In Memory of Elie Wiesel

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Svetlana Grobman

“Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.” ~ Elie Wiesel (September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016)

When, in 1990, at the age of 39, I emigrated from the USSR to the United States, I did not know about Elie Wiesel, Anne Frank and other victims — or survivors — of the Holocaust. In fact, I didn’t even know the term “Holocaust.” And not because I was a bad student who failed to learn it in school, but because the anti-Semitic politics of the Third Reich were not covered in our school curriculum and our mass media — not before nor during WWII, nor afterwards. As a result, the atrocities that were well known in the West were hardly mentioned in the East. There, coverage of WWII was dedicated to the bravery and suffering of Soviet troops, and, until 1956, to Stalin’s military genius. So the mass killings of Jews – in Europe and Ukraine — did not qualify.

(Reproduction of the photo depicting Babi Yar ravine near Kiev, Ukraine, the place where 100,000 people, overwhelmingly Jews, were murdered in September 1941.)

This is not to say that the Russian population had it easy. The war was devastating for the USSR. Overall, more than 26 million Russian citizens died during the war, not to mention those who came back as invalids and hopeless alcoholics. Still, the fact that the Jews were systematically exterminated was not revealed in Russia (where casual anti-Semitism was the norm) for a very long time. Well, we knew about concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Treblinka and Buchenwald. In fact, there was a popular song written about the latter, which went like this:

“People of the world stand up a moment

Listen, listen. It buzzes from all sides

It can be heard in Buchenwald ringing off the bells

It’s innocent blood reborn and strengthened in a brazen roar.

Victims are resurrected from the ashes …”

Yet again, we were never told that the main goal of a camp like Auschwitz was the implementation of “The Final Solution of the Jewish Question.” Historians estimate that among the people sent to Auschwitz there were at least 1,100,000 Jews from all the countries of occupied Europe, over 140,000 Poles, approximately 20,000 Gypsies from several European countries, over 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and over 10,000 prisoners of other nationalities.

When I found myself in Columbia, MO, and I had learned enough English to start reading, books about the Holocaust were not high on my list. First, I needed to learn about my adoptive country, its history, culture and customs. So, when one day (I was already working at the Reference Desk of the Columbia Public Library) a teenage girl came to me and asked about “The Diary of a Young Girl,” I had no idea what that book was about. I just looked it up in the library catalog. And later, when another patron was looking for “Night” by Elie Wiesel, I didn’t know anything about that book either. In fact, I had trouble spelling “Wiesel.” Night

Time went by and I learned about the Holocaust, about Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel and others. I saw a collection of victims shoes in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington (the Nazis confiscated their victims’ belongings and sent valuables back to Germany; the shoes were to be repaired by the camps’ prisoners and reused).

And I heard a reading of names of the Jewish children murdered during the Holocaust (1.5 million names in all) in the Yad Vashem Children’s Memorial in Jerusalem, which is housed in an underground cave and lit by candles that, reflected in a system of mirrors, create the impression of millions of little stars. (The complex was built with donations from a family whose two-and-a-half old son was killed in Auschwitz.) And when I was read “Night,” I could hardly keep from screaming; for the way I felt, it all could have happened to me, my parents and my daughter.

(Yad Vashem Children’s Memorial, Jerusalem, Israel)

There are some events so cruel and traumatic that people don’t want to talk about them, even less read about them. In fact, when Wiesel’s “Night” first appeared in print (in Yiddish) in 1954, its publication was hardly noticed. In America, when the book was published in 1960, it wasn’t an overnight success either. Gradually, though, it began attracting more attention, and when, in 2006, Oprah Winfrey presented “Night” to her book club, it became a New York Times bestseller.

Wiesel went on to write many more books and to become a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Above all, he remained a voice for Holocaust victims and survivors – the mission he considered the most important in his life.

“If I survived,” Wiesel said in 1981, “It must be for some reason. I must do something with my life… because in my place, someone else could have been saved. And so I speak for that person.”

Volunteers: A Study in Contrasts

Posted on April 7, 2016 by Svetlana Grobman

April 10-16 is observed in the United States and Canada as National Volunteer Week.

“Volunteer: a person who willingly does work without getting paid to do it”

IMG_1657-003 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.

The most common cases of Russian “volunteering” during my time there included sending citizens to express their (fake) enthusiasm at state parades, and sending city dwellers to collective farms to help with harvesting.

I still remember spending long weeks (even months) picking cabbages and potatoes, hours away from my home in Moscow — living in military-style barracks, wearing oversized black rain boots and ugly telogreikas (black, shapeless quilted jackets), and drinking vodka — the only entertainment available in the provinces.

I also remember “voluntarily” greeting foreign dignitaries, including Gerald Ford, who visited Russia (then The Soviet Union) in November 1974. My whole college was positioned along Moscow’s wide Leninsky Prospect (Lenin’s Avenue) for about 2 hours, bored and cold, waiting for the black limousines and leather-clad motorcyclists to drive quickly past us, while we waved at them and smiled forced smiles under the command of our superiors.

This is not to say that nobody in Russia would take to the streets voluntarily. There were a few — some protesting against the injustice of the regime and some trying to force the authorities to allow them to leave the country. Yet they were called “dissidents,” and the country had appropriate places for them — mostly the state prisons. All in all, “altruism” was not a common word in our vocabulary – “mandate” was.

Of course, I haven’t been in the country of my birth for a very long time, and things are different there now. These days Russia, too, has volunteers. One example is Russian soldiers — sorry, I meant to say “volunteers” — who fought against the Ukranian Army in 2014-15 (in Ukrainian territory, mind you). Unlike my days of digging in the mud in Russian potato/cabbage/carrots/ etc. fields, those guys weren’t wearing telograikas and rain boots, but military style clothing. They were better equipped, too. Instead of sacks for gathering veggies, they carried automatic rifles, drove tanks, and used Russian-made rockets. Yet small differences aside, it’s clear that volunteering has finally made its way to Russia. In fact, some Russian volunteers are fighting in Syria right now.

Coming to America in 1990 was disorienting for me in a number of ways — mentally, linguistically and culturally; and one of things that amazed me was this American “volunteering streak.” I remember asking people, “Do you mean that nobody forces (or pays) volunteers to travel to different states to help victims of natural disasters or to support a cause?! That some people would spend their time and money to feed the poor or organize and attend fundraisers?” And when I heard, “yes,” I just shook my head in disbelief.

I’m not saying everybody in this country is an altruist. Of course not. I am saying, though, that I know many people here who have done – and will do again – all of the above and more. And let me tell you, volunteering is contagious. These days, I volunteer, too. I’ve participated in a number of fundraisers, and I’ve donated things to my congregation and my library. It’s not much, but it’s a beginning. For I finally understood that John Donne’s famous quote is not just poetic. It is a truth of the human condition:

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”

If not Now, When?

Posted on September 23, 2015 by Svetlana Grobman

Untitled As you know, I’ve been “Freshly Pressed” recently. This has been my closest brush with fame so far :), and the result of it surprised and amazed me. The surprise lasted for about a day. (Longer than Isaac Bashevis Singer’s when he received the announcement that he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Isaac Bashevis Singer, 1978

His phone rang off the hook and everybody asked, “Are you surprised?” At first, Singer said, “Yes!” But soon, his response changed: “How long does surprise last? I heard the news 15 minutes ago!).

Yet I am still experiencing the amazement. Some 2000 people read my post Dreams (BTW, those who liked that post, may also like A Wrinkle in Time and Of Soil and Feathers), the number of my followers tripled (!), I received almost 150 comments, and 10 people bought my book. ( FYI, until October 4, a digital copy of my book is available from smashwords.com for $0.99 with a coupon CB32K.)

I am very grateful to everybody who took the time to read my humble ramblings. As for your comments, if I haven’t answered them yet, I definitely will. (Well, someone asked if I like Windows 10; that I won’t answer – it’s between me and Microsoft :)). One thing, though — with many people “following” me now, I feel the pressure of being worthy of so much attention, and I fear that I won’t be. For one thing, my posts are all different – sometimes poignant, sometimes humorous, and sometimes reflective. So forgive me if I disappoint you. I am who I am, and I write about my feelings and experiences — which, this time, concern my recent vacation in Oregon.

If not Now, When?

The first thing my husband and I noticed while landing in Portland was how smoggy the city was. With the hottest summer on record and wild fires raging in Oregon, Washington, and California, that was hardly surprising. Yet we had no time to dwell on it. We rented a car and drove to Multnomah Falls, located about 30 miles away from Portland.

We humans are hardwired to be drawn to water, but waterfalls seem especially magical. Is it the sheer force of falling water? The cool glimmering beads that gently spray your face? The fresh smells and the haunting monotony of the sound? Who knows? All I know is that no picture can do justice to Multnomah Falls (at least not my picture:)). The falls are immense –the drop from the upper falls is 542 feet and from the lower 69 feet – and they attracts two million people visitors every year.

