWtDUL-GEgnrp_tgv6wwCWFrGTPl0TlQNxi1sNjp3XR_wnyyn0T4c6KvRRYTDAhAWVSLbnV5F-YUKFSAwIOlkDj9ia0vy-mlBDYZosKN2Ny64i8kSZdF_WoLVic6D0-d/w300-h400/clothes+now+and+larger.png" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQnJJnMPEbobvnarJWogr0f5gAfo_Jahpbs83mO-sS02PzPi1V6UqTWeaFQvPXhySbwa22stKe6A0xBpmHJR_AuaNwpjj2y9bNyS6-Se11on4SOiKZWncrQBnycigo6Cb23YGMxMCyxHU0/s2048/clothes+smaller+and+winter.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQnJJnMPEbobvnarJWogr0f5gAfo_Jahpbs83mO-sS02PzPi1V6UqTWeaFQvPXhySbwa22stKe6A0xBpmHJR_AuaNwpjj2y9bNyS6-Se11on4SOiKZWncrQBnycigo6Cb23YGMxMCyxHU0/w400-h300/clothes+smaller+and+winter.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It's a lot. Very a lot. I wish it were less. I've recycled all the irredeemable things, I've given away the things I don't wear even when they do fit. This is, really and truly, only things I love. It's just things I love in five size capsules, plus a hoard of silk and wool base layers and heavy wool sweaters because Hashimoto's also means that my body is terrible at temperature regulation. </div><div><br /></div>To be honest, sitting on the floor among all these piles yesterday, I was feeling pretty terrible. Why couldn't I edit more? In the abstract, I know these things are just fabric. Other expats talk about selling everything at home and buying new at their destination. Why can't I?<div><br /></div><div>Anna rightly pointed out that each pile is reasonable and that having clothes you know you love when you need a new size is a kindness to yourself. Shopping for new things is more chore than fun when, regardless of size, your body doesn't match the fit models of the ready-to-wear fashion world. <div><br /></div><div>So, I'll be ruefully zipping all of this into space bags for the movers to box up and deliver to me. As so much else in my world changes, these objects of comfort and warmth will remain. <br /><p><br /></p></div></div>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com0Arlington County, Arlington, VA, USA38.8816208 -77.09098089999999110.571386963821155 -112.24723089999999 67.191854636178846 -41.934730899999991tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-69547944442590887642020-12-31T06:09:00.004+04:002022-05-26T01:28:46.554+04:00feeling complexity<p> One of the most important lessons I've learned, and that I have tried to teach my children, is that you get to feel your feels. Our shared experience of the cycles of grief since their father died seven and a half years ago has been one of sadness and fear and anxiety and concern and anger. Those are the expected feelings for people experiencing tragedy and loss. </p><p>But our experience has also been joy and wonder and laughter and love. </p><p>AND ALL THOSE FEELINGS ARE VALID.</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p>This is, I think, a lesson that bears repeating, and even shouting, right now as we come to the end of 2020.</p><p>This year has been one tragedy after another. The world has battled a pandemic caused by a novel virus with no cure and little effective treatment. Fascism has reared its ugly head in the US and elsewhere. The systemic violence of white supremacy has shattered the lives of more Black folks, Indigenous Americans, and other people of color. Unemployment and precarious employment have destabilized our lives, threatening access to health care, to housing, and to food. Natural disasters have ripped through communities. Some threads of commentary on social media hold that despair is the only possible response. </p><p>Certainly, 2020 has been a year of mourning and lamentation. Fear, anxiety, sadness, anger--all of these are valid responses. It feels like just surviving this year is an accomplishment akin to running a tough mudder. As we arrive at the end, we bear the visible marks of our endurance. </p><p>These are, however, not the only valid responses to the year. </p><p>Even as the world has borne trauma after tragedy after trauma after tragedy, people have gotten married, babies have been born, relationships have been strengthened, birthdays have come, personal milestones have been reached. It might feel strange to celebrate during a shit year for the world. Some might say it's a bit like fiddling while Rome burns. </p><p>Let me tell you, though, you deserve to celebrate your wins. You deserve to feel joy. You deserve to smile and laugh. Marriages are sacred, birth and birthdays are magic, relationships and milestones are hard won. Whatever your feelings are, take the time to feel them without shame or judgement. Then, and only then, reflect on the actions you can take to make 2021 a better year for you, for your community, and for the world. </p><p>It's difficult, I know. Americans are, on the whole, terrible at nuance and complexity. But I believe in your ability to feel two things at the same time. </p><p>The pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus, the epidemic of violence caused by white supremacy, and the wave of storms and fires caused by global climate change are awful. We must acknowledge these realities, and we must commit to taking action to change these things. At the same time, though, we can celebrate our lucky wins and our hard-fought ones. </p><p>When you share cake with your household on your birthday, you also know that thousands of Americans will die that day. When you toast your personal milestone with special treats, you also know that some people in your community will be going to bed hungry. When you congratulate newlyweds, you also think of the newly widowed. Don't shy away from the contradictions. </p><p>As you reflect on 2020, if your year has been pretty good on the whole, if you have your health and your investment portfolio and your job, give thanks. Then, examine the luck and privilege that play a role alongside your hard work and look for ways to increase your giving to the established organizations in your community that are helping those who haven't had your luck and privilege. Be grateful for the joy you have and use that energy to work for the change your particular community needs. </p><p>In 2021, resolve to feel all your feels, including the complicated, bittersweet, contradictory ones; and resolve to let those around you feel all their feels, too. </p>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-25737273162354919532020-04-22T20:00:00.001+04:002021-07-15T05:21:31.331+04:00creation<i>This post originally published as a devotion in Mount Olivet United Methodist Church's e-mail series on April 22, 2020, in the period of the stay-at-home order caused by the COVID-19 outbreak.</i><br />
