“Are you feeling blue this morning? Want to go for a bike ride?” my husband said, looking up from his computer and smiling.
“We’ll see,” I said, tersely. My husband always gets up early, and by the time I drag myself out of bed, splash my face with cold water, and walk into his study, he already looks like a man who just won the lottery or was given a free sample of some useless product that is supposed to change his life.
Of course, I’m feeling blue! I’m not a morning person, so that’s how I feel every morning. Not to mention that I just looked at my Fitbit and read, “Went to bed too late!” What’s that about?! I didn’t buy it to admonish me! I just wanted to know if I got enough deep sleep (which I didn’t), so stick to that!
Fitbit aside, unbeknown to my husband, the American expression “feeling blue” means something very different to me. In my native Russia it doesn’t refer to being sad but to being homosexual, which in my mother country is still very bad news indeed. I’m not saying that everybody in Russia is a homophobe. In fact, when my daughter was young, she loved a cartoon called “The Blue Puppy.” In it, the cutest puppy you ever saw was rejected by everyone because of his color. I even remember the song the other puppies sang when he tried to approach them: “Goluboy, goluboy, nechotim igrat s toboy” (You are blue! You are blue! We will not play with you!) Amazingly, that story ended well for the blue puppy, and they all became friends in the end. (Even now, I cannot believe that Russian censors allowed it!)
As for the American meaning, I know people who, when feeling unhappy, eat or drink a lot. I also know a man who, when he got divorced, shaved his head and drove from Missouri to Alaska. That happened long before being bald became a fashion statement, and also before Americans traveling to Canada had to show their passports. So, when the guy arrived at the North Dakota-Canadian border at 5am in the morning with his head freshly sheared and a huge supply of canned goods (he was also short on money), the border patrol searched his car five times! First, because they had nothing else to do at that hour and second, because they believed that anyone like that must be smuggling drugs or firearms
In any case, eating or drinking won’t help me. For one thing, I watch my weight. For another, being from Russia, I’ve seen too many drunks lying on the street, so I don’t feel like emulating them in the US. As for shaving my head, my hair is one of the few features that still makes me presentable. Shaving it without any medical reason would make me look like that man in the Russian proverb: “I’ll poke my eye out so my mother-in-law will have an one-eyed son-in-law!”
My husband doesn’t know much about the intricacies of the Russian language. Besides, he believes that physical exercise cures life’s ups and downs, and bicycling is one of the things he prescribes for me freely. He’s not wrong about that. Since I no longer jog or play tennis (my knees gave out on me), bicycling is as good as anything (actually, there’s only one “other thing” left — walking). And so, an hour later, we found ourselves on the nearest biking trail, pedaling as quickly as we could in our age and watching young people effortlessly pass us.
Trump supporters aside, there’re only two kinds of people I hate with a passion: people who cut me off on the highway and immediately head for the exit, and young people who outdo me on the trail. How can I enjoy my retirement when I’m left literally in the dust? Where’s respect for old age?
Of course, old age is a major reason for feeling blue in the morning. As soon as I open my eyes, a stream of things that are wrong with me floods my mind. Vision, for example. It’s bad enough to have to wear glasses to see what I eat (I know they say that it’s the smell we react to, but from my experience, you still have to see what you’re putting in your mouth or you may deeply regret it!)
Worse, more and more often, I find myself leaving the house in at least one item of my clothing worn inside out. When that happened to me for the first time, I was still working, and when I finally noticed a label of my jacket informing me that it was made in China and consisted of 100% polyester, my first reaction was to blame my colleagues. Why didn’t they tell me? Do they hate me that much? Do they think I’m an old hippy or an Alzheimer’s sufferer? Now that I’m retired, there’s only one person to blame — my husband, who, no matter how I look or what I wear, always says, taking off his glasses, “You look ravishing!”
Speaking about that, looking good used to be very important to me. In Moscow where I grew up nobody would take her trash outside without putting on a decent dress (and possibly makeup!) and carefully combing her hair. Nowadays, I can go the whole day without even glancing in the mirror. And not because I took an oath to look like hell for the rest of Trump’s term, but because I just forget!
