Not Your Run-of-the-Mill Walk to Work

Opportunities present themselves when you least expect them.  Just when I thought my Russian life was fitting back into its predictable box, I heard a knock.
"How would you like to substitute teach in St. Pete?" Drew asked two days after I arrived.
Just getting comfortable in my favorite chair in the living room, with my feet tucked under me, warm tea cup in hand, I said, "So, what's going on?" in a non-committal kind of way.

He told me the story. . .
characters --
Jack - high school English teacher, recovering from hip replacement surgery
Ron - principal, Anglo American School of St. Petersburg (sister school to the larger one in Moscow)
problem -- no one, except Ron, to cover Jack's classes until his return on Sept. 6th
rising action - possibilities contacted; none available
climax - school is starting -- Help!
resolution? -- What about Twylla?

To take you directly to the "Happily Ever After" ending. . .  "Twylla arrived on the 10:40 fast train from Moscow, suitcase and laptop in tow, eager to meet her new students."

The element lacking in the story is a description of the setting:  a magical city of castles, statues, a glistening river spanned by drawbridges, golden domes, gardens, palaces, ornate churches. . . and ghosts of Russians Past, infusing it with their lives.

My morning commute to the school is surrounded by the magic, the dazzling elegance of St. Petersburg.  Five minutes after opening my front door, I pass Palace Square and catch a glimpse of the mint-ish green and white exterior of the tsars' Winter Palace, imagining Nicholas, Alexandra and their children playing hide and seek in its 1057 rooms.

Following the curve of the Moika River, I walk along listening to its sloshing sounds, my mind momentarily flitting ahead to my first period English class, when the domes of the Church of the Spilt Blood come into view.  Although its official name, The Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ (or a similar variation) hides any hint of violence, the location does mark the spot where Tsar Alexander II's blood was spilled as a bomb exploded under his carriage.

      
Slowing my pace slightly to gaze at the regal architecture and intricate mosaic work, I force myself to keep walking, hoping to beat the line at the copy machine.  Crossing the street, I parade across the expansive Field of Mars, past the eternal flame commemorating St. Petersburg's victims in wars and revolutions.

The Trinity Bridge is in view as sprinkles of rain pepper my umbrella and gusts of wind threaten to turn it inside out.

But Peter and Paul's domes and spire guide me across safely to the other side.
 

Five minutes more, and I'm at school.  I've spent a half hour with no traffic to maneuver, no train to hurry and catch, no newspaper to bury my head in as I pass the time, no crowded metro to squeeze into. Only fresh air and exercise as I journey along streets and waterways that speak of the people who have lived here before me.

It's a privilege to share the city with the past and the present. As I open the gate to the school, "Good mornings" greet me, and I look forward to the day with staff and students, then to retracing my steps.      
      

First Things, First

When you visit a world-renowned city, certain places are on the top of your list to see. . . Paris - the Eiffel Tower, Cairo - the Pyramids, Athens - the Acropolis, Moscow - Red Square.  Within 30 hours after returning to Moscow on Saturday, I was standing in front of St. Basil's domes with the red-bricked Kremlin wall and clock tower to my left, GUM (goom) department store to my right and Lenin's shiny, black, ominous-looking mausoleum at the far end of the square. As part of the new-hire orientation for  teachers joining the Anglo American School staff, a trip to Red Square with a group picture featuring St. Basil's in the background, is a yearly tradition.  As the director and wife-of-director, Drew and I can now point to our faces in photos of seven of these gatherings.

Despite my delight in meeting the new teachers and in visiting such a grand, historic place, I must admit that something else topped my "Things to do First" list.  I had been craving it since I left Moscow on May 31st, and it was only a quick 5-minute walk from the center of Red Square.  It can be found in many locations around the city, but being so close to this particular spot, I could almost smell its aroma drawing me closer.  Its warm, brown, thick consistency, so thick it can single-handedly support a spoon; its sweet, creamy taste, so creamy it could melt in your mouth, if it weren't already melted.  Through GUM's northern-most revolving door, up two flights of stairs, turn right. We're almost there. . .

Coffee House -- spelled out in coffee-colored Cyrillic letters.  

Drew and I find an empty table, and without needing to look at the menu, I tell the waitress, "HOT CHOCOLATE, please."

She brings it to the table, along with a small glass of cold water.  I place the spoon in the center of the cup; it stands tall.  Perfect!

No chance of drinking it, I eat it with the spoon.  The minute the taste registers with my brain, my body relaxes. "Mmmmm."  Two bites later, I'm reaching for the water.  So delicious, yet so rich!

How do they create this amazing, best-I've-ever-drunk (or eaten) hot chocolate?  I've made it my goal to find out.  The next time I order a cup, which will be soon, I'll invite a Russian friend to join me, hoping that she might ask if I could watch the process.  Is it the particular kind of Russian chocolate they use, the melting process (how hot for how long), the equipment, some special ingredient discovered by Peter the Great and only recently revealed to the modern world?   With only 10 months left of living in Russia, I must learn how to make this myself and figure out how to get a suitcase crammed with bars of chocolate through customs.

