#53. Countryside (Excerpt)

53

Write about a village, real rural countryside. Do you idealize it as many writers and poets have done? Or, as Agatha Christie, see its dark side?

OPTIONAL: Work on your fiction and share.

In the Village

Marusya felt a little bit alien in this world. Everything looked differently, sounded differently, smelled differently here. There was no traffic noise, as if automobiles were not invented yet - though it was 1980s if you trusted the calendar. There were a few motorbikes here and there, but they did not make a huge difference, not what traffic did even in such a small town as hers, let alone big city traffic. This strange silence was filled with birds chirping, the sound of wind playing with trees, dogs barking, and everyone, even people she'd never met before, saying this long heavy Russian hello - zdravstvuite. The way to her grandparents' home was filled with this silence - it was a wide bumpy country road, a dirt road which was dry and dusty in summer, wet and mushy in fall and spring, and white in winter, with tall snowdrifts on each side of the road - as tall as Marusya and even taller. The thick forest surrounded the few old wooden houses, restrooms outside - small wooden buildings with a terrifying hole in the ground, no matter what's the season, the only place to pee, unless it was dark at night, then it was okay to do it just outside of the house door. Everything in the house smelled differently from Marusya's familiar apartment smell. Towels, bed sheets, blankets - it all smelled somehow a little wet, and when she encountered this smell somewhere else, it would brings her back to the grandma's home. Only later in life she realized it was the smell of mold which was hard to get rid of in a wooden house, covering its people and stuff from rain and snow the huge chunk of the year. That was probably the main reason why babushka painted the house once a year - to get rid of the smell and darkening corners. The paint was typically light blue on the walls and white on the ceiling.

about 10 min or so

Rise and Write 50-56. Week 8

#37. What Happened at the Stadium (Excerpt)

37

Write about a stadium – either a real one from your childhood, or the one next to your home now, or a grand one you once visited, or write how you’ve never even been to a stadium.

OPTIONAL: Work on your fiction and share.

What Happened at the Stadium

Fifteen is a good age to start a new routine.
Marusya did not know it, but she started it anyway. Tanya was not around at this point - she chose the option to graduate after the 8th grade and go to a teachers' college. In four years or so, she'd be a teacher and work with orphans as she always dreamed to do, to Marusya's great amazement. Marusya enjoyed her new friendships with a couple of girls from her school who actually studied a year younger, though they all were born in the same year, except that Marusya was born in Spring, and they were born in the late Fall. 
Other than taking tennis lessons on weekends, Marusya was not very athletic. Her mom worried about Marusya's health a bit too much, and never insisted on taking on any sports, and had even talked Marusya out of continuing dance lessons. But that particular Fall, Marusya suddenly discovered a desire to go jogging early in the morning, long before school started. It was a beautiful September - sunny, dry and quite warm, without the usual gray sky and low temperatures. And the stadium near their town has just upgraded the pavement as Marusya heard from Matveika.
"Hello! It's Marusya. May I speak to Julia please?"
Julia's mom, whose parents were originally from Latvia, and that was the only logical explanation why she named her daughter Julia, and not Yulia, the typical form of that name for Russia, called her to pick up the phone.
Did you notice that Marusya has finally got a phone in her apartment? No? Well she did! And she was ever so thrilled with the opportunities to connect with her friends right from her home. The phone machine was bright red color and a sleek modern shape, and was connected to the specially made outlet in the wall of the apartment's hallway, or corridor as they call it in Russian, right between the endless bookshelves and hooks for coats and jackets.
Julia sounded sleepy.
"Are you awake yet?"
"Just barely. It's Sunday, Marusya, what do you want?"
Julia had a tendency to catch on sleep on weekends, but 1 PM was late even for her. Not that it really mattered, but Marusya felt a bit annoyed that her friend was not fully awake to appreciate her brand new idea.
"I thought today... Let's start jogging in the mornings, before school."
'What? Are you crazy? It's too early, I want to sleep."
Marusya heard how Julia's mom corrected her after the words "are you crazy" - she was such a polite lady, perhaps the best manners in town.
"No, listen to me. Remember how we always go on and on about loosing a couple of kilograms?"
"Well..."
"Well they don't shake off all by themselves, Julia. Do you want it or not?"
The fast and frank tactic always worked best with her friend, and Julia gave up. It did not take even 2 minutes to convince her that jogging early in the morning, before school starts, was the best idea ever,
And so they started jogging. The first week went really well. Marusya would run up the concrete steps that connected the lower and upper parts of their courtyard, and wait for Julia by the entrance of her apartment building. Sometimes Julia was already there, looking all adorable in her sleepy state. Her bright green polo shirt added to Marusya's cheery mood.
The town was still asleep, and the air was fresh and crisp in the mornings. It felt like it all belonged to the two friends, only bird songs would interrupt their conversations (or rather Marusya's conversation, as Julia was mostly listening and yawning). As soon as they passed the courtyard, they started jogging towards the direction of the long tree lined alley which led to the stadium, if you go right, or to the truck trailer factory if you go straight. They tried the factory route, and it worked well, but soon they got bored with it (or rather Marusya got bored, as Julia felt way too sleepy to have an opinion). The stadium was closer and the girls could just run in circles - easy, predictable and it felt like they were real athletes or something. The stadium, surprisingly, was open day and night, and the new pavement was very smooth - easier on feet compared to the asphalt pavement of the pine trees alley. Marusya and Julia made a couple of circles when suddenly a familiar male figure appeared on the stadium.
"Who's that? Is he who I think he is?" Marusya asked her now awakened friend.
"He sure is," Julia said.
The familiar figure started moving at a jog towards Marusya and Julia. With every step, they felt like hiding under the long benches or disappearing through the crack of the fence.
"Is there another entrance to the stadium?"
"It's too late, Marusya. Let's just smile and say hello."
Julia was surprisingly grown up sometimes, very sensible for someone who was whole six months junior.
But even Marusya couldn't deny that indeed it was too late to hide, and now she only wished she could turn into a fly from the Russian fairy tale and fly away. Or maybe land on his nose and bite it. Or maybe just tickle it until he sneezes.
"Oh hello!"
"Hello Dmitri Petrovich," said the girls together as if they were in the classroom.
"And here I am thinking what happened to Marusya lately? She became so slim suddenly."
"I've always been slim," Marusya thought and before she realized what's happening, she heard her voice saying:
"I've always been slim."
Dmitri Petrovich chuckled and continued running, and the girls also continued running in the direction opposite of him.
"He's just so sleezy," Julia said. 
"I will never hear the end of it," Marusya said.
"Don't pay any attention to him."
"That would be the best thing to do," Marusya agreed with her very sensible young friend.
Good plan!
The very same day, after Marusya and Julia came back each to their apartment where their moms had already prepared breakfast and left for work, the girls took showers, changed into their uniforms and went to school. And sure enough, the very first class in Marusya's schedule was PE which she hated with a passion, if that's possible, even though she overgrew the stage when she hated pretty much everything with a passion, but her feelings toward PE class only deepened after the morning encounter.
"Oh hello, and who is this? Who so slender enters the class today? I can hardly recognize you, Marusya."
Poor Marusya. If she could, she would punch him right in the face. But she couldn't. Not the PE teacher. Not any teacher, for that matter. It was not okay for students to bully other students, but it was quite all right for teachers to bully students, at least for some teachers.
"Maybe you need prescription glasses," Marusya hardly could believe her own tongue. "I've always looked this slender."