Then, there is hearing – so far not mine but my husband’s. Conversations like, “What would you like for dinner?” often trigger responses like: “Who did you say got thinner?”
Bicycling is good for me, though. It makes me feel content, although competitive, which is strange, because I’m not competitive in my regular life. Yet on the trail, my wounded pride gets the better of me. Of course, not every passerby gets me. The majority of bicyclists on our trail are nice. Some say, “Good morning!” till about 5pm. Some comment on the weather. And many ask if you need help when they see you carefully examining your bike with no tools in hand. Once, when I got flat tire two miles away from our house and had to walk my bike home, people stopped so often, that I now carry a little sign in my bag, “Thank you for asking! My bike and I are beyond help”
Some people even ask personal questions. Just recently, while my husband and I were resting on a bench, one lady slowed down, looked at us very thoughtfully and said, “How are you?!” And as long as she was in our line of vision, she kept turning her head towards us. I felt just fine before she asked, but watching her riding with her head backwards, I began worrying that her neck would snap or bicyclists coming from the opposite direction would run her over.
“Do you know her?” I said when she melted into the distance.
“No,” he said. “Do you?”
“No. What’s wrong with her?!”
But, I immediately felt ashamed of saying that. It was a nice gesture. Besides, it’s been a while since I looked at myself in the mirror and I examine my husband’s appearance only when we go to classical concerts. It’s conceivable that we both look so old and decrepit, that the woman was contemplating calling 911! Surely, she wasn’t a Trump supporter, so I could’ve said something nice to her, too, and not just stared at her as if she had offered me her no-good husband in exchange for mine.
By the way, that’s another thing that is wrong with me. I’m not quick on my feet. I can never say anything smart and witty on the spur of the moment, and I spend a long time afterwards mulling over the things I should have said but didn’t.
No, I take it back. Sometimes, not being able to express myself is a good thing. Like that time when the Westboro Baptist Church decided to descend on our synagogue during a Jewish holiday. Not being very religious myself, I wasn’t planning to go to the synagogue that day. Instead, I decided that I would drive there, stop my car in front of those ugly people and give them a piece of my mind using all taboo vocabulary I had mastered during my life in America (something I never did even in Russia where curses were much more intricate and the opportunities were more plentiful).
I carefully rehearsed everything I was going to say in my head, but on the appointed day, I blanked out. As luck would have it, my husband and I found ourselves driving in the direction of the synagogue at the same time the group was due to be there, and everything came back to me.
“Drive slowly,” I said to my husband. At first, he obeyed, but as we began approaching a small group of people standing on the corner and I began lowering the car’s window, he said: “What are you going to do?”
“You’ll see,” I said with so much feeling in my voice, that instead of slowing down, he accelerated, taking me and my anger away.
I didn’t talk to him for the rest of that day. Yet next morning, I read in the newspaper that the Westboro group never showed up and the people I saw on the corner came there to protest against the haters. In short, I was this close to insulting really good people!
Going back to bicycling. Besides its mostly wholesome atmosphere and the fitness aspect, you can run into interesting people that way. Since the trail we usually bike on is some 200 miles long and it connects the St. Louis area to the Kansas City area, people come from all over. You can always spot long-distance riders by the packs strapped to their bicycles. When they stop, it’s usually to replenish their water supply, take a breather, and look at the map. Most of them don’t linger but some do. They ask questions about the local area or make short conversation, and although the interactions don’t last long, there’s enough time to get a sense of what kind of people they are. In fact, it’s a game I play in my head.
Would I want to see this couple again? Or that guy with a sign “Waco Riders” on his jersey? Is he a NRA member, too? What about the group of young people playing Oldies?
That particular morning was hot and humid, and when we stopped at a trailside gazebo, I wasn’t feeling much better than I did in the morning.
“We should’ve stayed at home,” I started, wiping sweat from my forehead, but at that moment a middle-aged couple stopped at the gazebo, too.
“Are you local?” They asked.
The man wore a jersey that read, “Ride for Mental Health!” and the woman “Vote!” and in no time, the conversation switched to the state of mental health in America and, especially, youth suicide. Nothing was entertaining, but I began feeling better. The strangers were my kind of people, smart and caring, and I was already regretting that we’d never see them again.