     

A Child's Joy

The pool is covered.  The school bus picks up the neighborhood children.  My departure to Moscow is imminent. Nostalgia sets in.  As trees shed their dry leaves onto the vacant pool deck, I sit in a lounge chair sipping a cup of chamomile, already missing the sounds of cannonball splashes off the diving board, voices yelling, “Grandmom, look at me!” and the quiet tinkling of the fountain touching the pool’s surface like a gentle rain.  Thoughts of my daily pool duties -- vacuuming debris off the bottom, scooping it off the surface, and emptying the skimmers of leaves, crickets, and bloated frogs -- can’t compete.  

I glance over to the 3 steps that ease into the shallow end, picturing Luke.  The oldest of our grandchildren at “almost-four,” he has logged more time in the water than the other three.  Most of that time has been spent on the steps.  Content to play with Tiger, Buzz Lightyear, Woody, a couple of crocodiles and a Noah’s ark that sinks, he has refused to venture into less secure depths saying, “No, no, I don’t want to,” when a well- meaning parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle tired to dislodge him. . . until two weeks ago.

As his dad was leaning up against the bottom step talking to me, Luke nonchalantly took his feet off the same step, supported only by his “floaties,” announcing, “I’m swimming!”   As he followed Jason into the middle of the pool, holding onto a piece of his dad’s swim trunks for security, Luke looked back over his shoulder and smiled at me.  A smile, from deep within him, that burst out in a look of pure joy, so honest, so full of confidence, yet so precious and fragile.  He was trusting us with his joy, sure that we would share and return it, that we would honor the risk he had taken, the pride he felt.  And, of course, we did with cheering, clapping and uproarious celebration. 

 The sound of an engine brings me back to my cooling tea. The familiar school bus yellow filters through the trees then disappears from view, on its way to the first day of school.  I imagine children sporting their new backpacks, filled with colorful lunchboxes, pencils, crayons, spiral notebooks and the whole regiment of school supplies on the list at Wal-Mart.  Butterflies circle throughout the children’s stomachs, their delicate wings brushing against the fragile spaces. Spaces from which questions arise.  “Will I make friends?  What do I do at lunch? Will my teacher be nice?”  Spaces that need to be handled with the utmost care.        

As a teacher, I started each school year by unpacking my box labeled “Beginning of the year stuff.”  For the first couple of years, books about curricula topped the heap.  But opening the box now, a sign mounted on yellow construction paper greets me.  It contains a quote by Dr. Haim G. Ginott, author of Teacher and Child, a Book for Parents and Teachers, which became the centerpiece of the bulletin board beside my desk and the core of my teaching.
          "I have come to a frightening conclusion.  I am the decisive element in the classroom.  It is my personal approach that creates the climate.  It is my daily mood that makes the weather.  As a teacher I possess tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous.  I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.  I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.  In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child humanized or de-humanized."

 Were I still teaching today, I would add a picture beside it, the picture of Luke smiling.  It would remind me every day to hold each child’s spirit in my hands with the same reverence that I do Luke’s, his brother Nate, sister Anna and cousin Ruby.

There can be no more important job!

From the Frying Pan into . . . Another Frying Pan

When my husband, Drew, left Arkansas to return to his job at the Anglo American School of Moscow on July 30^th, the one thing he knew he was not going to miss was the heat and humidity.  Three-digit temperatures and jungle-like humidity levels had spiked the heat index as high as 115 for the majority of his 3-week stay.  He was looking forward to early morning jogs in Moscow where temperatures can be 25 to 30 degrees cooler than in Arkansas this time of the year.  He might even return home after his 4-mile route with at least one stitch of dry clothing.

Then the weather in Russia started to change; temperatures began to creep upwards and upwards reaching 100-degrees.  Reports of peat bog fires began to surface, putting villages in danger and smoke drifting towards the capital.  “Surely it won’t last very long,” I said, trying to offer a few comforting words as I dropped him off at the Little Rock airport.  We could never have imagined how wrong my prediction would be or how much worse the situation would become.

Each day Drew has reported on the worsening heat and smoke, from his corner of northwest Moscow, where the school and our neighboring apartment building are located.  Looking out the picture windows, which wrap around the living room of our 10^th floor apartment, he said last week that the “picture” had vanished. The Anglo American School, which is clearly visible a half-mile away on sunny days, and discernible even on misty overcast mornings or during swirling snow showers, had disappeared, hidden by thick, grayish-white smoke.  Acres of forest, a mere thousand feet from our apartment building, were gone, as if they had been erased, all the color drained from view.  I imagined myself staring out at the same scene, with a mounting feeling of isolation creeping around me like a white cocoon.

