thistlepeg's Xanga

no responsibility day!

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:06:55 GMT

it was friday when we went for a visit to my home town. 230 km long drive from the capital. the plan was to get back by Sunday, late morning. the plan was changed as the weather reports came in. the happy messenger was my dad. he brought us pickles and advised us to not drive tomorrow (sunday) because they are promising snow, storms, icy roads, accidents, no electricity. all over the country. but the closer you'd get to the sea, the more majestically the storms would uncover themselves.

so - being very protective about our lives, we take the decision to stay. my home town is almost farthest of all from the sea, so what we got was LOTs of snow, LOTs of wind (but not as strong as somewhere else) and no electricy damage. so what we did - we had some hot spicy glintwein, made tortilla, watched the news announcing how undriveable the roads were and enjoyed being absolutely NOT responsible for missing monday's classes. :) it's not us - it's the weather! :) we felt like Homer and Mr Burns trapped in a mountain cabin in one of the Simpsons episodes. and then we went out and played snowballs and checked out on the nearby pond. we kept looking out the windows watching the snow whirling in the globes of light round the street lamps. it felt like it was almost new year's eve :) i could almost believe the semester was over and we were done with all the essays and projects that we have to write :) soon, i was brought back to reality. it was really good though, to have felt that way.

on our way to the no-responsibility retreat:

round mom's summerhouse

fishin mission

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:19:14 GMT

Hi! there was a day this summer when driups, driups' dad and i set off on a fishin trip. Here is a condensed version of how it all went.

Fishing destination: a mountain lake, about 2000 m above sea level.

On the way there:

THERE!

Looks like a big heavy fish, huh? forget about it! got caught on a stone! hardly managed to get our rod back with the bob intact!

on our way back:

good times! number of fishies caught: zero; number of people disappointed: zero

soua.

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 20:48:18 GMT

we watched a movie that we really liked today. "happy-go-lucky" by leigh. a really nice movie. the very ending, the very last scene, could have been done better, but overall a really good thing. i'm so pleased.

tomorrow driups and i are going to walk. we decided to go against our sedentary lifestyles, esp. on weekends, and will walk for at least an hour. last weekend we walked as well. walked up to the bridge that's being build. it's almost ready. i mean, it looks ready already, and the roads that lead to it are ready, but for some reason they haven't opened it yet. i wish you could see how surreal that whole thing looked. there were just us and a girl of about 6 years of age that rode her red bike down that road leading to the bridge, that same road where soon only cars will go, sound their horns and get stuck in traffic jams. it was windy and the whole scene looked almost apocalyptic. there was a man in a huge overcoat guarding the bridge. and then also us, that girl, two guys in the distance, the river, the bridge and the brand new roads that no one is using. i hope it's not too cold tomorrow and we'll have a good time walking.

driups and i will buy driups a t-shirt from marriedtothesea.com when we have our card renewed.
i think he liked the one saying, "I am so adjective, I verb nouns". :) i like it, too.

every decent language and literature student have something like this, i guess.

in the ode mode

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:58:07 GMT

it really looks beautiful, this turn in American history, the African American president. it tells the rest of the world (which i'm part of) something totally new about America. something very good.

and maybe, on the political level Obama's presidency will bring many other, even disappointing, things, maybe some of the American citizens are not fully satisfied with Obama's policies, but the very fact of it - it got me feel goosebumps all over my body. i nearly cried in unison with all those people who felt their lives go through a tremendous change as Obama pronounced his acceptance speech. the people looked so united and I wished something like this ever happened over here.

I'm not an American and I cannot boast of African ancestry either, but what happened really inspired me. so much. (I'm slightly suprised myself at how much it affected me :) maybe it's because i never seriously thought something like this actually could happen to America). I looked through the photos of those looooong lines of voters, some of them in the their firties and voting for the very first time, I read about an old beautiful African American woman, a great-granddaughter to a slave who is luckily having this chance to live through this historical change and as i think about it all, it makes me feel good about African American people in America, makes me feel good about America as a nation in its wholeness, makes me feel good about American, and hence, world history.

this is sentimental but so sincere.

friday!