Just as they were getting ready to leave, a large butterfly landed on of my husband’s blue jersey, and both the woman and I began snapping pictures of it with our phones. The butterfly didn’t seem to mind. It sat still on the blue fabric as if posing for a butterfly lovers’ magazine.
“I think it likes the color.” The woman said.
“Yes,” I joked, ““It must be “feeling blue.””
Everybody smiled and then they left.
Riding back, I didn’t pay attention to other bicyclists, even those who left me behind. I thought about the young people ending their lives and their parents. About our grandchildren and the difficult world we’re leaving them. And, at the end, about myself. Here I am, 66 years old, complaining about minor aches and pains, and constantly misplacing things. Do I have the right to “feel blue” about that? My grandfather never made it to 66! In fact, he never made it even to 62! As for me, I’ve lived a life. I’ve experienced things. I’ve traveled. And what is that “feeling blue” nonsense about anyway? Why do we attach feelings or stereotypes to words? After all, it might be just that – liking the color.
©Svetlana Grobman. All Rights Reserved
If you’d like to see more of my photos, click here.
At our last Staff Day, I received a certificate marking my 25 years with the same library. My first reaction was, “OMG, I’ve worked here longer than I did in Russia!” My second thought was, “How old does that make me?!” (A silly reaction: it’s not as if I hadn’t noticed how much I have aged!). And my third thought was, “Things have definitely changed since I came to this country…”
While librarians are not seen as glamorous creatures but rather as homely women of an uncertain age who wear square glasses, working at the library gave me a chance to learn about my new country. It also gave me a chance to work with like-minded people in an environment where camaraderie is valued above competition and where knowledge is more important than showing off.
Where I came from (Moscow, Russia), we never volunteered — at least not in the American way. The thing was that we didn’t have to — authorities “volunteered” us when and where they desired. The “without getting paid” part (see definition above) worked the same way as it does in America. As for the willingness, nobody ever cared to ask.
I love discovering great small presses. 
A new photo challenge read: “Threes” — a photo story in three pictures: a broad photo of a subject, several elements from it interacting with one another, and a close-up.”
Those who’ve been following me for a while may have noticed that I have another blog, too – Svetlana’s Photography. (Don’t take me wrong. I have no illusion about my ability as a photographer. I just enjoy taking pictures:). Here’s how it works. Every week, WordPress announces a theme, and people like me (as well as some professional photographers) post their photos to illustrate it. The theme for this week is “Treasure,” and the example we’re given is a heart-shaped stone, a keepsake that the photographer has kept in her possession for 25 years and three house moves. This, of course, made me think about my keepsakes, but I quickly realized that I no longer have them in my life, and I want to tell you to why.
called us and gave my husband a speech about how horrible it would be if Nancy Pelosi became the House majority leader. The caller went on and on with his scripted spiel, until my husband shouted into the receiver: “I think Nancy Pelosi would make a great majority leader!” and hung up.
Then, usually by the time I am supposed to relax my lower body, my back starts itching between my shoulder blades and… You get the idea.
one, wavy, for the lake, and another one, straight, for the beach. Behind the straight line, I put several small blots for seagulls and several bigger blots–with sticks indicating arms and legs–for my family. I was about to start coloring my granddaughter’s hair, when the workshop leader stopped our artistic endeavors and asked the participants to tell the group about their drawings and what they represented.
or on a boat lit by the setting sun. There was only one lady there whose imagination took her to a twisted Dali-esque landscape she had once hallucinated in a morphine-induced state while recovering from surgery.
And my four-year-old granddaughter, who must have decided that “bagels” was the proper thing to call these birds, ran in the direction of their flight shouting, “Bagels, bagels!”
met us at the local airport — presumably, our sponsors. They don’t speak Russian and I don’t speak English, so it’s hard to know for sure.
Americans are celebrating their independence. I’ve never studied American history, so I’m not quite sure from whom. The temperature is 41 degrees Celsius. They measure everything in Fahrenheit, and my thermometer reads 105 – which makes me feel even worse.
but several houses lost their roofs. Some people say that we may have an earthquake here soon, too. Reconsidering my coming here. As bad as it was in Russia, we never had either one!