Rise and Write 36-42

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#30 Cup - She Does Not Know Yet (Excerpt)

The pair of cups and saucers by Leningrad Porcelain Factory

which I found at an antique mall at different times.

30

Write about a cup or a mug. Maybe it’s the one you love to sip your coffee or tea from. Maybe it’s a family heirloom or an antique find. Or maybe it’s a paper cup.

OPTIONAL: Work on your own fiction, without the connection to the topic. Share what you are working on.

She Does Not Know Yet

Auntie Rada’s home did not smell like any other home and did not look like any other home Marusya had ever visited. She lived with her husband, a retired engineer and amateur artist, in an old cottage with a garden, in a quiet green neighborhood of the town where Matveika and Marusya were born. Before that day when mama took Marusya to visit auntie Rada and her husband Nikolai, she did not know such an area existed – she was only familiar with the more or less common five and nine- storied apartment buildings which one could find in any town and city in the vast country called USSR, everywhere from north to south, and from west to east. The town also had an adorable old center with the 1960s era two and four storied buildings which had large apartments with tall ceilings, as Marusya has heard – they liked to take a walk in that cute area buzzing with shops and even the town’s own drama theater. But a neighborhood full of cottages? That was rather unique, and Marusya was all ears when mama told her about it.

“Come on in, Nadya, you haven’t visited for such a long time.”

Auntie Rada greeted them with a friendly smile on her face, and uncle Nikolai simply said “hello” from the living room’s comfy armchair where he was reading a newspaper.

Mama apologized for not visiting more often, and auntie Rada said,

“No worries, I am glad you finally had a chance. And who is that? I knew you had a small daughter, Nadya. That was the last time I heard about this young lady.”

Marusya blushed when auntie Rada called her “young lady”, though she was rather pleased to hear it.

The living room where they entered next had an unusually tall ceiling, not at all like the apartments where Marusya and her other relatives and friends lived, and in each corner there was a pot with an overgrown plant, some leaves were dry, and the spider plants had so many babies that auntie Rada could probably grow her own jungle with them. There were a few shelves with books, and everywhere, up on the walls, on the bookshelves, on the floor there were uncle Nikolai’s paintings. At least, Marusya thought so because mama explained that it was his hobby. The paintings were nothing like the realistic paintings of the famous Russian artists they studied at school, or the Italian and French painters that Marusya knew about from a few art books her parents collected. They were bright and colorful, and reminded her of children’s pictures, with horses, dogs and cats with human eyes, with trees and rivers flowing in fields, and the little country houses which looked flat and not at all like what artists usually paint or what Matveika explained to Marusya about three dimensions. It was strange that uncle Nikolai, being an engineer, did not know about the three dimensions and how to paint houses which would look like the real deal, Marusya thought. Yet she couldn’t take her eyes off of his whimsical pictures. Uncle was a quiet man and almost did not pay any attention to Marusya and her mom, even though it was actually he, and not his wife, who was distantly related to them.