We spent hours admiring the scenery, had lunch at the historic Multnomah Falls Lodge, and headed to our next destination — Mt. Hood.

To my disappointment, the Historic Columbia River Highway appeared hazy — the smoke of nearby fires washed out the dark greenery of Douglas firs and the rocky cliffs on the other side of the river. Even a bigger disappointment awaited us at Mt. Hood. The mountain, so photogenic on a clear day, was obscured by smoke. I gave up my idea of taking pictures, and we headed to Timberline Lodge, set at the tree line of the mountain.

If Mt. Hood is a monument to nature, then the lodge (built in the 1930s as a WPA project),with its carved railings, wrought iron fireplace, and an enormous chimney, is a monument to the past times.

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The only thing that reminds visitors about the 21st century is an overpriced restaurant where every dish is made of multiple ingredients and sorbet is served between courses to “clear your palette.” (Tip: if you ever visit there, eat at the bar, where you can have a great view of the mountains, good food, and reasonable prices:)).

Next day, though, the wind changed, and, as if in a theater, the smoke receded, the sky turned velvety blue, and the mountain appeared in all its glory. Well, in as much glory as the diminished amount of snow on its top allowed. To give you an idea, the first time we visited Mt. Hood together was April, 2010. Deep snow lay on the ground when we arrived, and when we woke up next morning, 33” (!) of fresh snow puffed up the already wintry scene, deep snowdrifts reached the windows of the third floor, and the chairlift (we came to ski) was hardly visible in the whiteout of falling snow.

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This time, we spent our days admiring distant views of Mt. Jefferson and Three Sisters, hiking on Mt. Hood, and walking in the deep Northern woods, where stately Douglas firs stand guard over cool mountain lakes that provide fun for kayakers, fishermen and sunbathers. Then we continued to Bagby Hot Springs, recommended to me by a library friend.

After an hour of driving, we stopped at a Forest Service office and asked for directions. A female staff member gave us a funny look and said, “Who told you about Bagby?”

“A colleague of mine,” I answered. “He said it’s a great place to visit.”

“If you’re into that kind of things, yes.” The woman said. “Where are you from?”

“Missouri,” I said, feeling somewhat uneasy.

“Missouri?!” The woman said. Then she hollered to someone in the other side of the office,

“Look, Mary, people from Missouri are asking about Bagby!”

Another woman got up and looked us up and down.

“Nudity is limited these days,” She finally said and sat down. 58574c088c98b55b-_MG_20782

“Nudity!? He didn’t say anything about nudity!” I started, but the first woman interrupted me.

“And you’ll have to bring several buckets of water from the creek to cool off the spring water.”

“We’re renting a car,” I said. “It didn’t come with a bucket!”

“Exactly,” the second woman said. “And the baths aren’t in good shape. They’re made of wood. Deteriorated.”

At that point, I pulled my husband to the exit, and we headed to Silver Falls State Park instead. The park, a nine-mile-loop that begins with the 177-foot-high South Falls and snakes through a densely wooded landscape connecting 10 waterfalls, is an example of park-design-ingenuity. Of course, the unusually dry summer affected it, too, turning several waterfalls into trickles. Yet we enjoyed the park anyway, especially since two waterfalls allowed visitors to walk behind the cascading water and see the other side of the fluid curtain.

_MG_1772-001 Next day we drove to the Oregon coast. The famous Pacific Northwest coastline was smoggy, and, once again, I put away my camera and waited for a food stop. The small town of Tillamook proved to be just that. A busy restaurant /gift shop offered local cheeses and wine/dips/spices-and-you-name-it tasting, while a next-door art gallery provided food for the visual sense.

Having fulfilled our tourist duties, we continued to the town of Seaside. A fancier place to stay would’ve been Canon Beach, but a librarian (me) and a retired professor (my husband) cannot afford to be fancy:). We had no regrets, though. Seaside is a cute town with a grand, 1.5 mile-long promenade, wide sandy beaches, an aquarium, and the best pancake restaurant I’ve encountered — Pig ‘N Pancake (Tip: sourdough pancakes are to die for!).

Unfortunately, the town was veiled in smoke, too, but our luck held — the wind soon changed and the Pacific Ocean appeared before our eyes, mighty and austere. _MG_2437 We spent our time walking along the promenade, hiking in the woods, and watching windsurfers at Ecola State Park (surfing there is not for the faint of heart — the peak temperature is 55-60 degrees Fahrenheit).

Even if you don’t stay in Canon Beach, you owe it to yourself to see its shoreline. The 235-foot-high Haystack Rock rises from the bottom of the ocean as a reminder of prehistoric times. (At low tide, visitors can walk up to it and see starfish and other tide-pool creatures.) Several other large monoliths next to Haystack courageously defy the crashing of ocean waves. And wide beaches offer enough space for sunbathers (swimmers are rare, but they can be easily pinpointed by their loud screams when they splash in the cold water), sandcastle builders, windsurfers, tricyclists, dog walkers, and kite runners. (Tip: bring some warm clothes, preferably a hoodie — the wind there is strong and cool).

Time flew, and soon we were driving back to Portland to take a plane home. The return, always anticlimactic, was also marked by low visibility, and I began to pay more attention to the scenery close to the highway: small, rundown houses and glaring spots in the forests covered the nearby rocky landscape – a result of merciless logging. On the radio, the announcers were talking about the alarming air quality in Portland.

In the airport, while waiting for our flight, I scrolled through my photos – a barely-covered-with-snow Mt. Hood, hazy landscapes along the Columbia River, diminished waterfalls, and my thoughts turned to the environment. We, the older generation, are lucky to have seen amazing landscapes and jungle-like forests, to have skied in deep snow and enjoyed clear horizons. But what about our grandchildren? Will they ski on Mt. Hood, walk in the deep woods or swim in the lakes and rivers? Will they inhale clean air and observe clear views?

It’s about time we understood that we cannot afford to be careless and oblivious to the changes that are happening in our time. Otherwise, we’ll go the way of Easter Islanders who deforested their island, ruined its ecosystem, and, eventually, caused their civilization to collapse. Let’s do something to prevent this, and do it soon — despite the inertia and political squabbles that poison our souls and our environment.

If not now, when? _MG_2569

I’ve been Freshly Pressed!

Posted on August 6, 2015 by Svetlana Grobman

I just received very exciting news: I’ve been “Freshly Pressed!” If you’re not a wordpre ss.com blogger yourself, you may think that I’ve gone mad, so let me explain. Being “freshly pressed” has nothing to do with any industrial process or making juice (at my age, I may not have much juice left in me anyway :)). All it means is that the WordPress.com editors chose one of my posts to be featured in their daily collection of most interesting posts. This is an honor, and it also means that many more people will “discover” me and my blog.

When I first began blogging, I really wanted this to happen – and fast, too. I talked to other bloggers and I looked at the wordpress.com recommendations, which were all like this: write often, preferably every day. Yet I quickly realized that I’m just not cut out for that. For one thing, what would I write about every day? My life is not that exciting, and I don’t have any special skills the world is waiting for me to reveal. Besides, the Internet is already filled with posts (including pictures) about dirty dishes sitting in a sink waiting to be washed, cups of coffee waiting to be drunk, and other mundane objects and events from bloggers’ everyday lives.

Things like that may be inspirational for certain people, and some of these posts are actually very good. But for me to get inspired, something unusual has to happen, like birds crashing into our windows, strange dreams invading my subconsciousness, a letter from Michelle Obama (are you intrigued? — a post about that is coming, stay tuned :)), traveling — that kind of thing. So, early on, I realized that blogging fame is not achievable for me, and therefore, I proceeded at my own pace – writing mostly once a month and mostly about things that give me pleasure or cause me distress.

And what do you know–two years later, it came! Which I found very surprising. Do not take me wrong. I am happy to be recognized (who wouldn’t be?), but I did not do – or write — anything differently. So, why now? Why at all?

When I was very young, I believed that life must be fair. Well, that didn’t last long, as life taught its lessons. Later I believed that one can control the future merely by planning for it. That, of course, had to be corrected, too. Now, I believe that life is unpredictable, and if you stick it out, you may actually get rewarded. Or not. You never know. The safest bet is to do what brings you joy — or solace. And that is a reward in itself.

Caroline Leavitt featured me on her blog!

Posted on June 25, 2015 by Svetlana Grobman

I am honored that Caroline Leavitt, an American novelist and the New York Times bestselling author, interviewed me for her blog. Here is her entry:

THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2015

Svetlana Grobman talks about growing up in Cold War Russia, writing, and so much more

I love discovering great small presses. Musings Publishing is based in Missouri, and they sent me a book with the provocative title, THE EDUCATION OF A TRAITOR, complete with a haunting cover photo. Kirkus Reviews calls this “an intimate look at a young woman’s struggle to find her own truth in a repressive society.” Midwest Book Review calls the memoir, “Hard-hitting and involving.” I’pm honored to have Svetlana, who grew up in Moscow during the Cold War, on my blog. Thank you, Svetlana.

I always want to know what sparked a book. Why write a memoir now?