A neighbor with two children dressed in black cloaks came to the door looking for candy. They didn’t look hungry, so I’m very suspicious. After they left, I looked outside – the street was full of children searching for sweets. Apparently, they have shortages in America, too.
red was very popular, potatoes were white! I skipped the potatoes and ate the turkey that was stuffed with bread. That way, I suppose, they can feed more people.
In Russia, it came after, and nobody celebrated it.
the same but mean different things. Besides, no matter how I twist my tongue, I can’t roar the American “r,” or hiss their “the.” My “think” comes out as “sink,” and even when I say “Hi,” people ask where I’m from.
Also, “it costs an arm and a leg.” We never paid with our limbs! Yesterday somebody said, “I dropped the ball.” I looked. No ball. What did she drop? Where?
Also, made my first “Library will close in fifteen minutes” announcement. Everybody left immediately — including some staff. They said that it “sounded scary.”
now at the reference desk. Yesterday, a nice-looking gray-haired lady asked me about whales. I took her to the animal section. 
Who knew she was going to Wales? No time to eat. Lost five pounds.
I said, “Do you mean clothes or stuffing?” Another patron wanted pictures of a stagecoach. I knew “stage” and “coach” (like coaches in sports) but couldn’t imagine them together and had to ask for help. Lost another five pounds.
especially when we argue. Also, dreamt in English for the first time. Is that what happens when you marry an American citizen? Gained five more pounds.
As soon as I got home, I described the event to my husband. He was very surprised — not with the guy, but with the cloth. Then he said, “Did you mean “loin?” Gained five more pounds.
Now, I’m spending all my free time landscaping our yard. Lost five pounds.
Saw 3 ducks, 5 geese, and one woodpecker – all of which live in our neighborhood, too. Put up a bird feeder in the back yard, so we don’t have to drive anywhere.
raccoons, and squirrels. Voted for John Kerry and he lost, too.
Used my free time to write about the deer eating my “lushes” plants and sent it to the local newspaper. The story got published, although they replaced “lushes” with “lush.”
This time, I wrote how my husband and I “tied the nut” eleven years ago, and how “exiting” that was. Showed it to my husband. After he stopped laughing, he suggested replacing “nut” with “knot” and “exiting” with “exciting.”
Wrote an essay about what life was like in Russia, especially for Jews. The essay got published in The Christian Science Monitor, and I got my first fan letter. Opened it with shaking hands … and read that the only thing missing in my life now was “converting to Christianity.”
Here you have it: twenty-three years in 1250 words 🙂
And then she died.It happened a year ago, but I am still grieving. I know it makes no sense. Famous people die all the time; some deaths leave me cold, some sad–like the death of Paul Newman, my virtual lover :). Yet her death I took personally. It was an affront to the world order in general and my world in particular. She was Nora Ephron for goodness sake! We had so much in common. We both were Jewish by birth and secular by conviction. We both remarried–well, she twice and I once. We had a similar sense of humor, and we were a little sentimental and a lot middle-aged. Still, one morning I turned on my radio and listened to the announcement of her death.
“Wait,” I screamed, suddenly aware that this was my last time with her.
even posting something on YouTube.
photographers’ blogs. Why? Because I love photography. I didn’t always feel this way. In fact, I used to be one of those people who takes pictures of members of her family in front of world-renowned masterpieces, like Notre Dame, Rodin’s The Thinker, or the Mona Lisa (just kidding, they don’t allow flash photography in the Louvre :)). That way my friends will recognize what well-traveled people we are.
Yet for a long time I ignored his opinion, until, six years ago, for our anniversary, my husband gave me a nice camera and, voilá, just like that, I got converted into a true photography fan. This doesn’t mean that I became a good photographer myself (I wish I did!), but I’m still trying :).
In any case, one of the photographers I’ve been following on WordPress.com is 
In the summer of 2009 my husband and I were visiting Tate Modern, a modern art gallery in London, UK. It was our second hour of being there, so our pace began to slow down and our perception of modern art began to blur. We were already on level 4, when I stopped in front of an object which looked like an air vent, with a sign above that read “Acrylic Composition In Gray #6.”
