still russia

my grand-father is very much alive, and very ill. his illness brings me painfully close to the truth that he will not be around forever (there is that buddhist story of a king who asks a wise man to bless his family, and the wise man says 'father dies, son dies, grand-son dies'.) i will very probably have to outlive my grand-father. and the pain i feel at the thought of life without this dearest of old men is made brighter and sharper by the thought of what would disappear together with him. he is, in a very real (though not factual) sense, my last link to russia. without him, i feel as if the last little thread would snap between me and that weird country of which i was born and that runs in me like a childhood virus never quite recovered from.

walking the streets of moscow, any time in the last 15 years, i have looked, sounded and felt like a foreigner. but deep inside i hugged to myself the secret flame of my belonging. because always, walking those streets, i was visiting my grand-father. and my yearly visits to him fanned and nourished that little flame, so that walking other streets, in such different different places, always i knew myself to be (also) a russian woman.

without my grand-father, russia will become an empty shell. a huge, grey, dirty, difficult and inaccessible shell. and in my pain of having to live one day without my crazy and wonderful ancestor is mingled the fear of the little flame dying out.

i guess i just have to find another way to fan and nourish. another way to connect inner flame and outside world. i guess i just have to learn to be (also) a nomadic russian woman.

(speaking of nomads, amazing photographs here. found through Elianne's new and wonderful blog)