It was my American husband who “sparked” my book. It happened five years ago. At the time, I was working on a book describing my coming to Columbia, Missouri, which for me, then a 39-year-old Jewish immigrant with no English and no knowledge of American life, was as disorienting as if I had landed on the Moon. I had a good time writing that book, because the most difficult period of my immigration was already over, and I could have fun describing my learning English — mixing up words “desert” and “dessert,” “hair” and “hare,” and getting puzzled by expressions like “keep me posted” when no postage stamps were in sight.

My husband, however, thought that my life in Russia was a more important subject to write about, and, eventually, I agreed with him — not because I believed my past life to be exceptional, but because it was representative of other lives spent under an oppressive regime.

Why now? For one thing, it took me a long time to improve my English, and it took me even longer to feel strong enough to relive my past. This does not mean that everything in my Russian life was painful. Some things were so absurd that they were actually funny. Continue reading →

A Wrinkle in Time

Posted on June 10, 2015 by Svetlana Grobman

“You don’t look like Mama,” my granddaughter, Amelia, said.

“I am not supposed to look like your mama. It’s your mama who is supposed to look like me …” I started but realized that my joke would be lost on a seven-year old, so I quickly corrected myself, “What do you mean, darling?”

“Mama doesn’t have so many wrinkles,” Amelia said with the cruel sincerity of a child.

I think I look pretty good for my age! — I wanted to say, feeling suddenly defensive — the subject of my ever increasing (and deepening) wrinkles has been on my mind for some time now even without my granddaughter’s reminder. In fact, just before we left our Missouri home, I looked at my passport picture — the one I considered to be my worst picture in the last nine years — and I realized that I’d love to look like that today. Yet I didn’t want to discuss the subject of aging with my granddaughter, so I said, “Your mother’s face is less wrinkly because she’s my daughter. Daughters look younger than their mothers. You look younger than yours, and I looked younger than mine. The longer we live the more wrinkles we have.”

“Your mama died,” Amelia said with the superiority of an insider.

“Yes, she did.” I said, momentarily choking from the acute pain that these three little words caused me. “Do you remember her, darling?”

“Yes. She had lo-o-o-ts of wrinkles.” Amelia said, not willing to change the subject.

Amelia is funny that way. Every time my husband and I come to London for our yearly visits, Amelia and I have long conversations about things. They started when she turned three and she began to learn about her family relations, which are more confusing than I’d would like them to be for her sake. Continue reading →

Shameless Self-Promotion:)

Posted on May 21, 2015 by Svetlana Grobman

Unfortunately, I haven’t written much for a while:(. The only things I’ve done are several book talks and interviews. If you’re interested in any of that, take a look:)

If you’re not interested, wait till my life becomes somewhat normal:)

For Vox magazine article — click here

Book talk at the Columbia Public Library

Tim Nwachukwu/MissourianSvetlana Grobman(cq) has worked at the Columbia Public Library aince moving to the U.S. in the 1990s. she spoke no English and just put books back on the shelf. Through shelving books and English lessons from the other librarians, she learned to speak the language and put together memoirs of her live in the Soviet Union.

As Good as It Gets or Happy Valentine’s Day!

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Svetlana Grobman

1-IMG_1657-002 We got married on Valentine’s Day. My husband thought that it was romantic. (Well, he also figured that it would help him remember our future anniversaries). I thought it was cute and also special, since there was no Valentine’s in my home country, Russia. Yet whatever our ideas about the joys and responsibilities of marriage were, our Valentine’s wedding turned out to be a true commitment.

I’m not talking about the everyday challenges of married life: suppressing your true feelings about endless football, basketball, and what-ever-ball games, picking up things lying around the house (like his size-large gloves on our dining table), suffering through Chinese meals he loves so much, and patiently repeating questions that he cannot hear because he’s watching some bloody thriller on TV. You expect these things after you say, “I do.” I’m talking about difficulties that are outside our control, like every year we want to celebrate our anniversary, we have to beat a whole slew of people who go out on Valentine’s Day just for fun. Continue reading →

Weekly Photo Challenge: New

Posted on January 6, 2015 by Svetlana Grobman

Henry Clay, 1777-1852

There are several things about Missouri that are quite predictable: for one, politics — almost always conservative — for another, brilliant fall colors. As for the weather around here, it is as unpredictable as life itself. Take me, for example. Who would predict that a timid girl from Moscow would land in the American Midwest? Or that I — a person whose ancestry goes back to the Diaspora Jews and, more recently, to the Ukrainian small farmers who were sent to exile by the Stalin regime and died of hunger — would marry an American man whose great-great-great uncle was Henry Clay, a US senator, Speaker of the House, and Secretary of State who ran for president four times? (No, my husband is not in politics, he’s in linguistics; no family can withstand the tide of time :). Continue reading →

Weekly Photo Challenge: Cover Art

Posted on October 26, 2014 by Svetlana Grobman

Jona 1-IMG_1657-002 than Swift is credited with saying (among many other things:)) that “Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” If that is true, I surely have it! – vision, that is. I started my last post with a cover page for my forthcoming book. And this week’s theme for the WordPress Photo Challenge is — what do you know! — “Cover Art.” (Those of you who’ve been following me for a while know that I sometimes participate in photo challenges.) Since I’ve already posted my cover art, this time, I’ll post some of the pictures that will appear in my book.

By the way, I’m still trying to decide if I should release it in December, a month known for its festivities and impulsive buying:), or in January, which is symbolic of everything new. What do you think? In any case, here’s my new entry.

New cover small If you would like read the synopsis of my book, you may click here. Continue reading →

Weekly Photo Challenge: Adventure!

Posted on September 9, 2014 by Svetlana Grobman

IMG_1657-003 What can be more adventurous than venturing into the world of magic? My first introduction to this world took place when my parents gave me a book “Starik Hottabych” (Old Man Hottabych). This book (also made into a movie) featured a twelve-year old Soviet Pioneer Volka who accidentally found an ancient bottle at the bottom of a river. Being an energetic and curious boy, Volka opened the bottle, and a genie named Hassan Abdul-rahman ibn Khattab emerged, loudly proclaiming that he was ready to fulfill Volka’s every wish.

It was a great and funny story, since the Young Pioneer, who suddenly found himself empowered by the old genie, kept getting into all kinds of trouble — mostly because of differences between the life style and the morals of the ancient world and those of Soviet Russia. It was also a variation on the tale of Aladdin and his magical lamp (a fact I discovered much later, when I got my hands on a copy of The Arabian Nights). Not only did the story entertain me, but it also motivated me to learn how to swim — for I, too, wanted to find an ancient vessel on the bottom of a river. (Regrettably, that never happened, although not for lack of trying:).) Continue reading →

Weekly Photo Challenge: Treshold

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Svetlana Grobman

Our photo challenge this week is “threshold,” a concept that, according to the dictionary, can have several meanings:

1. the sill of a doorway.

2. the entrance to a house or building.

3. any place or point of entering or beginning

We all encounter thresholds in our lives, and we all have stories about how we passed (or didn’t pass) them. Here’s mine:

Library –Threshold of Learning

“Two books per visit per week,” said the unsmiling librarian as she handed me a library card. Neither the limits nor her demeanor surprised me, a 9-year-old Jewish girl growing up in Moscow in the 1950s – a city where everything was strictly regulated and rationed. I read the two books in two days and impatiently waited for the next visit. Continue reading →

Living on the Edge: Musings On Life and Gardening

Posted on April 2, 2014 by Svetlana Grobman

I am not an adventurous person. I have never been on safari or even to Alaska. Despite the fact that I immigrated to America from Russia, I do not like changes. Yet, moving beyond the city limits was my idea.

Our new house sat on the edge of a woody bluff, and a creek ran below our property, dividing us from the city where we had lived before. As soon as we finished arranging furniture, I turned my energy to the yard. I started by reading gardening books, then I attended a short landscape design course, and soon after that a strange metamorphosis took place in my life. The only subject that interested me now was gardening, and I spent most of my free time in the yard – digging, mulching, and watering.

Continue reading →

Weekly Photo Challenge: Threes or Life is Like a Box of Chocolates

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Svetlana Grobman

IMG_1657-003 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.”

I went through my pictures. Some of them could work, but, I recently used them, so I needed something new. Mentally, I assessed my options: the day was a typical Missouri winter day – gray, cool, and windy, with no recreational (or photo) values of any kind. There was nothing special going on in town, either. Where would I go?

“Let’s drive to Eagle Bluffs, I said to my husband while we were eating our Sunday breakfast – I my usual cereal and he the leftovers from a dinner party we held the night before.

“Sure,” he said and reached for his binoculars.

Those who’ve been reading my posts know that my husband is a wildlife lover, and since Eagle Bluffs is a state conservation area about 10 miles away from us, it is one of the places he’s always ready to go. Over the years, I came to like that area, too, although the first time my husband took me there, I was disappointed.

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Continue reading →

Weekly Photo Challenge: Treasure

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Svetlana Grobman

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.

