avrelia

For someone who loves traveling, I am awfully anxious every time before the trip. No matter whether I am planning a weekend at my friends’ summer house in two-hours; drive distance or a trip to Russia. (no, unfortunately I am not planning a trip to Russia at the moment). I am, however, planning less than a week in Vancouver, BC. And I am vacillating in between “it’s fine, I lived there, I am looking forward to seeing it again” and laying sleepless at night worrying about just everything.

Anyway, it is a day till my flight, nothing is packed yet, but I found ten Canadian dollars in coins and feel joy.

It’s been twenty years since my husband and I left Vancouver, and I’ve never yet been back there. It was the time when Buffy ended, but I haven’t yet acquired the invite for LJ, and was lurking enviously. The world was young, the future was bright and promising interesting things. I didn’t want to stay in Vancouver, but I was sorry to leave friends I made there. I was not 27 yet, now seems ridiculously young. I wasn’t happy (I missed living and working in Russia, and felt that my life would have had more meaning back there), I wasn’t sure about any step I was making, but I was so damn optimistic.

One of the first cultural surprises, that happened after coming to Canada, was looking at the giant map of Canada for the first time, and finding out that the Klondike Gold Rush that I read about in so many Jack London's stories happened in fact, in Canada, not in USA. It felt just so American, you know, that even if there were mentions of Canada we jumped right over them. Not that I knew – or cared to know - a lot about Canada before moving there. It was the place north of USA, the land of randomly cool TV series (Degrassi and Les filles de Caleb) so, naturally I had a lot to learn. Finding Dawson city on the map was one of the first surprises.

I didn't want to re-read Jack London for a long time though, and when I did, last year, I had another surprise: one of my favorite pieces, and the one that is extremely popular and well-loved in Russia, Smoke Bellew is virtually unknown here. It is a later work, published in 1911-12, and Jack London himself called it a hack work, written for money. And yet, it is, I believe, great. I mean, I've read later London's novels that were over-blown, over-melodramatic and rather impossible. Smoke Bellew is none of those things. In fact, it combines the best of both worlds. It is a collection of short stories tied into unity by the same characters (both main and secondary), same time ( Klondike Gold Rush) and same place (Yukon territory). It escapes the the soggy plotting and other problems with novels that Jack London had – most critics agree that Jack London was much better with his short stories than his novels- and yet still allows for character development impossible in a short format.

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We are in Canada - for a week only. It feels so normal, so familiar and so dear. Even the things that normally annoy me (like Zellers). :)

We drove in the rented car (rented outside New York - way cheaper): the road is more or less familiar by now, and the drive would have been quite pleasant, if D weren't so horribly car sick. We ended up swathing him in paper towels like a mummy. Poor guy. I know how bad it can be - I couldn't drive in the car until my later teenage years, and even now I have to fight the sickness from time to time. Now we live at our friends' place and work on our things to do. planning to go back the end of the week.

The weather is nice, but the autumn in Ontario is far advanced. New York climate still confuses me a great deal.

Abroad means here.

A year ago I though we would be marking 10 years in Canada. I still feel very disconnected and discomfited by the fact that we are not.
10 years ago we flew out of Moscow, made a stop in Frankfurt, and landed in Vancouver. with two pieces of checked-in luggage and a carry-on bag each, and a major jet lag. We were mot immigrants - P has got a job, and it was kind of stupid to refuse a three year long contract in Canada, so here were we. With our books, CDs, tapes, and clothes.
We had a place to drop - P’s employer rented an apartment for us, and even though we hated it, we stayed there for the first six months.
The first week I spent mostly asleep - my inner clock refused to change and accept 11-hour difference. We did have short excursions here and there, to look around, to buy household stuff - we needed everything, and we had no money- almost. Our English, of course, was beyond pathetic - but we got by, and thankfully, there was a lot of Russian colleagues who were in the same situation and soon became our friends. ( the story gets long-winded )

Do we really need a snowstorm in April? Eh?

When did it happen that half of December has gone away? In my mind it is still the very beginning, but then I look at the calendar, and see that it is well past its middle, and the next week it's Christmas holidays already. We spent most November taking turns in having a cold, and now we seem to be in the clear. As most people in our part of the world we are covered in snow, which means I can hardly get anywhere with Son, but without a car. No stroller can get through these mountains, and no 15-months toddler, either. Right now, Son is jumping and playing in his crib, and I am hoping he'll fall asleep any minute now, so I could go about my business. He just learned to walk on his toes and I am falling in the floor from laughter looking at him.