“Let’s have tea,” auntie Rada said and they sat down around an old wooden table with a pretty tablecloth hanging down the floor. It wasn’t vinyl as Marusya had gotten used to, but some heavy kind of fabric with a colorful field of flowers all over it. And then Marusya saw it. The prettiest little tea cup she had ever seen in her life… Having tea in her home meant drinking a slightly brownish warm liquid, with sugar added, from mugs which her babushka called “bocals” – Marusya always found it odd though, because everyone else used that word in relation to wine glasses. But auntie Rada’s tea routine was completely different and was rather a ceremony than routine, starting with the strong black tea in a fine china teapot, and short wide cups made of finest porcelain which seemed transparent when you looked at them in the light. They weighed nothing and had the most intricate leaf and flower design with lines in black and gold – the style of painting Marusya, again, was not familiar with, just like she did not know the roots of uncle Nikolai’s painting style. Marusya was nervous to even lift this treasure up in the air and heard the cup and the saucer making a jingling sound, like little bells would, as she held them in her slightly shaking hands.

Marusya does not know yet that many years later, in a different world, living on a different continent where nobody would be surprised that a family can live in their own cottage in the middle of town, she would find a cup and saucer just like auntie Rada’s tea set was, in a store filled with old and odd stuff which she’d make her favorite place to hang out. She does not know yet that with slightly shaking hands she will pick up that same cup and saucer and with fast beating heart read the stamp on the bottom, “Leningrad Porcelain Factory. Made in USSR.” She does not know yet that auntie Rada’s delicate cup will become a bridge between now and her future.

Rise and Write 29-35

#29 Sunflower (Excerpt)

Photo source

29

Write about sunflowers – in the garden, in the fields, in the bouquet, in the wreath on the door. Write about the flowers or the seeds…

OPTIONAL: Work on your own fiction, without the connection to the topic. Share what you are working on.

At the end of August, sunflowers in babushka’s garden were taller than babushka or Marusya – it was a long and unusually hot summer for their land, and the flowers that are named after the sun, had more than enough time to get bigger and taller day by day, trying to reach the golden ball in the sky. The flower heads were also especially large – wider than Marusya’s face, rows of bright yellow petals, framing the circle filled with hundreds of little seeds. The seeds were not completely ripe still, they had a mixed black and white stripy pattern, or rather gray and off-white. The shells were soft, and to eat the sweet seed inside, Marusya had to either chew on the shell or tear it apart with her fingers. She loved doing it, but mostly she just loved laying down in that thick row of flowers, tall as trees if you looked at them all the way up, from the soil. Babushka rarely came to that far end of her extended vegetable garden, usually spending time between the beds of green cabbage which used to remind Marusya of roses when she was little, and seemingly endless rows of potatoes. Potatoes, cabbage and home made bread were the staples of babushka’s simple, but delicious cooking, while sunflower seeds were rather something to cover the old rugged wooden fence, which got crooked over the years of snow and rain pouring over it, so Marusya was left alone in her little yellow kingdom.

She opened a book that she borrowed from her friend Tanya, which was a little unusual for the two girls, as Marusya’s family had a much bigger library. But Tanya was so taken with this book that she just couldn’t stop talking about it. Marusya had never heard of that author neither before, nor after that book, if we’re allowed to get a little ahead of ourselves in this story. It was about a girl named Natasha who just graduated from school and did not get into college because she did not prepare for a history test very well. So she got a job at the local factory, some boring entry level job at her 17 years old, with zero work experience, of course. She met a new friend who was a few years older and loved pinching her cheeks, singing “Your little face is like a pretty apple in the garden…” which Marusya found rather odd. And she also met some guy who was ten years older and worked as an engineer, and Natasha fell for him, without realizing what was happening at first, but then it looked like the feeling was mutual. Later in the story, it occurred that Boris happened to be married, and then he was not married, or maybe he was separated or something like that – it was hard to say, as grown-ups often make everything sound so complicated. Marusya was annoyed with the way things were overly complicated, yet secretly she enjoyed those chapters where the little known author, and a man at that, described Natasha’s feelings, as Marusya thought, so accurately and delicately. That confusion inside when you are drawn to someone and happy to see him, and yet get painfully shy when you have a chance to see him, and can’t say one coherent sentence when you’re around him, and feel so stupid and annoyed with yourself for that, that come across as rude or uneducated or something, or worst of all, come across as a silly little girl in love. Nobody wants that! Marusya was so sure that every girl in Natasha’s shoes would feel the same.

“I wonder why Tanya picked this book for me. Is it because she really liked it? Well it’s curious enough, but it ain’t Paganel, let me tell ya,” she talked to herself.

Or is it because Tanya had a crush on someone and it was her way to tell Marusya about it? Or… oh no… the hint of a guess hit her. Is it… is it because Tanya was so sure that Marusya had a crush on that physics teacher who left the school before Tanya got there?

Laying under the shade of her yellow flower tent, in the heat of summer, Marusya felt like all the blood in her body rushed to her cheeks. Now if someone saw her, they would probably sing something like “Your little face is like a pretty tomato in the garden…” So good nobody was around, only babushka’s old faithful mutt Sharik* with whom Marusya used to play as a kid – Sharik was jumping at her, sweeping the girl off her feet into the tall snowdrifts which surrounded the little country house from every side in the winter. Then they would giggle. All right, actually only Marusya would giggle, and Sharik would bark, but it sounded very much like giggle to little Marusya.

“Stop!” little Marusya would yell, laughing. “Do it again!”

And as Sharik jumped at her and she fell into the soft snow bank, babushka who later loved telling this story, could hear the same phrase mixed with laughter and barking over and over again:

“Stop! Do it again!”