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 08:00:10 GMT

it's the last day of october and i'm looking to november with lots of hope. that it's gonna be happy and easy. busy but manageable. cold but warm. yesterday we were so tired of always having to rush somewhere that we simply couldn't take it any longer and stayed at home and missed classes.

on wednesday we cleaned the room and it now looks so pretty. weren't able to get it done since so long ago that i'm ashamed to even count. but seriously, it had been like either cleaning the room or doing homework and all those long-term projects. we opted for schooling and the dust balls kept living under our bed. now we're finally done with the first part. since sept.5, the day mom was gone, it's been a rough time. with new beauracratic responsibilities and other things that mom used to do while she was alive. it's now us who do all those things and we like it but it's all in another town and there's also so much sadness in all of it. last week we went to my hometown and visited dacha - mom's summerhouse. it's so autumn-ly beautiful out there, i can't express in words. it looks like good literature, except that it's all visual and without words.

and this is earlier autumn:

today we're going to school, but it's only one class. we had a really good rest missing classes on thursday, staying at home.

i miss so much the time when i can sit and knit with a peace of mind. these days, there's always something stressful i have to think of while knitting. the october was strange. the dentist, that bleeding mole (i showed it to the doctor (2 actually), thank god he said it's nothing to worry about and i can get rid of it for cosmetic reasons or, if i'm too worried, to do the biopsy), the heartache. it feels like there was no time for us to breathe deeply in the past couple of months. and then the school that's full of hypocrisy and unkindness. i want people to be kind and smart. instead, they pretend to be the salt of the earth and are closed-minded and un-kind.

i break down and driups hugs me and says, "yeah, i agree. it's been too much."

oh yeah, there actually did happen one very nice thing in october. we met with my old friend from junior high for tea and so we're waiting for her, we're already in the cafe, and in she comes so transparently feminine and beautfiul and pregnant. i didn't know she was pregnant when we arranged the meeting. it felt so good being around someone young and pregnant. she's my age. i was so happy for her.

when i'm done with my sweater, which i'm knitting out of 100% georgian wool that we bought this summer, i'll show it to you.

things

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:56:46 GMT

today was a good day. we slept till late in the morning in absence of classes (mmmm :)), made pancakes for dinner and got a small translation commission about the goodness of fruits :) it felt good translating a text about healthy things :) it wasn't too scientific and felt refreshing anyway. today we also got to see driups' little sister anika taking a bath in not exactly a baby bath but rather a kind of bucket that is said to be very close to the form of mommy's tummy where babies spend the first months of their life. it looks really funny and darling :) do you know of such a tummy bath?

it's good that tomorrow is thursday after which comes friday after which comes saturday. i don't really like rushing with things somewhere (because there's basically nowhere to rush), but sometimes i simply can't wait for them to move forward a bit. it's good to know that our spanish teacher is being substituted by another one tomorrow. she is really weird. she was really mean to us when we said we were not going to participate in that concert where, literally, you're supposed to act like a royal jester and entertain some men of letters coming from Spain for a visit at university.

tomorrow

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:00:59 GMT

Tomorrow is 40 days since mom's gone. I've compiled a kind of memory photo album and driups and i are taking it with us tomorrow to the cemetery, where we and mom's friends and flowers and candles will meet in the late morning. We'll also brings mom's favorite heart-shaped cookies and dried dates.

Here in this country the grave, covered with flowers that people bring on the day of the funeral, is left untouched for 40 days after the funeral. On the 40th day, close people come and take away the withered flowers and bring new ones and arrange the grave with pine branches. They say the 40th day is when the spirit of the dead person leaves this land completely and forever. I don't particularly believe in this but for some reason i do feel particular about tomorrow anyway.