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For Christmas, my friend Kendra gave me <i>The Green Bible, </i>an NRSV translation with additional scholarly apparatus that promises to help the reader "understand the bible's message for the earth." I held it my hands and thought of the many bibles already collecting dust on my shelf, wondering why she thought I needed another one. Some of these thoughts must have shown up on my face (I have a terrible poker face), because she said, "to help you with your work on the Caretakers Committee."<br />
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"Ah, yes. Thank you," I said.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br />As it turns out, this book is the bible I didn't know I needed. It brings together ideas I had gathered from years of reading in a variety of places and synthesizes them with the familiar biblical arc from creation to fall to redemption, from Adam to David to Jesus.<br />
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The front matter includes perspectives from several Christian and Jewish scholars and creation-care activists. One powerful message that emerges among these voices is the idea that the creation was not a historical event that God completed in the past, but rather an ongoing process in which we human beings are partners with God.<br />
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This creation theology, a theology of our ongoing generative partnership with God, has broad implications for our environmental activism, particularly with regard to the scope of our efforts. A history of Earth Day would show fifty years of well-meaning initiatives and projects in schools and communities--reduce, reuse, recycle; buy recycled paper; bring your own bags; skip the straw; meatless Monday! These initiatives are well-meaning, of course, and they give otherwise busy people an action they can embrace, but too often they miss the bigger picture. These slogan-driven initiatives gloss over complexity as they strive for easy answers and single-action messages.<br />
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Creation is a complex process. As Christians, as partners with God in the ongoing process of creation, we are called to stewardship, we are called to wrestle with this beautiful mess we have helped to create. And that means zooming out to view the systems into which our actions fit. Only the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent divine creator can see all of the complexity of all of the systems, of course, but you can choose one.<br />
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This Earth Day, consider which aspect of environmental activism is most important to you--sustainable transportation, renewable energy, resilient agricultural supply chains, clothing and textile production, industrial materials, waste and compost, urban development--and commit to learning more. Read beyond the single-action slogans and let yourself be overwhelmed by the complexity of interdependent impacts on different groups of people, on wild and domestic animals, on the air and water. When you feel helpless, when it seems too complex and overwhelming, resist the temptation to go back to the slogan. You are God's partner in this creation process. God sees the whole picture, and other people are working on other systems and even other pieces of your system, you can look for something you can do on the system you care about. You might elevate the voice of an expert in this field or the perspectives of marginalized groups who are negatively impacted by the single-action slogan by sharing their work on the social media platforms you use. You might write to your elected representatives to urge them to consider the complexity of the system you care about. You might push back against rigid calls for total compliance with single-action slogans in conversations with friends and family.<br />
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Creation is a complex process, and we are in the middle of it. This middle is messy and the complexity is overwhelming. Know this: you are not obligated to do everything, but you are called to do your part well.<br />
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My prayer for us today:<br />
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<i>May we get comfortable with discomfort. May we dwell in the overwhelming complexity of many interdependent systems. May we answer the call to educate ourselves about the systems that matter to each of us. May we act with integrity and nuance, recognizing that there are no single-action solutions. May our examples inspire others. </i></div>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-10513601622640993302020-04-19T07:05:00.001+04:002021-07-15T05:22:00.807+04:00significant, but not radicalThis week, my niece Abigail and I made signficant changes to our hair:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoY0FLkXJP_6AKDF3N8y1PMLCzdr5qDznK-jx9Cl6JEI57GZ4cNXStKzh7NZ34H_e9nF4gTue5-UiQudFyJSvkWi0Gmmwj3CZ__QF4wOXf0OafO-qiyPQUKpYgI_iKDkRhzA4zHCIN2f2D/s1600/IMG_5934.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoY0FLkXJP_6AKDF3N8y1PMLCzdr5qDznK-jx9Cl6JEI57GZ4cNXStKzh7NZ34H_e9nF4gTue5-UiQudFyJSvkWi0Gmmwj3CZ__QF4wOXf0OafO-qiyPQUKpYgI_iKDkRhzA4zHCIN2f2D/s320/IMG_5934.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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A buzz cut for me, and a mohawk for her. Abigail, it turns out, was inspired by someone she'd seen online. I was just done with the shaggy stay-at-home mop my pixie cut had become. </div>