Mom and I, 1957

When I left my former “Motherland,” I was allowed to take anything I wanted – as long as I could pack it into two suitcases per person (actually, diamonds were not allowed, but I never had them; as for gold, the limit was one item per person, so my wedding ring qualified). For a family of three, this translated into six suitcases of bare necessities, and I cried packing 39 years of my life into them. I kept putting things in and taking them out, rearranging, pushing and pressing, but, in the end, all the treasures (or keepsakes) that made it into my suitcases were pictures: my parents’ and grandparents’, my sister’s and me, and my daughter’s as a baby and a toddler – one small album in all. The rest I gave out to friends and family who stayed behind. (Many of them left later, too, leaving their treasures to somebody else or throwing them away.) Continue reading →

Valentine’s Day

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Svetlana Grobman

Valentine When we got married, I was already 45 and my husband was 53. Between us, we had two houses (mine tiny and his much larger but dark and cold), three children, and one grandchild. Behind us, we had two divorces (one for each of us), two different backgrounds (mine Russian and his Oregonian by way of Wisconsin), two advanced degrees (mine Masters and his Ph.D.), and plenty of experiences – mine mostly unhappy and his both happy and not so much.

Contrary to what you may think, I wasn’t sure that matrimony was a good idea for me. I had already had one bad experience and that with a person from a similar background. How could tying the knot with someone completely different be any better? Besides, I had no external motivations: I was already a U.S. citizen, I had a decent job, and I was used to being alone. In fact, because of this line of thinking, I didn’t finalize the dissolution of my first marriage for more than three years after my ex and I split up. This led to an embarrassing admission at the courthouse, where I had to declare that I got divorced in September (the scene took place in October), and I was already planning on getting married again. But, statistically speaking, people who were married before are likely to marry again, and so we did – “For better or worse for richer or poorer.”

Well, so far, it hasn’t been either rich or poor, although it has been turbulent at times. But whose marriage hasn’t had turbulent moments? The way I see it, turbulence is just part of the deal, like when you are on an airplane and they suddenly tell you to fasten your seat belt, because “We’re going through turbulence!” You aren’t surprised by that, just a little scared, right? Also, even under the best circumstances, life can be stressful, and it’s hard not to bring your negative emotions into your relationship. That said, there has been one long-lasting relationship that I came to admire – the relationship between my new husband’s parents. Continue reading →

Just Wondering

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Svetlana Grobman

IMG_1657-003 “Slow down!” I screamed at my husband when a gust of wind threw another clump of snow at our front window, obscuring the world outside our car. We were driving through a blizzard, 6072 hdr and my rhetorical question “Are we there, yet?” no longer reflected boredom but acquired a true urgency. Yet – finally! – our Subaru, loaded with ski clothes and equipment, and electronic gadgets (just the number of chargers is unbelievable!) reached Rabbit Ears Pass and began descending to Yampa Valley — the town of Steamboat Springs within it.

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Christmas Letters and Other Matters

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Svetlana Grobman

IMG_1657-003 The last year of her life, my American mother-in-law wrote 153 Christmas cards. I don’t know how many she received, but I do know that after my in-laws died ten years ago (they lived with us for 4.5 years at the end of their lives), we continued to receive cards, letters, and even boxes (!) with fruit that were addressed to them for at least two years. Most of their correspondence was conducted by my husband’s mother. (She was also interested in genealogy, and she compiled her family genealogical tree, although I’ve never checked whether I, a relatively recent addition to the family, am included there.)

My father-in-law, an emeritus professor of physiology, who was less sociable than his spouse, also received cards and letters, mostly from his former students, for, sadly, he outlived all of his colleagues. Yet the thing that added significantly to the volume of my in-laws’ mail was requests for donations. They donated to a variety of causes – he Republican Party being one of them (nobody is perfect!). So, during an election after their death, a Republican campaigner 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.

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Let’s Talk Turkey

Posted on November 26, 2013 by Svetlana Grobman

IMG_1657-003 My first Thanksgiving in this country wasn’t a great experience (click here to see my story about it). Formerly an engineer, I worked nights at a retirement home making the minimum wage. I rented a small apartment and drove a rusty car. I had no friends, and my daughter was my only family. I couldn’t even speak English, so I thought I had little to celebrate.

Since then, I’ve had all kinds of Thanksgivings: most of them good and tasty. Yet there was one — during my divorced state – when I almost set my house on fire while making my first Thanksgiving dinner for myself; and also one after which my whole family got violently sick (this is after I remarried).

On the whole, though, I like Thanksgiving. I like its food, I like the fact that it is a family holiday, I like that afterwards we always have leftovers. In fact, I don’t understand people who complain about eating leftover turkey for too long. I don’t mind that. To me, turkey meat is tasty, lean, and healthy (vegetarians, skip this). Also, did you know that that great pragmatist, Benjamin Franklin, wanted a turkey to be the symbol of America and not a bald eagle? Continue reading →

The City of Love

Posted on November 22, 2013 by Svetlana Grobman

There is a picture on my desk – my husband, in white shirt and dark suit, stands next to August Rodin’s statue depicting young lovers locked in a passionate embrace. That picture was taken in Paris seventeen years ago. Just recently, I put another one next to it, a picture of my grandchildren looking out from the Eiffel Tower.

The first time my husband and I went out, he wore a bright blue raincoat and Russian-Army-style high boots. He offered no excuse for the flashy raincoat, but the boots, I soon found out, were supposed to show me how much he admired my culture, and so, I decided to give him another chance.

Things did work out between us, and half a year later, I found myself planning our honeymoon in Paris. The first thing on my agenda was letting him know that the boots were not going with us, nor would they be welcomed in our house afterwards. As for the raincoat, there was no time to find a substitute for it, and since the weather forecast for Paris was rainy, I had to put up with it.

I know what you think — a honeymoon in Paris sounds both indulgent and clichéd. Well, the only excuse I can offer is that I was already forty-five, and that trip to France was going to be my second overseas adventure – the first being my immigration from Moscow, Russia, to Columbia, MO.

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Nature Has No Bad Weather

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Svetlana Grobman

At the beginning was the word. Or, rather, a paragraph I read in a blog — about Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk. For those who don’t know about Scott Kelby, he is a photographer and an author, whom I discovered when I was still a library selector. Don’t know what that means? Well, it used to be that librarians ordered books for their libraries — each for her selection area. Mine was the arts, and photography was included there.

I said “used to be” because I no longer do that. These days, selecting materials in my library is done by just four people, and I am not one of them. So, I now do de-selecting or “weeding.” Not a garden variety, mind you, but important nevertheless. I discard books that have been chewed by dogs or torn by toddlers, history that nobody wants to remember, classics that are no longer revered, that kind of stuff.

Scott Kelby

Anyway, in the golden days of selecting, I came across Kelby’s works, and they literally changed my life. The thing is I’m obsessive. Every time I develop a new passion, I throw all my time and energy into it — until I find something else to obsess about. Anyway, the first thing I did when I entered my Scott-Kelby-inspired photography stage was to buy a camera. For most of my life, I knew little about cameras, lenses, flashes, and things like that. But when I opened Kelby’s books, I began craving expensive equipment as if my life depended on it. Of course, being a librarian married to an academic, I couldn’t really afford it. I had to settle for reading. So, today, if you let me, I’ll tell you everything I know about full-frame and cropped sensor cameras, good glass (that’s how photographers refer to good – and very expensive — lenses), flashes, task-sharp images (something I am still working on), and other things like that.

Unfortunately, none of my loved ones understands the importance of photography in my life. When I ask my husband to pose for me (I like taking pictures with a “human” element), he immediately assumes an expression described by a Russian proverb as, “Virazhaet to lizo chem sadyatsa on krilzo” or “He wears an expression that makes his face look like his butt.” As for my grandchildren, one of them begins rubbing his eyes with his fists and the other rolls her eyes or sticks out her tongue.

I persevere anyway, and the reason that I am still unknown to the world of photography is that I don’t have a high-end camera/lenses/etc. Another thing that holds me back is that I’m self-taught. I’ve never taken any photography classes, and, in fact, I don’t have anybody in my life with whom I could discuss f-stops, shutter speed, HDR photography, and other fascinating subjects like that. This is why I got excited about the Scott Kelby Photography Walk. It was going to be a turning point in my photographic career.

The walk was set for October 6, which was great, since October is the best time of the year in our area. Yet when I woke up that morning, monotonous streaks of rain were hitting our bedroom windows, and the outside world appeared depressingly gray. For fifteen minutes or so, I debated with myself whether I should go. Who takes pictures in the rain? IMG_4124-001 My camera will get wet. Of course, I can carry an umbrella, but how am I going to hold my camera steady with one hand? Then it occurred to me that somebody else may want to take my place but I couldn’t think of anybody. Finally, I got myself together and drove along damp and empty streets to the gathering place.