I've seen mom in my dreams a couple of times since the funeral and those were really nice dreams, i liked them. Today, I saw myself arranging flowers on mom's grave and she suddenly appeared at a pine that stood not far from her grave and the sun shone and it was all so peaceful and slow and mom had her white jacket on and those white velvet pants of her and they kinda shone too, as if it was an overexposed shot, and she was smiling and i tried to make her grave look nice with the flowers and very very green, deep-green and juicy grass and it seemed as though she came to help me out and then she called out to me, leaning at the pine, "lena, you know what? i'm gonna be studying the German language!" :)))I remember I was happy to hear it and in the morning driups and i connected this to his Granddad who became a very good friend of mom's this summer and he kept telling my mom and us that he needs to find a good German language text book because he wants to refresh his German (granddad is 70-something). I remember the sun shining through the pines, in that dream, and the grass was so clear and the same time so deeply green and i thought to myself that i'm doing so well, so slowly but so well and peacefully that i'll be done with the grave before everyone arrives and i'll just sit here on the bench and read a book. that could be nice, i thought. but then, in that same dream, people appeared and mom was gone. Like in a movie, when you can't really prove that something incredible just happened because you happened to be the only witness. It made me feel really good, that dream. Mom was shining with joy, in that dream, it's really good.

We're getting up early tomorrow, because the drive is quite long, about 3 and a half hours.

In that album I compiled most of the photos of mom and us are very recent. you could break your heart over how quickly these unfair things can happen to someone you love. at this very moment i suddenly felt so glad to have mom's amber bead necklace, and her amber broche and a bottle of her unfinished cuticle aromatic oil. i planted some flowers in mom's garden and i hope to see them in spring.

a couple of weeks ago driups and i were watching a TV show that mom loved very much. it felt good to look up the ceiling of the apartment - the sky ??, and say, "hey mom, we're watching your favorite show!"

thistlepeg's attempt at a manifesto

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 21:36:43 GMT

it's hard to make friends for us. largely, it's because most of the time, people start looking at us differently as soon as they find out we're married. as if it was a) strange to get married at such a young age; b) old-fashioned to get married at such a young age; c) "village-y"/ "not city-enough" to get married at such a young age; d) boring to get married at such a young age. as if one of the main preconditions for having young, fresh and healthy fun was for you to be single and lonely (but don't you let other people know about the latter!). and while i, indeed, have met decent single people who are smart and calm and fun and without all kinds of insecurities, most of the time we still get one or several reactions from the above list. to me, it seems really suspicious. it makes me think that those people most of the time are simply jealous of what we have.. i don't know.. but as i'm thinking of what i'd be missing if i wasn't married to this superfun guy driups and that i wouldn't be sharing and experiencing as much as i'm sharing and experiencing with him now, i feel how defective and miserable and unfortunate these years of my life would have been. it's really sad but i'm starting to become quite sure that the majority of people cannot really grasp certain things about relationships. it's either their personal family experiences or again, certain insecurities that take them over but so many people seem to be SINCERELY unable to see how a husband and a wife can actually be the best friends ever and not be bored with each other and be willing to spend the whole day by each other's side (blessed be those who have this chance!). i hear people saying, "oh, you're studying/working in the same field! this must be horrible!" sad sad sad. SAD. it's also quite disheartening to notice that even when the people seem to be willing to be friends, they do not open up to the relationship as much as they could, staying kind of slightly superficial just because driups and i are in "two" and they are in one, so to say. i've had close girlfriends in my life who after driups and i got married started to act really weird. they seemed to be unable to grasp the idea and actually believe me that driups and i have almost identical attitudes to things, likes and dislikes and they thought they had to discover driups first before they could open up to both of us. they would be annoyed by me saying "we" all the time. "we think...", "we went...", "we'd love...", "we laughed when...", "we enjoyed...", "we found out". where is "you", where is "i" they'd reproach, assuming that i must suffer from some kind of identity loss. well my identity has only grew and became better (yeah, it did!) as i've been with the wonderful driups, it's not gone anywhere, here it is. here. i said goodbye to such friends. anyway, this whole thing again says that people do not understand or consider it important that when you marry you marry because you love and appreciate and enjoy and have a lot in common, for god's sake.

yeah, so that's what i wanted to share for a long time now.

have a good day

LOVE and JOY to everyone

have you experienced something of a kind?