Several month ago, my husband’s aunt died, and we drove to Kentucky to attend the funeral. It was a cool but sunny November day – not sad enough for the occasion but also not too depressing to make one feel that life is meaningless. Aunt Anne would’ve liked it, too; she used to enjoy spending time outside — playing golf or going out on a pontoon boat. She was from the category about which people say, “they don’t make them like that anymore:” tall, active, with a decisive expression and an equally decisive mind – a piece of which she never hesitated to share with you. She was also a long-standing Democrat (who knew there are Democrats in Kentucky?!), and in fact, she voted by absentee ballot from her hospital bed several days before her death.
It was our third weekend in a row to go cross-country skiing! This time, we decided to drive to Eagle Bluffs, a state conservation area about 10 miles away from our home. First of all, the snow there would be untouched, and also, just before the storm, we had seen white pelicans there.
and I find white pelicans — so clumsy and weird-looking 
The pelicans swam aimlessly around the pond, back and forth. Every so often, they dived, so that all we could see was their 
learn as long as you live.'”
Yet in fact, I apparently have been regressing for most of my adult life. Some of it I can blame on my Soviet past. It’s hard to keep your sanity when strangers on the street shout at you, “You dirty kike go to your Israel!” It’s even harder when, after you had finally decided to move to America, gone through an interview in the American embassy, and – lucky you! – received an entrance permit to the United States, you found out from your local authorities that you had “no right” to leave the country where everybody hates you. Talk about catch 22! It’s amazing that I escaped with most of my faculties intact!
Some people’s names are way too complicated, like that actor’s — you know … … the one who played Abraham Lincoln … Something Month-Lewis. Besides, it’s not like I forget the name of my ex-husband. He’s name is … Well, what do I need his name for? I’m no longer married to him anyway.
Going back to the winter storm I mentioned at the beginning. Until recently, we had no winter at all, not even for a day. But at the end of February, a blizzard fell on us like a gigantic white pillow, smothering everything in its way and completely stopping life in our town. Even the library where I work closed – it lost both power and, most importantly, the Internet. So with nothing much to do at home, my husband and I decided to go cross-country skiing, which is not very popular around here. Actually, since we get snow once in a very blue moon, none of the winter sports is, and we must be the only household in town that owns cross-country skis.
(we live some 300 yards away from a city recreation trail). For a while, we struggled to get our muscle memory back, but soon, we found our rhythm and began moving forward. It was a slow going — the snow was deep and we were the first to break its puffy surface. Yet gradually my breathing relaxed and my mind, no longer needing to supervise my feet, began wandering. I was moving faster now, enjoying the fresh snow and admiring the silky blue sky, and there it suddenly struck me. Skiing is just like life! When you’re young, your parents put you on your skis and teach you how to move, and for a while, you follow their tracks. Then, by the time you become strong yourself and leave your family behind, someone else comes along and slides beside you. And later yet, you have your children, and they begin following your tracks – until you move aside and they continue on their own. And while we, the skiers, change, the run continues, for a long time for some and for others not, but always in the same direction – forward. 
Every time winter comes around and my colleagues begin complaining about the cold, I find myself longing for snow. Not for six months, mind you, the way I experienced it in Moscow. Just for a couple of weeks or so. This, unfortunately, never happens in Mid-Missouri. Our usual pattern is this: it snows heavily for a day and the roads become slick and dangerous for driving, but as soon as the city takes care of that, the temperature rises and the snow melts.
Missouri are bad and those in Colorado are all great. When we were learning downhill skiing in Steamboat Springs, CO, we met another unpredictable skier. By the way, what’s wrong with the English language? Why do we say “downhill skiing”? Did anybody ever ski uphill? Another vivid example of peculiarities of English is the expression “horseback riding.” What do we need the “horseback” for? What other part of the horse would you ride on?
The architect who designed the Sydney Opera House spent so much money and took so much time that he and the city authorities began having “irreconcilable differences,” and when they finally got “divorced,” the shell of the building was completed, but the inside was not even started. To finish the project, the city hired several local architects, who did their best with the money they had left – which, sorry to say, does show. (Forgive me, my Australian followers :).)
©Writing With an Accent. All Rights Reserved
Writing With an Accent 