A crowd of 15 or so people huddling underneath their umbrellas 2013-group-s-150x150 in the middle of a small park looked somewhat misplaced. Several of them were young, several had gray hair, and all carried bulky cameras. The leader gave us his last instructions and a map of our photo walk, and let us loose on the town. In two-and-a-half hours we would meet for lunch.

The park and its surroundings appeared dull and lifeless. The only bright spots were umbrellas of my fellow photographers, many of whom had already sprung into action – some snapping pictures of a nearby creek and the bridge over it, and some bending over wet bushes.

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What’s the point? – I thought to myself. — On a day like this, nothing is going to look pretty. Then I lowered my gaze and, as things came into focus, I suddenly spotted little red berries on the bushes growing along the creek, drops of rain glistening on the leaves, and the freshly green blades of grass. I was wrong. Even in the rain, the world was full of colors. In fact, they became as vivid as ever, and even simple objects, like benches, bikes chained to a rack, and the railing of a bridge looked interesting. And the air! It was fresh and energizing. I wasn’t wasting my time by coming here. I was encountering a different world. And I turned my camera on and began taking pictures.

True, operating a camera in the rain was … let’s say, challenging. But I welcomed the challenge, for it made me look, really look, and notice things I usually miss: patterns of puddles on the street, sidewalk paintings, reflections in shops’ windows, and, of course, people, some of whom hurried along hidden under their umbrellas, and some paid no attention to the rain. I couldn’t stop pressing the shutter, as if I could see better through the small opening of my lens than I could with my eyes.

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Time speeded up, and soon, I found myself at the end of our route. Now I needed to hook up with the rest of the group.

“I’m not going to lunch with them. I don’t feel comfortable with strangers.” I had said to my husband before I left home. But there I was, at the table with people talking passionately about resolution (without referring to the American government shutdownJ), lenses (What’s the sweet spot for this one?), and flashes (“You need one master and, at least, two slaves”). I was participating, too—if not by talking then by listening. I was learning about the art of photography, but, most importantly, I was learning about how differently we see the world. For we all walked the same streets, squares, and alleys. We saw the same people and buildings. Yet what we documented with our cameras was different. None of us caught everything, but together, we could compile a picture of our town – things that were beautiful about it but also things that were mundane and ugly.

As I was driving back home, I kept going over my morning. Did it improve my technical proficiency? Not by much. That would require more time and effort. But, it improved my understanding of how we – if we want to — can fit our individual pieces into a larger whole. As for the rain, as one Russian song goes, “There is no bad weather in nature. Whatever happens has its time and purpose. And we should be grateful for all of it.”

if you’re interested in the Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk look here: http://worldwidephotowalk.com/

Imagine

Posted on August 4, 2013 by Svetlana Grobman

I’m not imaginative. Never have been. So when I learn that the library where I work as a librarian would host a workshop “Unleash Your Imagination,” I decided that this was exactly what I needed.

On the appointed day, I joined twenty some women of different ages who crowded around a large table with a workshop leader at its head. The first thing the leader, a well-into-middle-age woman, told us to do was to relax. This made a lot of sense to me, for how can you unleash anything if you are tense? Except, I have never managed to relax successfully. As soon as I hear somebody telling me to close my eyes, I immediately feel as if something got into them, so I open my eyes wide and wink energetically. Then, something else gets into my nose and I begin sneezing. IMG_3116-001 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.

This time was no different, so I soon gave up my attempt at relaxation and began looking around. Everybody else sat with their eyes closed and their bodies limp, and two women even had their mouths open–kind of like people who had died without anyone around to push their chins up.

Then, the workshop leader said,“Imagine yourself in a place where you feel peaceful and free. Smell the smells, enjoy the taste, admire colors, and caress the surfaces.”

Here, everybody’s expression turned even more serene and the two women with their mouths open began making little chewing movements.

Being tense myself, I had a hard time finding a beautiful place to imagine myself in, so instead, I recalled the village of Williams Bay on Geneva Lake, which my daughter, my two grandchildren, my husband and I visited a month earlier. On account of having allergies, I couldn’t really smell anything, and the only sound I remembered was the annoying cry of seagulls. As for colors, it was already dusk when we got there, so everything looked kind of gray and yellowish. Still, the grandchildren liked the beach, so it was nice any anyway.

By the time I got really comfortable with my memories, our leader commanded, “Now, open your eyes and draw the scene you just imagined.” Immediately, everybody sprang to action and began drawing rather complex scenes with trees, waterfalls, and butterflies, while all I could manage was two lines: IMG_9372-001 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.

To my humiliation, everybody began sharing a paradise-like vision of herself sitting, lying, or walking in a garden with singing fountains, in mountains covered with light puffy clouds, 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.

After all the other participants had spoken, the leader’s gaze turned to me, prompting me to begin. I took a deep breath, opened my mouth, but … no sound came out, for instead of a warm and fuzzy, dream-like vision, I pictured my grandchildren running by the water’s edge, shouting, scaring seagulls, and spattering us with wet sand. Then I heard myself telling them a joke I heard earlier that day, “Do you know why seagulls fly over the sea? Because if they flew over the bay, they’d be called bagels!”

Then I saw my seven-year-old grandson turn to his younger sister, point to the seagulls flying over Williams Bay, and say, “Look at those bagels, Mary!” 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!”

Here, my daughter said, “She can’t understand that joke. You shouldn’t have told it,” and I said, “Well, it’s about time for her to learn about humor,” and my husband said, “I don’t think so. She’s too young,” and I said, “Not really. I told her about Winnie the Pooh and she laughed,” and the three of us began arguing about stages in child development …

“Would you like to share your vision with us?” The leader said, smiling encouragingly.

I looked at her through the cloud of my memories and, to my surprise, a sudden pain pierced through my chest, halted my breathing, and lodged somewhere between my shoulder blades. And as if I were reading the story of my life, I suddenly knew that that casual evening when everybody was healthy and good-natured, although it lacked beautiful colors, enticing sounds, or profound words, that evening was better than anything I could ever imagine. It was simple and it was precious, and it will never be repeated again…

“Sorry,” I said, shrinking under the gazes directed at me from all sides. “I have no vision to share. I couldn’t unleash my imagination. I only unleashed my memories.”

Diary of a Russian Immigrant

Posted on July 7, 2013 by Svetlana Grobman

It’s hard for me to believe that I’ve been living in this country for 23 years. For some time now, I’ve been thinking about commemorating this fact. Yet, so far, nothing original has come to my mind but publishing a brief chronicle of my years here. After all, Marco Polo wrote about his travels, Thoreau wrote about his pond, and I my (illustrated) diary. I hope you like it 🙂

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July 19, 1990

Arrived in Columbia, Missouri. A group of people in shorts 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.

July 4, 1990

1-IMG_2021 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.

August 18, 1990

A small tornado hit the town. Nobody got killed, 1-IMG_6871-001 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!

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September 6, 1990

No Russian-speaking engineers needed. Had two choices: going to work for Merry Maids or a nursing home. Chose the latter. Now, I’m a nurse’s aide working the third shift. Which is good — the residents sleep and nobody speaks English.

October 31, 1990

1-DSC00833small-001 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.

November 22, 1990

Got invited to a Thanksgiving dinner. The food was baked turkey and red potatoes. Even in Russia, where 1-IMG_7248 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.

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December 25, 1990

American Christmas comes before New Year’s. In Russia, it came after, and nobody celebrated it.

February, 1991

Learned some English phrases, quit the nursing home, and got a job at a public library shelving books – that way I do not have to talk to anybody, although one young woman did ask me where the restroom was. It was just around the corner, but I panicked and gestured towards the reference desk.

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September, 1991

What a language! Half of the words have multiple meanings, while the other half sound 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.

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October, 1991

American expressions are weird, too. When did they ever see “raining cats and dogs”? And what about “give a leg up.” Why would I lift my leg if somebody needs a ride home? 1-IMG_1466 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?

December 1991

Got promoted to the Front Desk. Understand about 25%. Today, a patron asked about groundhogs. I knew “ground” and also “hogs,” so I sent him to a grocery store. Expect to be fired every day.

October 1992

Started reading books in English. 1-2009_0106gooddrbkdisplay0001 Also, made my first “Library will close in fifteen minutes” announcement. Everybody left immediately — including some staff. They said that it “sounded scary.”

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December 1993

Decided to go back to school and get a Library Science degree. Went to the local University and filled out an application. Spelled “Library” just fine but not “Sience.” Got a funny look from the admission staff.

December 1994

Took the GRE. Scored 95% on Math and 15% on English — confused “hair” with “hare,” “tale” with “tail,” “wonder” with “wander,” “desert” with “dessert,” and “whipping” with “weeping.” Passed anyway — they counted the average.

January 1994

Going to school part time, working at the library full-time – 1-IMG_6736 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.

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December 1995

Became a naturalized American citizen. At work, a patron asked how to “dress” a deer. 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.

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September 1996

Last semester. Preparing for the Comprehensive Exam and dating an American. Ran out of “I was sick” excuses and told my professor that my paper was late because I was getting married. He understood. Not sure what I’ll tell him next time. Maybe, “I’m getting divorced”? Lost five more pounds.