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This is, of course, not the first time I've been frustrated by my hair. For years, I've joked about shaving it all off, and I've written about my hair angst on this blog <a href="https://kolokoli.blogspot.com/2015/09/vanity-and-honesty.html">before</a>. </div>
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While these new haircuts are significant changes for both Abigail and me, the degree to which other people treat them as radical is......not okay. </div>
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The social norm that tells women and girls that we should have long hair, that our hair needs to be full and thick in order to be beautiful, that we should tame our hair with clips and ribbons and headbands instead of ball caps and buzz cuts, that a woman's hair is an indicator of her worth and a signal of her virtue is patriarchal bullshit. It's a holdover from a bygone era when rules also kept women from voting, holding credit, and owning businesses. </div>
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When rules are shitty, break them. Every person gets to choose what they do with the hair on their bodies--shave it, grow it, curl it, straighten it, dye it, adorn it with ribbons--and all options are actually open to all of us. </div>
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One friend said, 'You're a braver woman than I!' And I thought, 'I was not motivated by bravery, more by frustration and opportunity.'</div>
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But if I'm being honest, I should also say that I did this now because I have no one to impress, no reason to worry about not looking 'professional.' I'm not expecting any invitations to job interviews, my current students already expect me to do unexpected things. I've been frustrated with my hair before, and I've talked about doing this before, but I never have. I did it now because the stay-at-home order made breaking society's shitty rules safe. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgymJxDi2cXM8ntqLtp9-0TpWEH-apIDipTCK_iaLOinWX16HmKutvWJA0Nw6CwDqYpnZq3tSF6B4RMdSVDjMo8dzjUMCrhNSdgMHXC6pyc7m7GmTHwy9TsYY5i0NNyPVQ5eFdrkODk06Ta/s1600/IMG_3775.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgymJxDi2cXM8ntqLtp9-0TpWEH-apIDipTCK_iaLOinWX16HmKutvWJA0Nw6CwDqYpnZq3tSF6B4RMdSVDjMo8dzjUMCrhNSdgMHXC6pyc7m7GmTHwy9TsYY5i0NNyPVQ5eFdrkODk06Ta/s320/IMG_3775.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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I don't know that I'll keep buzzing my hair after the world reopens. Next time, if there is a next time, Sofia and I think we should probably use the #2 setting instead of the #1, for sure. What I do know is that I've made a significant change in my appearance, and sometimes it still surprises me in the mirror. </div>
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It also surprises me that other people see this choice as a radical one for a woman in the twenty-first century. I was not intending for this haircut to be an act of protest, but it certainly has become one. </div>
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<a href="https://www.ravelry.com/projects/kolokolchiki/forestry-2"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3l-gJFOO6ggfrMYshL21bjRcs9snkoNxR4w7FH8fP1oZ8OSvhwx4fW3f4EdpSvIZjXbA4eSIlzCWWlTiksMdLjcFjvXk83SAYzXjUNMgEvsM6nCVUgb9OInTXxueIHqufhE_RVAFJimc-/s320/60866397946__9C1A3ED4-6872-4F76-87DC-EE3B33C75218.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Nota bene: When rules are shitty, break them. But also be prepared for the consequences. The world is actually much colder when your hair is 1mm long. Hats are a good thing. </div>
<br />Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-536803112500371079.post-26179237739902231932020-02-28T08:46:00.001+04:002020-02-28T08:46:14.982+04:00Lent: wildernessMost of the time, I love my city life. I love the density of human beings and bookstores and groceries and coffee shops. I love the sidewalks and bikeways. But sometimes it can be overwhelming.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnP52zLhafF3cXu1-mtUsn5pM5UV3Q1j3RAM0DRMP_u6qjK5h_4yhDhVg3gvsKNk_c-xMWACPD_Wn11xieumhKd7KaSacy3Cx8DMwD09-b1WyFzeqUOFkeD87KzlYWSeCoR8g-obRNlaJa/s1600/TRO_5086.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1060" data-original-width="1600" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnP52zLhafF3cXu1-mtUsn5pM5UV3Q1j3RAM0DRMP_u6qjK5h_4yhDhVg3gvsKNk_c-xMWACPD_Wn11xieumhKd7KaSacy3Cx8DMwD09-b1WyFzeqUOFkeD87KzlYWSeCoR8g-obRNlaJa/s400/TRO_5086.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Sometimes, a ramble in the #wilderness is the only logical choice.</div>
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<span id="goog_1838991465"></span><span id="goog_1838991466"></span><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">this post is part of <a href="https://www.umc.org/en/content/lent-photo-a-day-2020" style="color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;">Rethink Church’s photo-a-day</a> during Lent 2020</i>Катяhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16103080395479099740noreply@blogger.com0