 After Marusya started school, she did not visit babushka in the winter anymore. She only came to the far away little village for a month or so during her three month summer break each year. No more playing in the snow with Sharik, but the old fellow still remembered his play buddy, and loved hanging out with her in the vegetable garden, enjoying the shade of her sunflower kingdom.

*Sharik (Шарик) is a common name for mutts in Russia, can be translated as “balloon” or “little ball”.

Rise and Write 29-35

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Daily Sketches. #26 Train (Excerpt)

26

Write about a train. Did you ever traveled by train? If not, what do you think it would feel like? Write about a character who’s traveling by train if you prefer.

Trans Siberian Crush

Marusya curled up on the upper shelf of their train compartment, with Matveika sleeping on the other upper shelf, and their parents occupying the two lower shelves. Funny how they call these beds shelves, as if the passengers were nothing but stuff being neatly put away, so they don’t disturb the machinist, conductors and their important journey. Marusya’s thoughts were slipping away as the train went choo… choo… chooga chooga… choooo…. in a steady rhythm that seemed to be designed to make you sleepy. As her eye lids were getting heavy, vague memories of her very first journey with Matveika and their mom crept into her drowsy mind. Marusya had just turned seven and was about to begin school the following fall, as mom took the kids to visit their grandma in a far away land which by now is another country – babushka lived in Ukraine for a few brief years. They were also visiting the Black Sea and Crimea and all sorts of places with strange sounding names that Marusya had never heard before that trip, other than maybe occasionally in the national TV news which to her sounded just about the same as adult conversations in Peanut cartoons: "whua whua whua, whua whuaaaaa…"

There was something else Marusya encountered for the first time in her seven year old life on that journey – the weird, unfamiliar longing for someone she barely knew whom she'd met on that first train trip. He was 22, blond with blue eyes and a cheerful smile, tall, or at least he seemed so to Marusya, slender; and the two young conductors, students who took it as a seasonal job, brought him everything in doubles – two blankets instead of one, two spoons and two cups of tea. The cups looked exotic: glasses dressed in silver “jackets”, which seemed somehow to be in the Turkish manner, Marusya thought. “They do love you”, their talkative fellow traveler, a woman in her 60s, said out loud to the handsome young traveler. The woman who’d tell them funny stories from her life calling her husband grandpa, slept enviably deeply at night and produced the loudest noise Marusya had ever heard, and the 22 year old neighbor who slept on the upper shelf just above her, would look down, hanging above the snoring woman and Marusya, and say in a naughty voice, as a kid who knew he’d be told-off or even mildly punished if he ever was found for doing it, and yet dared to do it anyway, “Auntie, don’t snore... Auntieee...” And then they both giggled, and it was pure happiness. That pattern repeated both nights during which the cute neighbor shared their compartment, and then it was his city, his station, Marusya still remembered the name of it that seemed short and abrupt as she heard for the first time then - Omsk. In the same cheerful friendly manner, he took all his belongings and left the train, blending in with the busy train station crowd. Mom and the snoring auntie went out to buy some warm boiled potatoes wrapped in plastic bags and home made pickles which you could find on any big or little station along the Trans Siberian Railway.

“What happened? Did you fall down? Anything hurts?” asked mom when she came back, as tears went down Marusya’s cheeks. She only shook her head. Nothing was hurt. Her arms, knees, feet were all just fine. And yet after the cheerful traveler left, there, in her little heart, a big hole quickly formed. She had no idea what to do with the hole. She wanted to get off the train and run to the station to find him. She probably wouldn't know what to say or what to do if she'd found him, other than just stare at him with a happy gaze. He was 22 and married, and he lived in a city with an abrupt, unfriendly name Omsk which she did not know existed two days before. She was 7 and did not know that that big hole in her heart was something people have when they miss someone they love.

Rise and Write 22-28

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Daily Sketches. #23 Hair (Excerpt)

Pippi Longstocking Book-cover by Lev Tokmakov

23

Write about hair – either yours or a character you work on.

Marusya never liked her hair, or as she often would say, she hated it. Looking from a distance, you’re now probably as surprised as Marusya was when she grew up and looked back at herself, how much the word “hate” circulated between the girls of her age.

“How is school?”

“I hate school.”

“Isn’t math fun?”

“I hate math.”

“Do you like your classmates?”

“Hate ‘em.”

 “Oh such a sweet dress!”

“I hate it.”

Marusya did not start putting this thought together until one day one of her classmates said that another of her classmates said that she hated Marusya.

“What?! She what me?!”

“That’s what she said. ‘I just hate Marusya,’ she said.”

Marusya stopped breathing for a moment, feeling as though her face was burning – she always blushed easily. Never before had anyone told her that they hated her or knew someone who hated her. Hating school was one thing. It wasn’t personal. School was just some cold, official, faceless institution. Just a gray building with a bunch of rooms and corridors painted in a toxic green color (why schools and hospitals always pick such an unpleasant color?). All right, hating classmates was not especially a nice thing to say, but it also wasn’t personal, it was just all of them together, not each of them individually. “All” means a mass, a blob, it means nothing. But how on earth someone could say “I hate her, Marusya”?