I look in the window, and I see vast expanses of Mississauga covered in snow. It's nice there. We have a park nearby, and a creek with ducks on it (guess who is a great fan of ducks?), and a community centre with a library, a gym and a swimming pool. Today we bought a baby sled and went for a walk - all three of us; the day was a perfect winter day, and we've had a jolly good time in the snow. Except for Son - he didn't appreciate being in the snow yet. He liked the sled though. Besides humans one can see lots of animals around - we see squrrels, baby raccoons, cardinals, rabbits, and - attention - a snake. In a meter distance from me with a stroller. I froze and waited till it went away, then ran to the Internet to find out that it was a harmless garter snake, and this area doesn't have venomous snakes anyway...

All these nice things nonwithstanding, I miss Toronto. I miss the city-ness, the crowd, the subway, everything I got used to in five years. The differences isn't huge, but it is there, and it feels so strange... Trips to Toronto are now a bug adventure, and it's hard to make myself to go - but if I go, I spend teh whole day there, enjoying the crowds. ;)

ok, Daniel is asleep, gotta run!

He said once (as the legend goes): “I know only that I know nothing.”

Well, he said it in Greek, so it sounded differently, and I’ve heard it in Russian first, so it may look different from what you’ve heard, and maybe he didn’t say it at all, just looked as if he was going to say it any time soon.

But then, you know, was executed by democratic Athens.

Anyway, I came to a conclusion, that it is the truest thing I can say for myself. I am not going to be in every philosophy textbook for that, but the hell with it, I would prefer to be it a literature textbook.

When I was a child I thought it was stupid (Socrates’ thing) – I knew a lot. I knew about Socrates even. When I was a teenager I thought I was very intelligent and educated: I was studying Socrates, Plato and other really ancient guys. I knew a lot if stuff. I still do.

Yet… It came to my attention how much I don’t know and don’t understand. About everything – but I meet people, and often I can’t remember anything about their country beside the fact that it exists. But even when I can…

Things in Canada surprise me every now and then. But, well, I knew next to nothing about it before I came here. I knew way more about USA. It always loomed around in the consciousness – best foe, best friend, everything capitalistic and good, or capitalistic and bad – we studied its history in the history class, its Constitution in the political science class, etc. I knew a lot about USA.

Then I realized how little I knew.

And those last days – here is what prompted this post – I learned a huge, mammoth-like huge stuff about USA and people that live there, and I realize that I really know nothing about it, and probably never will.
Moreover, when I look back to me beloved Russia, I understand that I know nothing about it, too: I have some ideas and some facts, and some conclusions, but, really I know nothing about Russia, too. (which I was told – you are from Moscow, Moscow is not Russia)

So, the more I live, the more I learn, the less I actually know.

Is it the road to wisdom or senility?

A question for anyone who knows Ontario: we are looking for a place to go for a day (half of a day, more likely).

Could you recommend something that
-is at a distance of around two hours drive from Toronto;
-is not a wilderness (ok, I am still thinking by BC standards)
-is pretty
-we could spend 4-6 hours (including dinner) there without being bored
-which means it has something to look at, walk, swim in, etc (swimming is optional, as it is an end of September)
-is not Niagara Falls

Thank you

( I had fun, too. )

Welcome back, Writercon ladies!

I hoped that after I applied for my graduate studies I would feel free and happy. Nope. I feel sad and directionless instead. I blame the fact that I can't change anything anymore (about applications), that my life next year depends now on some other people.

We tried to watch Super Bowl last Sunday - for the commercials. We managed two hours, trying to figure out what is going on on a field and why they call it football. My husband's theory: players have to get the ball somewhere. My theory: it is all about unappropriate touching. Anyway, we got bored after two hours and watched "The Two Towers" instead.

I kept compairing hobbits to Andrew (hair-wise). Which brings me to this: Yeah, I know it’s been almost a week. Anyway, I haven’t read anything this week but couple of reviews, and I wrote my own, and I post it here, and now I will go backwards, may be even commenting.

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