The cocoon has encircled the city for two weeks.  Russian friends, Zhenya, Natasha(s), Sergei, Alexei, Olga, Julia, and Rita, come to mind.  Living in apartments or dachas with no air conditioning, like most Muscovites, and often taking public transportation, usually the sweltering metro, they have no choice but to breathe the unhealthy air day and night.   “The smell of smoke permeates everything,” Drew tells me.  “My throat is sore from breathing it in, like just about everyone I talk to.”

“Russia wildfires have now pushed carbon monoxide levels in Moscow to 6.5 times the allowable level and the concentration of other unspecified toxins to 'up to 9 times' acceptable limits.”

-Russia's health ministry.  (August 8)

I am scheduled to fly back to Moscow and into the haze on Friday, the 13^th, a date which may be trying to tell me something.  With continued concern about the safety of returning students and staff, the AAS start date has been delayed by a week, and Drew suggests that I postpone my return.  In yesterday’s email, he writes,  “It did rain a bit last night ... not much, but the air sure is clearer today.  The wind has shifted so that makes a big difference.  It is still HOT but relief, they say, is on the way.”  Encouraged by this window of hopeful news, I change my flight for a week later. 

Thinking of the thousands of people whose lives, health, and homes have been affected, some permanently, I reflect on Drew’s words to the faculty and staff as he announced the delay of the beginning of school:

“It is surreal, as pictured in some sci-fi movie depicting our future mother earth if we continue pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. While none of us here would wish this experience on any of you, it is a very sobering picture and valuable lesson (I hope) for the entire world.”

You've Got (Real) Mail!

Nate, our 2-year-old grandson, walks with me down the curved driveway to check the mail.  Along the way, we throw a few rocks, sit on a tree stump, and watch “Farmer Brown’s” donkey, whose loud hee-haws send Nate running to grab my knees as he  says, “no like donkey.”  Carrying him the rest of the way, we reach our black metal mailbox, which rests atop a four-foot pole, personalized with rectangular stick-on letters, A L E X A N D E R, stretched along its side.

 Nate pulls the door down as he says, “check mail,” repeating the key words in my question, “Nate, do you want to check the mail?”  Finding a JC Penney sales circular, the water bill, and a Netflix envelope, I exclaim, “Mail!” as if we’ve discovered a year’s supply of chocolate or an invitation to Chelsea Clinton’s wedding. Nate catches on quickly that there’s something special about finding papers in this box and asks to “carry mail” on the walk back to the house. 

Rural mailboxes have been around at least as long as my grandparents’ farm days, some 75 years or so.  In the foreground of a faded picture showing their country home, stands a mailbox that could be the great-grandparent of the one at the end of our driveway.  Same “tunnel” design, as I read in a description by the U. S. Postal Service, with an attached metal flag, ready to alert the mail carrier to stop for a pick-up when it’s raised.  In the digital age where mail zips around the world invisibly and mysteriously lands in inboxes, who would have thought that these old-fashioned contraptions would still be lining roads, faithfully doing their duty through “snow, rain, heat and gloom of night.”

There’s no doubt that digital mail is faster, less costly and healthier for the environment.  In fact, my inbox contains the same JC Penney coupon ready to be printed; the water bill appears as an automatic draft on our online bank statement; and the Netflix video can be downloaded and watched instantly.  So, why do I get so excited about my morning walk to the mailbox, which may contain nothing but junk mail?  

Nostalgia is part of it, I’m sure, connecting me to an earlier time and lifestyle; but it’s more than that.  It’s the anticipation of something that can only be delivered in a three dimensional, solid, actual box.   It appears rarely, maybe once in 50 trips from house to mailbox.  I gasp as I open the door and discover it lying, all alone, its white envelope contrasting with the black metal. I see my name and address, handwritten, across the front. “REAL mail!” I announce, as if the whole neighborhood should gather to witness my discovery.  I gently take it out, run my hand over the writing and slowly open it, hardly aware that I’ve started walking back up the driveway, so entranced by its power.  The shape of the letters, the design on the paper, the carefully composed message, written just so, just for me. 

Treasures. . . carefully carried to a blue and white box in my closet, occasionally pulled out and read, as if the person writing it had dropped by for a cup of tea and a chat.

One day when Nate is browsing through an antique store with a child tagging along behind, I wonder if he might spy a black metal mailbox leaning against a wall collecting dust. 

“What is that thing for, Dad?” the child might ask.

 “Real mail, son, real mail.” 

“What’s that?”

“I’ll show you when we get home.  I saved some letters written by your great-grandmother when I was a growing up.”

Heaven forbid that this imagined scenario of long-forgotten mailboxes and unknown real mail should ever become a reality!  But, just on the off chance, I’d better start writing those letters.

  Now, where are my stamps?