December 1996

Got my Master’s degree! clinton Voted for Clinton and he won. Also, received a marriage proposal. I don’t know about that, but it felt good.

Fall 1997

Was promoted to a reference librarian – doubled the salary and the fear of being fired. Married the American, too! Now I speak English 24/7. Gained five pounds.

Fall 1998

My husband does a great job of correcting my English — 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.

Fall 1999

A guy wearing a “lion” cloth tried to enter the library today. 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.

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Spring 2000

We moved to a house by the edge of the woods [see a story about that later]. 1-IMG_1229 Now, I’m spending all my free time landscaping our yard. Lost five pounds.

Fall 2000

Deer ate everything I planted. We voted for Al Gore, but he lost.

Summer 2001 Tried new plants, and so did the deer. The plants are gone; the deer are still around.

Summer 2002

Found one kind of bush that the deer don’t like. Planted them everywhere.

Spring 2004

Went bird watching with my husband. 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.

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November 2004

No bird feeder survives. We keep losing them to the deer, 1-SCopier - C13042615261 raccoons, and squirrels. Voted for John Kerry and he lost, too.

Summer 2005

Deer destroyed everything, again, so no landscaping is needed. 1-IMG_1550 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.”

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Spring 2007

Now, we are having moles and “aunts” problems. Wrote about that, too. My husband read my story and said, “I think you meant ‘ants.’”

Summer 2008

Continue writing. 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.”

Summer 2010

1-IMG_1676 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.”

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Spring 2013

Spend all my free time writing. No time for working in the yard, watching movies, and even weighing myself. Is that what it means to be a writer? 1-nikita Here you have it: twenty-three years in 1250 words 🙂

SONNET 30

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish’d sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.

~William Shakespeare

Of Soil and Feathers: Reflections on Life and Death

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Svetlana Grobman

We were born in different countries. We grew up in different societies, and we never met. And yet, from the minute I opened “Heartburn,” I felt as if I knew her all my life. She was my kind of person: smart, funny, and razor-sharp ironic. She knew what she wanted and didn’t take crap from anybody. She was the person I’d love to be but, let’s face it, never will be.

nora 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.

I couldn’t believe it. I had recently finished reading “I Remember Nothing,” a smart, funny, and somewhat sad book, and I hadn’t even discussed it with my friends! It was unfair. Almost as unfair as the death of my mother, who died while I was on my way to visit her. She was alive when I left Missouri, but by the time my plane landed in Tel-Aviv, she was already gone. She wasn’t even sick — at least not recently. True, she was eighty-eight and had a variety of afflictions, but nothing immediate or life threatening. She had dinner with my sister’s family, played with her great-granddaughter, and went to bed in a good mood—only to never wake up.

I arrived in the afternoon, several hours after Mom’s body was taken away in the ambulance. I knew nothing. My sister sat me on a chair, took my hands in hers, and said, “Mom’s died.”

“What?!” I said. “I brought her presents and Splenda!”

I always brought Splenda for Mom. I must have been the only person in the world who carried Splenda to Israel, for Mom believed that American Splenda tasted better than Israeli Splenda. 1-IMG_1315_1

“She died overnight.” My sister said. “The funeral is tomorrow morning at 11:30.”

I started to wail. Israel is a good place for wailing. It seems appropriate, even if you’re not doing it by the Wailing Wall. Besides, what else did I have to do until next morning? I did so much wailing that I had no voice left in me, or so I thought–until I saw Mom being carried into a little chapel where we had gathered to say our last good-byes.

I had attended Jewish funerals before — my grandparents’ funeral in Moscow and two more in America. Yet nothing prepared me for my mother’s funeral. For one thing, there was no coffin. Mom’s body was wrapped in a linen shroud that covered her head-to-toe and made her look like an oversized UPS parcel. And if that was not bad enough, we were not supposed to approach her. If that was her, for how would one know whose mother was hidden inside a wrapped package?

The ceremony was quick. A rabbi said Kiddush, and my sister and I repeated it after him–I barely following the Hebrew sounds. Then he stepped back, and the men who brought my mother inside hurried to carry her out.

Mom “Wait,” I screamed, suddenly aware that this was my last time with her.

The men stopped and stared. I was screaming in English.

“Let me see Mom’s face!”

“You can’t.” My sister grabbed me by the hand.

“Let me go!” I freed myself from my sister’s grip, rushed to the covered figure, and kneeled before it, trying to feel familiar features. Yet nothing felt familiar through the fabric whose purpose was to hide and separate, and not to reveal — neither the person beneath it, nor the mystery of her departure.

Somebody picked me up and pulled me to the exit and to an open grave in the harsh noon sun. Mom’s body was lowered, and the same men who carried her began shoveling red Israeli soil on top of her body.

No! – I wanted to yell. — In Russia, we didn’t pile dirt on top of our dead. We protected them from being crashed under its weight. We put them into coffins. We said, “Let the ground be like feathers for you.” Feathers, not heavy soil!

But, I didn’t yell, just closed my eyes. Quickly, the grave was filled and a little hill formed above it. The mourners topped it with small stones, and the procession headed back to the parking lot.

Mom and I, 1957

“Don’t take the same path back,” somebody said, and I thought how wise that was, for, of course, everything must be different now. There won’t be weekend phone calls to Mom, which always started with, “Svetochka, how good to hear your voice,” and ended with “Don’t forget about me, dochenka [Russian endearment for daughter].” Nobody will remember what a terrible eater I was as a child and marvel at the fact that I now eat “like normal people!” Nobody will demand Splenda from America, and nobody will ask me to send photos to her.

I was the only person in the family who sent Mom photos — my daughter’s, my sister’s (who lived in the same house with her!), and mine. In fact, my daughter once said to me after visiting her grandmother, “You should stop sending pictures of the two of you skiing. They all look the same, you know.” No, I didn’t know. Mom never said that. She wanted to see that I was healthy and happy. She always asked if my American husband and I loved each other. “Yes,” I’d say. “We do.” But next time I called, she asked again.

The wake in my sister’s house was like every Russian-Jewish wake I’ve attended. It started with a toast to Mom’s memory but soon turned to the business of living. I wasn’t attentive, though. I kept thinking: How did Mom die? Did she just stop breathing or did she wake up in pain and call for help? גרובמן

I’ll never know the answer, as I’ll never know how Nora Ephron died. Does it really matter? Probably not. What does matter is that both of them are gone–the person I knew all my life, and the person that I’ve never known. And the best I can do in their memory is to say goodbye.

Goodbye Mom. Goodbye Nora. Let the ground be like feathers for you.

Whatever Works: Musings on the Nature of Art

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Svetlana Grobman

I didn’t start blogging for pleasure. I started blogging because everybody who knew anything about publishing industry told me that if I want to find a publisher for my memoir, I must have a Web presence. True, it used to be enough for an aspiring author to have a manuscript, but things have changed and I have to change with them. And so, I started blogging.

At first, I just posted my little essays, hoping that my brilliance and originality would be quickly noticed by leading New York agents and/or editors at Random House. When nothing of that sort happened, I began following tips on how to attract “followers.” This included bugging my real life friends and relatives (which wasn’t easy for me; I hate to bug people), promoting myself through my Facebook, Twitter and what not, and even posting something on YouTube.

Alas, being an immigrant, I don’t have a huge number of friends in the U.S. Most of my relatives live abroad and don’t speak (or read) English. As for YouTube, I’m afraid that even if I post a video of myself reading my memoir naked, it won’t attract much attention, since who wants to see a naked very middle-aged woman? People tend not to notice me even when I’m fully dressed!

Anyway, I have not achieved my goal yet, but, unexpectedly, I found a community of people who put their energy into blogging. In fact, many of them have been doing it for some time and, contrary to my former belief that only vain and lazy spend their time that way, there are plenty of people out there who have truly interesting things to say, including things that can trigger your creativity, too.

Also, if you feel blue or experience writer’s block, there are all kinds of prompts to fuel your mind and imagination on WordPress.com: daily prompts, wiring prompts, Friday Faves, weekly challenges – you name it! One can easily find things she never even thought about and, suddenly, feel violently passionate about them.

Of course, the way my mind works, I read a thoughtful essay about which is more important, the forest or the trees, that starts with “The first thing I saw when I looked out my window this morning was …,” and I immediately feel like saying, “Let me tell you what I saw when I looked out my window this morning! Deer eating my flowers! And do you know that they’ve already destroyed our apple trees, too?”

Or I come across some librarian’s blog (being a librarian myself, I follow those, too) where she talks about the homeless and mentally ill in her library, and something inside me starts screaming, “You think it’s bad in your library? Last time I was the librarian in charge, an old guy jumped from the second floor balcony, and I had to call the ambulance and the police, and then search the whole 2000 square feet building for the stuff he left “somewhere by a chair.”

My library at night

(By the way, do not worry. The guy landed rather safely, although another patron who noticed the old geezer’s rapid descent and tried to catch him got so traumatized that I spent at least an hour calming him down.)

