As my tooth broke minutes before my son’s debut on stage, I froze in anticipation of the pain which I expected to come shooting through my jaw. Only no ache evolved because of my good fortune that the dental deities were on my side and the piece I chipped off turned out to be a cusp of my top wisdom tooth. My step-mom, who has … Continue reading “I Was Obsessed with My Childhood Dentist” Club
When did the word immigrant become synonymous with one kind of immigrant? When did the word immigrant immediately imply radical Islamic terrorist? (Kind of like instead of tissue we say, “Kleenex.”) Why, when America has long been defined as a melting pot, is it now trying to rebrand: “Make American great again“. Let’s bring it back to the days of Leave it to Beaver, and … Continue reading “Rebranding the Immigrant” Club
My father helped me tile my bathroom walls today. (Correction: I helped my father tile my bathroom walls.) We worked in harmony, united on the task at hand and when he said, “Give me that thing over there,” I knew which thing he meant because I would anticipate his moves. I can’t recall the last time my dad and I had one-on-one time – hours … Continue reading “Forever Daddy’s Girl” Club
My favorite way to eat eggs is sunny side up. I take pride in frying them into two impeccable gold domes, the whites congealed perfectly beyond the mucous texture. When I dunk dry toast into warm yolk, a satisfaction spills over me; this is my comfort food. I have been making myself eggs this way for thirty years, and every single time I crack a … Continue reading “I Caught My Father in an Affair” Club
My parent’s wedding song was the Theme to Love Story. To this day, the iconic melancholy melody punches me in the gut, squeezes my heart, and puts a lump in my throat – and it’s not because of a nostalgic longing for my parents loving marriage. They divorced after 25 years together; ten years beyond their expiration date, by which point the stench was enough … Continue reading “My Divorced Parents’ Wedding Song Still Makes Me Cry” Club
It was January 2005 and we were celebrating my sister’s birthday in my Upper West Side apartment with my father and his new wife. We were ordering sushi for dinner and as we were discussing who would have salmon or tuna, my father looked over at my sister and me, and with a smirk on his face said, “Natasha can’t have raw fish.” My sister, … Continue reading “Impossibly High Expectations of My Father” Club
How many numbers can we remember anymore? I used to remember mine, my mother’s at work, my father’s at work, my grandmother’s, my best friends, and her other line. I remember the number of the car service, movie theater, weather (remember we could call to check the weather?) I also knew the phone number of the school. I knew my credit card number by heart. Most shocking to … Continue reading “I Still Remember My Childhood Phone Number” Club
One night last week at bedtime, my five-year-old daughter wrapped her arms around my husband and me into a tight embrace and said, “Oh I love you BOTH SOOOOO MUCH!” She squeezed us with all her might and looked my husband square in the eyes and said, “But mommy is one number higher than daddy. I love you the same, but she is one higher.” … Continue reading “Daddy’s Girl” Club
My father hasn’t read my blog since I started my “365 Project” on January 1st of this year. This is my 103rd piece and still I haven’t received a “good job” or “fun read” or even “nice to make me look like an asshole in that piece.” Instead, I got nothing. At first, I wondered had he read the piece which had gotten press, the … Continue reading “My Parents Aren’t My Loudest Cheerleaders” Club
I have this fantasy one day I will be in the elevator (or anywhere) and Russian-speaking people will talk about me without knowing I understand them and I will turn around and surprise them with my exquisite command of Russian curses. This has yet to happen. At our last Gogol Bordello concert, I found myself surrounded by fellow Russians in midlife crisis partying with this … Continue reading “Living Outside My Native Tongue” Club
Yesterday was the 37th anniversary of my immigration to America from the former Soviet Union and I forgot all about it. The date isn’t circled or marked on my calendar. Maybe my parents independently raised a shot glass toasting the memory, but I’ve gone years without noting the day. For my parents, it marked the day they started their new life but since 1979, there … Continue reading “37 Years an Immigrant” Club