Now, if Marusya was totally honest, she would tell that friend that she also hated that other girl. She even wrote it in her diary which she would never, ever want to show to anyone. But she did not say it, because that’s what diaries are for – to write any thought that entered your mind, and it did not have to be nice. Marusya knew her thoughts were not always nice, and she would never want to pretend that they were. But one thing was to think that thought and even write it down in your diary, and quite another to say it out loud to someone. To say it out loud almost felt like doing something not nice to that person. Or maybe wishing that you were doing something not nice to that person. And Marusya did not want to do something not nice to anyone, no matter what she’d write in her diary.

From that day on, Marusya was quite sure that it was not okay to hate anyone and was not sure it was okay to hate anything either. But she reserved her right to hate one thing – her own hair. Her hair was long and curly and tangled to the point when it was a nightmare to brush it. Grown-ups often would stop and tell her how pretty her hair was, but only grown-ups. Kids were teasing her as long as she could remember. As if having curly unmanageable hair that had a mind of its own was not enough to torcher Marusya, her hair was also copper red color, which ran in the family. Matveika got lucky, Marusya though. Yes, he got curls too, but his hair did not have to be long, and it was not hard to brush short hair – not as hard as her long curls anyway. But he also got a normal golden brown color that many kids have, with only a hint of copper in the bright sun. No one would think of teasing Matveika for having a hint of copper in his hair. People probably did not even notice that slight change of his hair color on a bright sunny day, when Matveika got straight sun rays on his head. Marusya got teased-at since childhood, when she’d ask her parents not to bring her to day care early in the morning and just let her stay at home which they couldn’t do of course since both of them were working, and Matveika went to school. Only on very rare occasions would her mom take Marusya to her work instead of day care – those were happy days. Mama’s students seemed to like Marusya, and no one called her “ryzhaya” (*) or “clown” as kids in the day care did. When mama’s students or grown-ups mentioned Marusya’s hair color, it always sounded like a compliment, not as an insult. She noticed that some women colored their hair in red color on purpose (something that blew her mind – why on earth anyone would want to be red haired, she’d never understand that). She made a little peace with her hair when she first read Pippi Longstocking. She was ten or something like that. For a while, she felt as empowered as Pippi, as if she could pick up a horse or a policeman with her arms. She’d imagine how one day she picked up the most annoying boys from her school and throw them in the air, and how their faces would get long and scared, and full of remorse, and how they’d land and run as fast as they could, looking back at Marusya with fear and even respect. The thought that she was somewhat similar to Pippi was comforting for the next couple of years, but now at twelve Marusya started being annoyed with her hair in a somewhat new light. She couldn’t say exactly what was going on, but somehow with all the body changes she experienced lately, having bright copper red hair became an issue again.

(*) “ryzhaya” means red haired (about a female), and “ryzhyi” – red haired about a male in Russian.

Rise and Write 22-28

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Daily Sketches. #19 Disappointment (Excerpt)

Pastry from my childhood (source)

I was on fire with writing today and wrote not only two sketches to catch up with the link-up, but also a sketch for tomorrow's topic, since I plan to be out all day tomorrow. Here it goes.

19

Write about a disappointment. Were you the one who felt it, or was it someone you cared about who was disappointed? How did it make you feel?

As the school year progressed, Tanya continued coming back to return books that she borrowed from Marusya’s home library and to find new books to read. It sort of became their weekly hang out, and Marusya was secretly pleased that she, though unintentionally, was able to brake her friend’s hermit habit to stay home after school. A few times, they even went to that little café Marusya was talking about. She now had more pocket money than she knew what to do with as she wrote a couple of more articles, and the sum she received in the mail was already over ten rubles which was about a tenth part of her mother’s modest monthly salary. Marusya eventually learned that it was not even nearly enough to purchase binoculars or a compass, not the real thing anyway, and she would have to write many, very many articles to get to the point when she would be able to afford them. It seemed way too much work and discipline – not the writing part, but the strategical savings part. She felt that she did not have any patience for that. So she decided to spend her earned money which was not called “salary”, by the way, but “royalties” as she learned from the editor. Royalties! It sounded way better than the more prosaic salary. Anyone could make a salary. Royalties sounded much more special and even extravagant. No one in her family ever had royalties, that Marusya knew for sure. She decided that it would be only right to spend her royalties in a royal way, so she invited Tanya for a little celebration in the café near their courtyard, just across the street, where both girls picked every pastry their hearts desired. Now that was a celebration!

"I just love this cafe, I will also bring Sara here," said Marusya. 
“What do you even find interesting about that Sara?” said Tanya, and Marusya detected a trace of hurt feelings in her voice.

Tanya was jealous. Obviously, she was, even though she did not want to admit it no matter how hard Marusya tried to get her to admit it.

“You just don’t like her because I like her.”

“It’s not true, Marusya. Say that you don’t actually think that.”

Marusya felt bad that she had poked at her friend’s feelings.

“Sorry. I did not meant it, of course. I’m just teasing.”

It was partly the truth, at least as much as Marusya was able to be truthful at this moment, finding herself in this strange triangular situation.

“But how can you even decide that you don’t like someone if you have never met the person?”

“I saw her. She was in the grocery store the other day.”

“You did not tell me about that.”

“Well you just keep going on and on about her, I felt like it was pointless.”

“So what did you see?”

Tanya moved her mouth left to right, and left again – she always did that when she felt unsure of herself, but at the same time unable to keep silent about whatever bugged her.

“Tanya?”

“Well, it’s just that she is so proud …”

“How is that a bad thing? Why does everyone tell us that pride is something to be avoided by any means?”