This is why when I feel stressed, I browse through 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.

My husband never liked that. He believed that it was architecture or, better yet, nature that was worth photographing, not us. 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 :).

1-Leanne Cole Photography In any case, one of the photographers I’ve been following on WordPress.com is Leanne Cole. Leanne lives in Australia and she is as wonderful as she is prolific — which is especially good for me these days, since I recently experienced a loss in the family and I have not recovered from it yet. Most of what I’ve been doing lately is browsing. As for writing, I haven’t done anything, for nothing seems to inspire me these days. That is until several days ago, when I opened my WordPress.com account and found Leanne’s photographs of the building that belongs to a charity Deaf Children Australia. She posted several pictures of the impressive Victorian style house, one of which (a “strange image,” as Leanne herself put it) suddenly triggered my memory — and desire to write about it.

1-Leanne Cole 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.”

I carefully examined the object. True, it was gray, but was it acrylic? I wasn’t sure. Also, where were the first five compositons? Nothing else in the room had a number assigned to it. Confused, I looked at the vent-like object #6 more carefully. It could have been acrylic, I thought. As for the appearance, who knows, this could be what modern art is all about — ordinary things in their everyday environment. After all, didn’t Andy Warhol’s paint a can of Campbell’s soup?

Now I looked at the vent with considerable respect and admiration. Who was to say that this vent would not be a beginning of something new in art? I turned around to share my musings with my husband, and spotted him tree yards to my left – carefully examining a middle-sized platter with something mushy in the middle.

“Did you see the composition #6?” I said, approaching him.

“I’m looking at it right now.” He replied.

“What do you mean?” I said. “It’s right there!” And I pointed to the spot where I spent the last five minutes.

“No, that’s just the sign.” My husband said. “I first thought so, too, but then I realized that they must’ve moved the work but forgot about the sign. That thing is just an air vent.”

I stared at the platter. It was acrylic. It was gray, too — dark gray, I’d say. As for its mushy content, I didn’t want to think about that. Besides, what was the point? My husband was obviously right. There it was, “Acrylic Composition In Gray #6.” The first five, I decided, must’ve had different mushy stuff that needed to be changed every day. So tomorrow it could be called “Composition #7” or something like that.

I turned back to the air vent. Another woman was carefully looking it over, up and down. At first, she didn’t look very impressed, but as her observations continued, she began looking more and more thoughtful – just like me several minutes before.

“Should we tell her where the composition actually is?” I said to my husband.

“No.” He winked, “Everybody has his own vision or art.”

After the Funeral

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Svetlana Grobman

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.

There were many people at the funeral, and a Baptist minister, a middle-aged stocky man, gave a nice eulogy, obviously designed to make those left behind feel better. (Well, he did say that God grieves when a Christian dies, which made me, a Jew, wonder about my situation.) Afterwards, women from the church provided a potluck lunch, giving the grieving family a chance to talk with people they don’t see often and reminisce about the past. Not having seen the Kentucky relatives for a while, I couldn’t help notice that those I remembered as early middle-aged looked quite a bit older, and those I remembered as kids looked mature – some of them already parents on their own, and it was good to see this never-ending renewal, as it was sad to think about the never-ending departure. After the service, the minister continued his vigil, cheering teary-eyed family members and greeting out-of-town relatives. He had the mild manners of a good Southerner and the soft touch of a person who officiates at baptisms and weddings as well as funerals. At the end, he approached us, too — asked for our names and where we came from, and then said, “What church do you go to?”

Being the only non-Christian there, I felt slightly uncomfortable with this question, so I mumbled under my breath, “Well, I’m Jewish,” hoping to end the conversation. But, to my amazement, my husband suddenly said, “We go to a synagogue.”

We do?! – I almost said loudly but stopped myself just in time. The thing is that I go to synagogue on the High Holidays only, which amounts to one or two visits a year — depending on my willingness to suffer through the long sermons the main topic of which is trying to shame those in the audience for not coming more often. As for my husband (who is not Jewish!), he joins me only if I threaten him with passing all that suffering on to him — which usually works once a year. In any case, after I got over my husband’s surprising statement, I started inconspicuously pulling him by the sleeve, for the only thing I expected next was an attempt to save us by immediate conversion, so a quick retreat was in order. Yet I was wrong. Instead of proselytizing or banishing us from the holy grounds, the minister, without missing a beat, broke into a monologue about his days in divinity school and his experiences with learning Hebrew and Greek.

On our way home, I kept thinking about Aunt Anne, what a strong person she was, and how she always knew what she wanted — even for her funeral. Then my thoughts shifted to my eventual departure. At first, I contemplated whether I want to be buried in the ground, according to the Jewish tradition, or cremated. Then I realized that I have a bigger problem on my hands – where would my funeral take place? In America? I have only one close relative here – my husband. In Israel? My parents and sister live there, but a Jewish burial has to take place within hours, which, logistically, would not be possible. Also, the last time I talked to my mother about this subject, she said that she wants to be buried in Moscow, next to her parents! And if my mother is not buried in Israel, why would I go there? As for Russia, that is the last place on earth where I want to rest. It was bad enough to live there for 39 years; there’s no way I’d go back dead or alive! Now, I had just one option left – London, which my daughter made her home. Yet I quickly discarded that idea, too, for my daughter has enough things to do while working, going to school, and raising my two grandchildren.

Not finding any solution, I gradually dozed off — still searching even in my dreams. When I woke up, the sky was turning dark and we were already in Illinois — yet another place I would cross without leaving a trace. I straightened up in my seat, looked at the rapidly disappearing lights, and, suddenly, it came to me – what does it matter what happens afterward? As long as I live a good and honest life.

Lost In the Details

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Svetlana Grobman

Nature in Details

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.

Pelicans used to be unheard of in Missouri. Yet about 20 years ago, the Missouri Department of Conservation built a wetlands area with a series of ponds at Eagle Bluffs, and over the years all kinds of birds began – no pun intended –flocking there. Some of them stay permanently, while others, including the pelicans, stop there on their migration north. Pelicans on Shadow Mountain Lake

I must admit that I never cared for birds when I lived in Moscow. There, if we had creatures with wings, they were mostly flies, mosquitoes, sparrows, or pigeons. If you wanted to see anything else, you went to a zoo, where you could observe parrots, flamingos, whatever! The best thing about this arrangement was that everybody knew exactly where they stood: people strolled along the asphalt paths outside the metal bars, and the winged inmates flittered – or swam — inside their cages. Not till I found myself in the United States, did I encounter people who willingly go into the wilderness (my analog to being sent to Siberia!), armed only with binoculars and field guides with the sole purpose of watching birds. Even worse, I managed to marry one of these people.

This fact, of course, didn’t come out before our wedding, so when I first spotted a pair of binoculars in my new husband’s possessions, I took them for a vestige of his military past — in his twenties, he spent two years in the army. But then, several months into our marriage, I caught him standing by the rear view window looking fixedly through the binoculars. What was he looking at? There was no beautiful woman undressing in front of her window across the street, nor even people having sex! In fact, there was nothing behind our house but the woods! Yet there he was – watching a couple of woodpeckers hammering away on a tree behind our deck. 1-img_6173

Later, my husband invited me to walk in the nearby woods and told me names of everything that flew by. And shortly afterwards, he drove me to one of those bird infested areas that the state of Missouri is so proud of.

For a while, I kept humoring him, hoping that time would weaken his obsession. But when a pair of binoculars and “The Birds of North America Field Guide” found their permanent location next to my husband’s place mat, I got ready for a fight. Not with the birds of North America, of course, but with the place they took in my husband’s heart and, especially, on my dining table. 1-IMG_5179

The thing about me is that I’m neat. I’m the kind of person who goes around picking up things and making sure that everything on the surface is arranged symmetrically. In my world, binoculars do not belong on the dining table, neither as tableware nor as decorations. This nonsense had to be stopped!

At first, I decided to buy a bird feeder, so instead of us driving around looking for birds, they would look for our feeder, and we’d save time and gas. Unfortunately, the bird feeder idea didn’t work (more of that later), and neither did other solutions I learned about while researching obsessive-compulsive disorders. I considered marriage counseling, too. Yet in the end, I gave up. What did it matter that I used to be a sophisticated Muscovite who frequented the Bolshoi Theater and the Moscow Conservatorium, and read a magazine called “Foreign Literature”? Things change, and, as those of us who have lived long enough know, they rarely change for better. And truthfully, worse things could’ve happened to me. I could’ve married a bigamist or a serial killer, or even a Republican!

Today, some years later, I recognize quite a few birds, 2-12-IMG_6455 and I find white pelicans — so clumsy and weird-looking in the Moscow Zoo — beautiful. And since the pelicans graced our area with their presence, we headed there, too. I also had another goal in mind. Ever since I caught photography fever and started participating in wordpress photo challenges, I’ve been on the lookout for things that go with their current themes, which this time is “Lost in the details.” It’s actually not about getting lost, but about getting closer and noticing small detail, and Eagle Bluffs was as good place as any to do it.

