It’s my birthday and I’m another year older and like every year before this one, I woke up exactly the same. It’s a sensation which didn’t change with age; the feeling of waking up on your birthday to absolutely nothing extraordinary. As a child I was convinced if I concentrated hard enough, I’d feel something; taller or heavier or smarter or wiser, but year after … Continue reading “It’s My Birthday” Club
There are too many new sad stories every day. Shootings and terrorism and cancer and what the fuck is happening to our world? “Are we on the brink of a revolution?” my husband said the other day and I didn’t answer him because I didn’t want to go there in my head. I try to stay local, stay present, stay in the now, but these … Continue reading “Hesitant to Share Good News” Club
I can’t think back to a time when my feelings weren’t INTENSE. No matter what I felt, I experienced it with an exclamation point and it often swung like a pendulum between mildly euphoric and mildly depressed. I was never clinically diagnosed as bipolar because the logical part of my brain is still able to trump the spontaneous one, and seizes control no matter how … Continue reading “I Feel Intensely” Club
“What are we doing for the Fourth?” My husband asks me every year and every year I do a double-take. “The fourth of what?” I didn’t grow up celebrating The Fourth of July, and not because we weren’t glad for American independence; on the contrary, it was for this specifically that we emigrated to America and not for its famed national cuisine of hamburgers and … Continue reading “I Don’t Celebrate the 4th of July” Club
My grandparents arrived in America two years before my mother, father and I joined them in 1979. My grandmother was good at hustling to make a buck. She was also a phenomenal cook and baker. In her new American life, she christened herself a baker. For 7 years, (until my family of now 4 moved to Staten Island in 1986), my sister, cousin, and I … Continue reading “I Don’t Like Cake” Club
It is biologically counterintuitive to NOT love your mother; you cannot un-love from where you were born. I wish I could un-love my mother. I’ve tried to build walls to protect myself, but instead, I built panic attacks, hypochondria, and chronic anxiety. I am a happy person because I work hard not to be sad, like my mother. My funny, sarcastic mother who biologically transplanted … Continue reading “My Mother is an Alcoholic” Club
The first time I brought my husband (then boyfriend) to meet my father in Staten Island I was anxious about being on time. My father appreciated and demanded promptness; it coursed through his Russian blood, and it wasn’t just from his two years in the Soviet army. I was brought up respecting the clock and to value our ever fleeting minutes. To this day, I … Continue reading “My Husband Is Always Late” Club
I don’t remember Russian lullabies and my mother swears I never took to baby talk or songs. The only Russian songs I know are by Alla Pugacheva. She is like the Russian Taylor Swift of the 70s. I grew up enamored with her sad Russian love songs and ballads about multicolored roses. When we landed on American soil, the soundtrack which accompanied my parents through … Continue reading “Music Triggers Memories” 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
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
In Russian are two words for ass, but they are modifications of one another. One is pronounced “paw-pa” and the other is pronounced “zj-awpa.” That first one is like “tush,” the second one is like “ass.” My house was a pure “zj-awpa” house, but my cousin was purely a “paw-pa” family and whenever we got together, I always used the wrong word for ass. I loved … Continue reading “I Curse – Proudly” Club
The other day, my 8th grader got into the car after school, chipper as always. We started the usual pleasantries: how was school, what did you eat for lunch, any tests coming up? We carry on for about 5 minutes until he says, “Someone at school tried to kill himself today.” I didn’t say anything at first because my immediate instinct was he was kidding. … Continue reading “When Suicide Hits Too Close to Home” Club
For better or for worse, I’ve embraced my Eastern European gift of hairiness. In fact, my relationship and consequent confrontation with hair on varying terrains across my body has definitely earned me gold membership into this special club. It’s a love hate relationship really. I love that my healthy hair grows fast and thick, but obviously the problem is said hair does not remain on … Continue reading “I’m a Medium-Degree Hairy Woman” 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
Every mother has mommyisms. These phrases are typically derived from life experiences and hand-me-downs from their own mothers. Here are some Soviet-inspired nuggets I got from my mom: You can never be too rich or too thin. Only prostitutes wear anklets. If you have a gap between your legs, you’re a whore. If you’re a pretty secretary, then you’re a “secretutka” (a word formed by … Continue reading “I’m More Like My Mother Than I Thought” 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
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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