Marusya felt annoyed with her friend who seemed to be much less progressive thinking than Marusya expected of her. How can you read all those books and not realize that the world is moved forward by self-confident people?

A long pause hung in the air, and the pastries suddenly tasted sour.

“I’m sorry, Tanya. I did not mean to snap at you. It’s just that self-confidence is a good thing. Don’t you see it? If I was not self-confident even just a little bit, I would never be able to submit my articles to the newspaper. And now look, I’ve published three of them, and it is not the end – it’s only a beginning.”

“I know, Marusya. I really like it that you write your articles. You are very good with words, and you have a lot to say. I admire you. I wish I could be more like you.”

That was something Marusya never expected to hear from anyone, and especially from her best friend. So while Marusya was looking up to Sara, Tanya was looking up to her, Marusya? Really?

“Really, I mean it. And about Sara… I understand that she is fun and very creative. I believe you. I read her articles, and I agree – she has a gift. She is also a good writer.”

“Then what bothers you?”

“I think you are right about the self-confidence thing. But Sara seems not simply confident, but rather overly pleased with herself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Marusya, you are so naïve sometimes,” said Tanya shaking her head, as if suddenly she became ten, or even twenty years older and had all the wisdom of the world at her disposal.

Marusya hated when people called her naïve. What did it even mean? Did it mean she was stupid? But obviously, she was not. She was one of the best students in her class and got the advanced assignments at math tests. They wouldn’t give her the most difficult tasks to solve if she was stupid. And yet, people called her naïve, and nobody calls Matveika naïve, or even Tanya – Marusya has never heard that someone sighed and said about her friend, “Oh she is so naïve.” And Tanya was barely able to pass regular math tests.

The next day Marusya met with her new friend Sara whom she met at the weekly youth journalists meetings. She still had some royalties left, so she figured she’d treat Sara to a pastry in the little café.

“Mmm, try this one, Marusya!”

“Yeah, this is one of my favorite too.”

They let each other bite into each other’s pastries and cakes and giggled. Marusya seemed to giggle a lot when she was with Sara. Unlike when she was with Tanya, they did not discuss such delicate matters as self-confidence or jealousy. Sara traveled all over the country and even visited a couple of foreign countries. She knew so many stories and knew how to tell them in a very engaging way. Sara often seemed older than she actually was. She was tall too, and looked and behaved differently from other girls of her age – more mature, more experienced, and definitely more confident.

“Did you finish your next article, Marusya?”

“I almost did. I think I’ll probably take another week to write that one. I feel it needs time. I’m really nervous about it. It’s kind of personal. It means a lot to me.”

“Well, I completed mine and am ready to submit it tomorrow.”

Marusya thought about what Tanya said earlier – at this moment, Sara sure looked very pleased with herself.

***

“I never want to be a writer! Never! Ever!”

Marusya cried out loud as soon as she entered her apartment. The folder with her writing notebook and pens flew in the air and fell on the floor as a star fall of pens, pencils, erasers and dozens of other small objects that can be found in any twelve year old girl’s folder.

“What happened? Don’t scare us,” said mama.

“I thought we were friends! I thought she was my friend!”

“Who? Tanya?”

“No, not Tanya, mama – Sara!”

“Well, what happened, can you just calm down and tell us what happened?” mama held her shoulders and walked her to the sofa in the living room.

“Misha, bring her a glass of water,” she commanded to Marusya’s dad.

Surrounded by her parents and familiar things in the small, but cozy living room, Marusya calmed down, stopped crying, and only her shoulders shivered a little. She had a full glass of water before she was able to tell what happened to her that memorable day. Here is the story Marusya told her family.

Apparently, Marusya was working on a piece that was especially dear to her. She was writing about being a girl who had to go to school every day, wear a uniform and basically pretend that she is someone else all day long, day after day. She was writing about school teachers, even though they were mostly nice people, who probably have families and kids of their own, but who don’t usually seem to be interested in what they were teaching, and sometimes would just ask students to read pages of the text book in a classroom, and then complete a test, and that was all. Marusya felt like something was missing in most of her school days, and she knew that it had something to do with the physics teacher in the beginning of the school year who left so abruptly, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it yet. So she shared her thoughts with her new friend who seemed to be such a bright girl and a really good writer, and also had an original perspective on things because she traveled a lot and lived in a few other cities. Her friend seemed to be very interesting in Marusya’s ideas and complimented her on them. She seemed to be sincere, you know, like a true friend. Yet when Marusya told her that she would take an additional week to complete her new article, the first thing she had done was run with Marusya’s ideas, writing an article in which she exposed all the thoughts Marusya discussed with her, as though they were her own. She did it well, oh yes, she did it so well that the editor immediately accepted her submission and even was talking about awarding Sara as a rising star of their youth journalists group.

“What did you say? Did you say anything?” asked papa.

“I did not. I could not. I was just… so shocked,” said Marusya, and her voice trembled a bit. A few teardrops rushed down her cheeks.

“Go to bed, little one,” said mama. “Things always look brighter in the morning.”

Marusya couldn’t sleep that night. She tossed and turned, and cried a bit more. And when the morning arrived, things did not start looking brighter. Her family was already out – both mama and papa left at seven, when she was just waking up. Matveika got up as late as he could, usually when Marusya was out the door.

On the way to school, she couldn’t help but telling all that happened the night before to Tanya.

“I guess you were right about Sara. She actually did look really pleased with herself.”