Let me start out by saying I don’t enjoy confrontation, although one may argue, on occasions, my actions may have inadvertently caused it. I have been accused of being an instigator. Translation: I bring things up enough to bother someone else with doing something about it, because like I said, I don’t take pleasure in hostile encounters, but I do appreciate justice and answers. For … Continue reading “I’m an Instigator” Club
My teenage son and I heard a hilarious phone prank on the radio. The victim: a 45-year-old mother. Who set her up? Her 18-year-old son. The premise? The DJ calls pretending to be the son’s 45-year-old girlfriend. Throughout the fake call, the mother’s anger escalates as she keeps repeating, “My son is a teenager!” After our laugh, I push it further because I’m the inappropriate … Continue reading “My Modern Family Trumps Yours” Club
People haunt me from the past; the mysteries of what’s become of them. When my family came to America in 1979, we didn’t document our everyday life the way we do in today’s selfie generation. We broke out the cameras for special events, birthday parties, weddings, occasional trips to the zoo, and vacations. Studying through old images, I recognize a familiar group of people reappearing … Continue reading “Old Photos Play Tricks with My Memory” Club
I am not a ballerina, even though I have the perfect name for one. Girls typically start dance classes in grade school, but we were new Soviet immigrants living in the projects, and we saved the dancing for parties at Russian restaurants. At one point, somewhere between age 6 and 13, I passive-aggressively mentioned to my mother how I never got dance lessons even though … Continue reading “I’m Not a Ballerina” Club
If you had to pack up your life into two suitcases, what would you bring? I ponder this occasionally when I find myself using something my parents brought with them from the Soviet Union in 1979. Today I poured water into a stemmed glass adorned with a train decal. I inherited these six glasses from my mother because I had mentioned to her I liked … Continue reading “Engaging With Souvenirs from the Old World” Club
The last vacation I took with my parents and sister was to Puerto Rico in July 1996. I just graduated from NYU, newly dating my later-to-be husband. My sister was madly in love with her then boyfriend and played Nothing Else Matters by Metallica on loop the whole time. My parents, still two years shy of their quarter-century divorce, met some fellow Russians vacationers and … Continue reading “I Took My Last Family Vacation For Granted” Club
My family immigrated to America when I was almost five years old and I have few memories of my life in Kiev. I’ve recollected few stories of my childhood and those have been enough to sustain me. Big chunks of time are missing in my memories. My American husband thinks my young refugee status left me somewhat traumatized, but I disagree. He has suggested a … Continue reading “I Lost My Memories” Club
The successful and stunning Ariel Winter from Modern Family received some feedback for wearing a dress to the SAG Awards, which revealed a scar from her breast-reduction surgery. She felt compelled to justify her fashion choice: “There’s a reason I didn’t cover up my scars! They are a part of me and I’m not ashamed of them at all.” Scars are life’s tattoos; autographs left … Continue reading “Scars are my Souvenirs of Life” Club
Over a cup of coffee and a donut, a person will spill their secrets. Do not underestimate the magical unravelling power of a cruller and a cup of Joe; it is the elixir of truth. In our society, donut shops connote happy imagery: syrupy goodness oozing between puffs of powdered sugar. Not for me, though. One whiff of honey glaze singes the insides of my nostrils … Continue reading “I Came of Age at a Donut Shop” Club
In the 80s, our “Where were you when” moment was the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986. The explosion occurred 73 seconds after liftoff, and I watched it happen on live TV along with so many other Americans. It really sucks when a source of national pride becomes a national tragedy. The accident was the result of rapid deceleration and not combustion of fuel. … Continue reading “I Watched the Challenger Blow Up” Club
“Sglazeet” is what the Russians call “giving the evil eye.” I totally believe in this, but it’s technically hocus pocus witchery; like ghosts. My husband tells me that it’s up to me whether I give anyone the power to jinx or cast this evil spell. Apparently, I do. If I could, I would spray a magic shield of protection around myself before I ever left … Continue reading “I’m Afraid of the Evil Eye” Club
