Las Pasturas del Cielo
and we vacillate between wanting things to be simpler, and feeling like we deserve much better. the entitlement - i don't know where it comes from. maybe from being around others that somehow enhance our comparative lack? like that john steinbeck story - where the student didn't realize he was poor until someone gave him clothes. it would have been better had the well-intended individual not given him clothing, because the gift simply highlighted his poverty. understandably, that's not always the case. in most circumstances, the only real reason poverty exists is because we've allowed it.
moving on.....
russian is progressing quite well. for two hours a week, i am the student in jeans and a sweatshirt sitting cross-legged on the couch, learning a different way of communicating, learning the stereotypes of vladivostok vs. st. petersburg, learning about the grammatical wars over the correct preposition to use when referring to ukraine.
happy to have tea in the afternoon, happy to ride my bike to the library, and happy to have a fire on the driveway while the stars are out on a saturday. if it comes down to it, we'll camp in the city.
you're the only thing left that makes any sense
so maybe it's time to dust this thing off, and get back to writing a little bit here and there. proportionally divide it between the weather (never fails to excite - and i know that it's considered small talk, but i simply can't get enough of meteorological events no matter how lame they may appear. like the odd batch of cumulus over the Willamette, the way the sun blazes bright while hailstones rain down on our garden, or how the nimbostratus struggle to make it over the west hills), music (back to teaching myself, and am searching for a piano teacher. the standards are strict: he needs to have white hair and a beard and preferably be from Finland or some other Baltic state. and i'd like it if he had chickens outside his house.), books (so little time), and outside (the arrow leaf balsam root will start to bloom in a few weeks, the days are longer, and the gorge begs to be explored. again. and again).
peter's in school again. my husband will be a biologist in three years. how cool is that.
because it will soon be five years since I finished college, that means that the little yellow postcard I filled out at graduation will be making its way to my mailbox soon. the one where i wrote out what...or rather, whom....i hoped I'd be in 2008. I can't remember a lot of it....but the only thing that sticks in my memory is that I said I would be fluent in Russian. Which evidently hasn't happened yet, so I called a guy from St. Petersburg and we're meeting on Thursday to give this thing a try. my fingers are crossed.