“Did she say anything?” asked Tanya, settling eyeglasses on her nose.

“Not really. Nothing significant anyway.”

“And you?”

“No, I didn’t say anything.”

They paused.

“I don’t think I’ll ever want to write again,” said Marusya.

“Don’t be silly,” said Tanya. “Maybe you’ll never write for the youth journalist group. But you sure have more than enough to write about friendship, and honesty, and self-confidence.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your idea was great, Marusya. It was so great that not only did Sara steal it from you, but the editor wanted to award it.”

“I guess… I did not think about it this way.”

“And there is something else too.”

“What?”

Tanya fiddled with her glasses frame again.

“Now you are nobody’s fool.”

Rise and Write 15-21

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Daily Sketches. #17 First Money (Excerpt)

Sosnovoborsk, my home town, in early 1980s (source)

It actually could be a view from my apartment window, though I found this photo online.

17

Write about the first money you earned. Was it for a chore you did for your family, or you got a job outside of home? Was it for something you enjoyed doing? Remember the moment when you held money (or a check) in your hands for the first time. How did it make you feel?

Marusya was sitting on the wooden stool in the kitchen, sipping tea which was rapidly becoming barely warm, with an open book on the table in front of her. If mama was around, Marusya would now hear something like “Marusya, put your feet down, it’s not good for your blood circulation to sit like this.” Marusya remembered about the blood circulation, but still it felt so comfortable to tuck her legs under on a slightly wobbly wooden stool, and since mama was still at work, Marusya did not change her position.

She was not in her kitchen anyway – she was somewhere in the jungles of exotic Patagonia which sounded as fun as the name of the explorer with whom she traveled, Jacques Paganel. Tropical birds, big, colorful and loud, were singing above her and Paganel’s heads. Tropical rainforest, thick and whimsical, hung above her and Paganel. Tropical rain, a heavy downpour, was all over her and Paganel’s bodies. But none of that stopped them from going further and further in their exploration of Patagonia.

A ring at the apartment entrance took Marusya out of the dreamy state. It was Tanya – she came back to return the books she got from Marusya’s home library a couple of days ago.

“You read them already? So fast?”

“Yes, they were great. May I borrow something else?”

“Sure.”

Marusya was so surprised with her friend’s reading abilities, but she hadn’t even noticed that she was half way through the thick tome in two days herself.

“I was thinking,” she said when Tanya decided on her next reading selection. “That would be so fun to become a writer. Can you imagine how fun that would be?”

“I guess,” said Tanya hesitantly.

“Hey, we could write a book together,” Marusya continued her daydreaming. “Let’s write about Paganel. Have you read about Paganel? We could write about his next adventure that happened after the captain Grant’s one.”

“Erm…”

“He could visit other continents and work on a research project…”

“Hmm…”

“We’ll write a book and get it published. I’m sure we’ll get famous. What do you think?”

Tanya seemed too busy settling her eyeglasses on her nose. How she reminded Marusya of Paganel now, with this uncertain look on her face.

“Maybe you can write something for a newspaper? I saw some kids write little articles and get published in Pionerskaya Pravda.” (*)

“Yeah, I guess. But they won’t publish about Paganel.”

“Or you can try to submit your articles to the local newspaper first.”

“Rabochiy?” (**)

“Yes, I guess.”

“But they won’t publish a story about Paganel. Although, I saw some stories and poems in it. Even our literature teacher sometimes publishes her poems there.”

“Well, maybe you can write about something related to school life.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Like how kids do recycling, or something like that.”

Marusya was disappointed. Clearly, writing about recycling was much less exciting an idea compared to writing about the adventures of an explorer by the name Paganel. What Tanya was thinking? Who of the writers she loves to read would ever write about recycling?

But the thought stuck in Marusya’s head, and after a conversation with her family (she always talked things over with them, if the topics were not too personal or embarrassing of course) she showed up at the first meeting of youth journalists at the local newspaper Rabochiy, just like Tanya suggested.

The meeting went well, though they did not discuss anything especially interesting. There were a couple of other girls from Marusya’s school and a girl from another school, she was the same age as Marusya and seemed a creative type, so Marusya watched her the whole hour during the meeting. Of course, she tried to watch her in a way that wouldn’t be noticeable. Like she would doodle in her notebook and look down the whole time, only glanced at the girl a few times when she was busy writing some clever thoughts. Really, what was so clever at that first meeting to be worth writing down, Marusya couldn’t say. Maybe it’s even good that Tanya found an excuse to not come with Marusya.

“I’m not a writer, you see,” she’d tell Marusya. “I love reading, but when I need to come up with my own story or essay, I never know what to write.”

That was strange, Marusya thought. She wrote without even thinking. It was like a separate little channel was working inside of her, and she did not need to put much effort into it, other than just letting this channel run through her fingers. She wrote a few stories and poems as a child, and her essays were always considered the best in school and were read in front of her class and even other classes, which made her blush. She thought that writing was the easiest thing on earth, and assumed that everyone felt that way. But honestly, Tanya was right to not come to this meeting. The newspaper editor asked them some questions which had nothing to do with writing, Marusya thought. But she’d never be as rude or as brave as to actually say so. So when they discussed the meaning of the word “okay”, Marusya said that it just means “not too bad, but not especially good either” – at least that’s how everyone she knew used this word. “How are you?” – “Okay I guess.” She’d hear it often from others, and even said it herself on a few occasions. Okay means I’m not even sure if I am okay.