There’s a photo of me at 10-months-old, bundled-up, Russian style, propped up in my Seventies plaid pram. I’m being guarded by a large German Shepherd named Alfeek. He was the first dog in my life and I don’t remember him but suspect he scarred me in some traumatic way, because until the age of 12, I had a terrible fear of dogs. My 12th birthday … Continue reading “I Got Bit by a Dog” Club
My father has always attested that he doesn’t believe in God, but believes in aliens. He believes it was the aliens who were responsible for the creation of the earth, rather than the commonly-held principles of God in 7 Days, or you know, the Big Bang theory. He also believes that the entire human species, in itself, is an alien experiment gone wrong. Humans are … Continue reading “My Father had a UFO Sighting” Club
One of my favorite parts from the 1985 classic, Rocky IV, is when Drago, in the finest Russian accent a quintessential Swede can muster, says, “If he dies, he dies.” Essential to this scene is the lip raise; like an invisible fish hook caught on his upper lip and pulled it up toward the corner. My sister and I have spent thirty years imitating this … Continue reading “Lost in Translation” Club
I was 11 years old and I was the one in my family responsible for calling Russia. In 1985 we had just moved to Staten Island; we were in our ivory-wallpapered living room, on the taupe leather couches. The house was immaculate with its modern window treatments and cream-colored carpet. It hadn’t yet been soiled by the mastiff’s muddy footprints or by the stench of … Continue reading “I Called Russia in 1985” Club
My sister was always presented as a gift that was created just for me – and not because I needed a bone marrow transplant or anything. I was just a typical six-year-old, newly immigrated to Queens from Russia, and I was lonely. I was also supposedly incredibly cerebral and persuasive (go figure), because while other girls convinced their parents to buy them a Barbie Dream … Continue reading “My Sister was a Gift to Me” Club
I was a mature 10-year-old and my younger sister, Reena was only three when we were enjoying all the glories of new immigrant life in the Housing Projects of Queens. Aside from the male jogger who hung upside down, dangling his junk in front of us, everything from this period blends together like a hazy blur. There are few memories that stand out, but the … Continue reading “My Sister Got a Hole in Her Head on My Watch” Club
“Oh I didn’t realize you grew up in the projects!” my husband says the first time I bring him to visit my grandmother, who has lived in this same housing complex for her 40 years in this country. Apparently “Cooperative Housing” is fancy for projects, but I have always thought it was a perfectly normal place to have my rudimentary years in this country. The … Continue reading “I Lived in the Projects and Didn’t Know it” Club
I don’t remember almost dying as an infant, but apparently, I did. My mother recounts the story of my Soviet birth ripe with exaggerated old-world details. She describes laboring in a room with nine other women, all of whom took turns pushing their babies out, while an orderly with a thick mustache mopped the floor with dirty water. She witnessed one woman give birth to … Continue reading “Apparently I Almost Died as an Infant” Club
Nowadays unusual names are all the rage, but in 1986 Staten Island, when your parents make you transfer mid-year to your new junior high school, having missed out on vital teenage lessons (namely how to put on eyeliner and lipstick), it was way cooler to be Lisa or Maria or Jill. As lovely girls named Michelle and Vicky, took me around from class to class, … Continue reading “I Have a Weird Name” Club
The only play dates I’ve ever been on are the ones with my own children. In 2016 America (and the Internet), parental and educator rhetoric professes the vast academic and developmental benefits of play dates for our children. They all agree good social skills are essential to helping your child lead a happier, healthier life – but these skills need lots of practice and coaching. … Continue reading “Growing Up, I Never Had Play Dates” Club
“Where are you from?” Such a basic question, and yet I stutter and exhale a deep sigh of annoyance. I clarify, “You mean where I do live now or where was I born?” To which most will reply, “I mean, what’s your nationality?” The easy answer would be, “I live in New York, but I was born in Russia.” That’s how my father would answer … Continue reading “I Have a Coin with a Dictator on it Rather than a Birth Certificate” Club
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