We drove until the road became impassible, put on our skis, and I hung my camera over my neck. The heavy snow of an earlier storm was covered with fresh powder, and our skis glided easily over its sparkling surface. We passed by several ponds spotting only Canada geese, who protested our invasion by honking loudly and flapping their wings.

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Feeling disappointed, I began taking pictures of snow-covered bushes, animal tracks, and hawk’s feathers lying on the ground. But as we approached yet another pond, we suddenly saw royal-white silhouettes on the cold-gray surface of water.

The pelicans swam aimlessly around the pond, back and forth. Every so often, they dived, so that all we could see was their snow-white rears, but they quickly appeared on the surface with their large yellow beaks up and their necks stretched, and then their shuttle-like floating continued. They moved in perfect unison with their bodies touching each other and their beaks pointing in the same direction, and their motions looked like a mysterious ritual or a perfectly choreographed dance.

Careful not to scare the birds, I skied to the water’s edge and began taking pictures. When my camera’s memory card ran out of space, I looked at my husband and said, “What are they doing?”

“I think they are feeding,” my husband said. “Look, they’re herding the fish!”

“What do they lift their beaks for?”

“They swallow the fish, don’t you see?”

He was right; it wasn’t a dance or a ritual, and the birds weren’t swimming for pleasure. They were working, preparing themselves for the long journey still ahead of them.

“Still, why are they moving in unison?” I said, puzzled.

“It must be more efficient that way,” my husband said. “You’d think that every one of them could have more fish on her own, but that’s not the case. Like us, they do better together.”

We watched the pelicans a little longer, but then we left them to their business and headed for the car.

“At our age we’re still learning about nature,” my husband said contemplatively on our way home.

“Sure,” I said. “There is a Russian proverb about that, too,

‘Live to be a hundred and learn as long as you live.'”

Home

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Svetlana Grobman

My Home is Where You Are

Every week WordPress.com announces a new photo challenge and multiple photographers/bloggers post their photos and browse through the posts of others. I didn’t know about this when I first began blogging, but when I finally caught up, I decided to participate, too. For one thing, I have always liked photography and I have accumulated a lot of digital pictures, which just sit there clogging my computer’s hard drive. For another, it gives me a chance to look at my old photos, think about the time and the place they were taken, and, sometimes, contemplate my life. This is exactly what happened when I learned about WordPress’s latest challenge – home – and I began thinking about it.

To celebrate my birth in 1951, my parents planted two birch trees beside my grandparents’ apartment house in Moscow – my first home. I cannot actually remember this, but my parents have told me about it so often that, eventually, I began to feel as though I were there with them – watching my father dig two holes in the thawed ground and lower two spindly saplings into their depths, then help my mother water the trembling newcomers. I do remember growing up with these trees – my parents and I lived in my grandparents’ one room apartment until I turned five — and being proud of the fact that my arrival in this world was marked by something alive and symbolic, for birch trees are symbols of my mother country Russia, as bald eagles are symbols of the U.S.

Throughout my life in Moscow, I returned to my first home numerous times – at first to visit my grandparents and later, after they were gone, to celebrate their memories and look at my birch trees. The last time I went, I was thirty-nine years old and about to leave Russia for good. I desperately wandered around my grandparents’ old neighborhood, trying to find the patch of earth that remembered me as a young girl, but I never found it. The house was demolished by then, and clusters of gray concrete-block clones had mushroomed in its place, leaving me forever uprooted.

Before my family left Moscow, we had to turn in our Soviet passports (and pay for that, too!). We had to clean, repaint, and repair everything in our small apartment. And we had to pack our lives into six suitcases – two for every member of the family. What did we take from our Moscow’s home? Some clothes, a photo album, a couple of books, three small pillows and blankets, cutlery, and $180 – all that we were allowed to take.

Our first stop outside the USSR was Vienna, Austria. It was a temporary place, never meant to be our home. This was just fine, though — we hoped to build a future in America anyway. It took us several years to achieve our American dream, but when we finally did, the home we moved into quickly became a broken one — our marriage deteriorated and my husband left. My teenage daughter soon moved out, too. So there I was, alone in a house that consumed most of my income, leaving me with $25 per week for food and “entertainment.” I should have sold it, of course. It wasn’t a home anyway – just a place to sleep and cry. Yet I did not. Instead, I got a loan and went back to school. For the next four years I had no time to feel sorry for myself – a full-time job and part-time school left no time for that.

And then a miracle happened — I met a man. I didn’t think I’d fall in love again. Surely not in this strange country and not with someone who grew up on the other side of the world. After all, what did we have in common? We grew up speaking different languages, reading different books and listening to different songs. And yet, the moment he took me in his arms and carried me over the threshold of his house, I felt at home. It wasn’t the building itself that made me feel so, but his strong arms and his warm embrace.

Don’t take me wrong. There is nothing special in my story. Thousands and millions of refugees around the world flee from wars, oppressive regimes, and economic difficulties in search of a place they can call home. Numerous military and diplomatic families and Piece Corps volunteers move from one place to another in the call of duty. How do they do it? Do they put their lives on hold or do they build temporary homes wherever they find themselves? And what is a home? A building or a street outside our window? Children sleeping in our arms or a pet curled up on our lap? It must be different for everybody. As for me, my home is where you are, my darling. Happy Valentine’s!

Valentine

A Sense of Snow

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Svetlana Grobman

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.

The only way I can get my snow fix is by going to Colorado. Well, once my husband and I found a small place for skiing near St. Louis, and we immediately decided to check it out. The name of the place is Hidden Valley, and it turns out to be so well hidden, that about a mile or so from our destination, we found ourselves utterly lost. It was an unusually nice February day; the sky was silky blue and the temperature was 50 degrees Fahrenheit. So when my husband suggested that I should go to a nearby gas station and ask for directions, I refused to do so, for, clearly, a foreign woman asking about a “ski resort” under these conditions was going to be directed to a mental hospital — if not farther. Yet shortly after we left the gas station, a large snow hill appeared in front of us like a mirage — the main difference being the entry fee we had to pay. The snow, of course, was man-made, but who cares? It was just over two hours of driving from our house!

It also turned out to be the most dangerous ski place we had ever visited — which is rather surprising considering its small size. Of course, it wasn’t the hill itself; it was the skiers on it that made it so. The thing is that in regular ski resorts, you mostly see experienced skiers. But in Hidden Valley, MO, the majority of the skiers were not experienced. Worse even, they didn’t think that experience was required. So soon as I came down the hill, a skier behind me made a spectacular cartwheel, and while I obliviously continued my descent, my terrified husband watched the guy’s skis and poles catapult every which way and his four-pound ski boot come off his foot and land two yards in front of me – missing my head by an inch or so. After that, we just looked at each other and headed toward the exit.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that all skiers from 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?

In any case, it was a middle-aged woman whom we met on a chairlift while taking a ski lesson. Unlike us, she had skied for years, and not just in the USA but all over the world. In the Swiss Alps she met a famous slalom skier. In Italy, she took a lesson from a local ski legend. And in Chamonix, her French instructor put a rubber band around her ankles to force her to keep her skis closer together.

By the time we got off the chairlift, I felt so intimidated that I asked our instructor to transfer us to a lower level. He gave me a grumpy look and said that he would watch us ski and then make his decision. My husband and I skied first. I almost ran into a tree, and he lost his balance and slid down the slope on his back. The Chamonix woman was last. She carefully adjusted her ski boots, brought her ankles together, and headed straight down the slope with a speed unimpeded by even a perfunctory attempt to turn. Had this been a race, she would have been the first to cross the finish line. As it was, though, she ran directly into our instructor and knocked him down (!), severely dislocating his shoulder. We never saw that woman again (neither did we see the instructor — he was taken down on a stretcher), but I still remember her run. As they say, “Never trust the French!”

Going back to the snow, it is impossible to break completely from your past. No matter how many years go by, your past still haunts you — with smells of food your mother used to cook for you, with flowers you enjoyed in your youth, or, as it is in my case, with snow. Not because I regret leaving my home country. I never do, and I never have any nostalgia for it. And yet, there are some memories that make my heart ache: lullabies I heard as a child, a large Moscow park where I got lost once, and light sparkling snow – things that remind me about the little girl I used to be.

P.S. Some of you may think that skiing is a rather expensive hobby to have. All I can say about that is that after one turns 70, her chairlift tickets are free! And if this is not an incentive to live longer, than I don’t know what is :).

Weekly Photo Challenge: Love

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Svetlana Grobman

Colors of Love

1-_MG_0262

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April 10-16 is observed in the United States and Canada as National Volunteer Week.

“Volunteer: a person who willingly does work without getting paid to do it”

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If not Now, When?

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THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2015

I always want to know what sparked a book. Why write a memoir now?

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For Vox magazine article — click here

Book talk at the Columbia Public Library

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Library –Threshold of Learning

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