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 17:53:04 GMT

it was a good day after all. we spent almost the whole of it outside. the city is so calm on a Sunday, as it turns out. the dry maple leaves had plenty of room to swish and run behind our heels and the sky looked so cloudless and huge it made you think you were supposed to stay in the streets all day and there was no other option. there're berries on some of the trees still, with occasional yellowish leaves waiting for a take off. i love this season. we met a couple of friends for lunch coffee at a cosy cafe and spent there about 3 hours, until it was time for dinner and driups and i said we were hungry really. the friends had other things to do and we headed home, but the sky and everything felt so compelling that we turned back and set off to get takeaway food to have our dinner at a sunbathed plaza. the dinner was delicious and the tourists were talking so much of that ugly building on that plaza, it felt really awkward to see them make photos. i guess it's partly out of desperation, you have to take photos when you're a tourist after all. I mean, the building is just a replica, the original one was destroyed in 1941. the sun was setting and setting so we headed home. bought a beautiful September issue of National Geographic. It is beautiful, folks, I swear!

A couple of weeks ago we checked our eyesight. After the check we stopped at the river. Here is what we looked like out there:

"Lay your head where my heart used to be
Hold the earth above me
Lay down in the green grass
Remember when you loved me"

i think of mom very often, especially in the evenings. and when driups talks back to me all about it, it feels better again.

to you, mom

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 21:12:23 GMT

None of you guys have met my mom, Ludmila, in person. Nonetheless, I decided to share with you our family's loss and at the same great joy to have had this person in our lives. It's not fair that she wasn't given a chance to live a longer life but we're all so grateful to have had her with us as much as we could. At the funeral, I spoke and repeated again and again that the main thing is not to grieve about the loss but, instead, to be joyous and grateful for what we've managed to share with mom, for what she has managed to give to us by her presence in the life of each of us - her kids, relatives, friends and colleagues. The people who came to the funeral spoke about her as well and i couldn't be more proud of my mom because of what her friends and colleagues told about her.

The disease was very harsh to mom, our poor poor girl with blue-blue eyes and a very bad luck.

Mom was a beautiful woman with a smile that seemed warm even to a stranger. In this photo she is almost 60 (can you believe it? after 2 rounds of chemo), travelling with driups and i to meet driups' parents. it's so good they got to meet each other before she left us.

Mom instantly befriended driups' parents and grandparents. here we are, together with driups' grandpa.

Here, below, is mom on the left and driups' mom on the right. Mom loved stories of her younger days.

She also loved rivers and ice rinks and dances.

She loved her garden and her summerhouse, especially as autumn drew closer.

I can't stop admiring how well she could handle those things. She could grow literally anything in her garden. And she did. We did help her with the garden, but she did so much all by herself. She had so much strength of all kinds.

This is mom's famous baseball gardening cap. :) she's adorable.

She loved her pines and the way the air smelled in the morning.

In the last summer of her life we wore twin trainers.

It makes me smile.

And so she's gone.

I still get confused as to whether she's still alive or not. There're moments when I catch myself thinking "Oh, I should tell mom all about it" and then I realize there's no one to pick up the phone..at the funeral, there were so many people, and some of them were a total but good surprise to me. I thought to myself, "i should tell mom that my kindergarten teacher came", only to recall that mom's actually gone. Her old childhood friend came from Riga - the friend she frequented ice rinks and dance floors with..she told me stories of her and mom and made me laugh and cry and i thought i should tell all that to mom, but again - i couldn't.

love you, mom. you were so reliable and faithful and honest and fun.
mom, driups and i have opened the jar of your cherry jam and cannot be happier knowing that it was you who made it. there won't be another jam like yours. rest in peace, mom.