“No,” the editor said. “Think harder.”

Another girl from Marusya’s school, who she never especially liked, said that “okay” means “well”.

“Yes,” the editor said. “Okay means well, good, all correct.”

Marusya snorted, but only in her imagination.

Anyway, that was the sort of stuff they discussed in their first meeting, and Marusya was even glad that Tanya did not come. She would definitely be disappointed with this meeting. It was nothing like a meeting of writers, real writers.

“But it wasn’t a writer’s meeting, Marusya,” said Tanya when the friends were walking to school the next morning. “It was a youth journalists’ meeting, remember?”

All right, all right. Tanya was right, as usual.

So little by little Marusya decided to stick with their meetings and started thinking about words in a new light. Maybe the editor was right about the word “okay” after all. Maybe it was intended to mean “well” or “good”, but in real life people started giving it a slightly different meaning. Maybe they both were right.

After the second meeting Marusya submitted her very first article. Tanya had been spot on when she had suggested writing about something related to school life. The topic of recycling came up during that second meeting, and the two girls from their school had decided to write about it. Phew! At least Marusya would not get stuck with such a dull writing assignment.

“And what would you want to write about, Marusya?” the editor asked her.

The woman had a friendly face and voice, but Marusya still felt a bit intimidated by her.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, think about it, and we can discuss it in our next meeting.”

But there was no need to discuss her possible topic because when Marusya came back home, she closed the door in her brother’s room (who was four years older and got his own room by now, while Marusya could only use his desk to prepare her homework, and then slept on the sofa in the living room after all) and started writing.

She wrote about something that had happened in her literature class that had bothered her. A few boys, those who don’t study very well and didn’t behave very well (you know the type) had made their teacher cry. Right there in the classroom, they had actually made the poor old lady cry. They probably had not intended to. They probably were just fooling around and teasing her just because she looked so easy to tease, with light yellow curls framing her little head. Marusya was not surprised at all when she had read her teacher’s poems in the local newspaper and found out that she loved nature and Pushkin, and that she had some romantic feelings, probably a long time ago in her youth when she had not needed to bleach her curls because they were naturally blond. Her lessons never were particularly interesting, but to have made this sweet lady so frustrated, to the point when she could not reason with the students, but could only cry quietly ... this was something Marusya couldn’t get out of her mind for the past week. So she wrote about all the events and her thoughts about them and submitted the manuscript as her first article.

The editor liked Marusya’s article and said that it would come out in the newspaper the following  week.

Marusya did not read newspapers. She never was really interested in them, and she did not feel the need to stay informed, like her father would say. When she came to school the day after the newspaper with her article came out, she secretly hoped that nobody would read the newspaper anyway, because the thought that they would read it, and know her thoughts, and probably hate what she had written and hate her too – that thought was unbearable.

But to her surprise, girls from her class, those girls that you’d call popular girls (you know the type) actually did read the article, and not only did they not hate it, they actually felt proud of her.

“Good job, Marusya!”

“We’ll show them!”

“Write more!”

They came to her, those girls who usually did not even notice her existence, or so it seemed, and thanked her for her article. And the boys did not seem to hate her either. And the teachers. And the school principal. Everyone came to her to say that she had done a great job and that she should write more.

But what was even less expected, (though really, it would be difficult to say what was less expected in this story) was that later in that same week, Marusya got an envelope in the mail box, which she checked almost automatically every day on the way home from school. In the envelope, she found a mail order in her name. 3 rubles and 52 kopeks. She would have to go to a post office to cash it. Her very first earned money. More pocket money than she had ever had in her life. It was just weird. But good weird. She wondered what she could buy with this money. Would it be enough to buy binoculars, for instance? Or a compass? A real one, something that Paganel would use on his trip to Patagonia.

(*) Pionerskaya Pravda (The Pioneer’s Truth) used to be a national newspaper for youth in the USSR.

(**) Rabochiy (The Worker) was a typical name for local newspapers in the USSR.

 

Rise and Write 15-21

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Daily Sketches. #16 School Friend (Excerpt)

A brilliant Estonian actor Lembit Ulfsak as Paganel 

in the Soviet movie In Search of Captain Grant (1986)

16

Write about a friend from your school years. How did you meet? What attracted you to this person? What did you enjoy to do together? Do you think he/she affected your personality in a significant way? Do you still keep in touch?

If you prefer, write about your character (remember that you always have this option).

Marusya was sitting at her school desk – her thoughts were far away from the boring weekly physics lesson. When the physics class first started early in September, she was looking forward to the lessons. The teacher, a quiet and rather serious man, not only talked about the science, but showed them all sorts of experiments, in which they could participate and even get assignments at home to perform their own experiments and write the results down in a newly bought thick notebook. After a rather dull previous school year, the sixth grade started looking promising. At home, Marusya would ask her older brother Matveika to help her with the assignments. Truth be told, he never had to be asked twice – he was rather into physics himself, and also enjoyed the new science teacher lessons a lot. So the siblings would go into the kitchen in their small apartment, while their parents were still at work, and do the assignment as if it was a sacrament – they felt like both scientists and wizards at the same time.

It was in about two months later when Marusya and her classmates came to their physics class and discovered that there was another teacher, a plump lady with a confident and slightly naughty grin on her face, who apparently had just came back from her maternity leave and would be permanently replacing the old teacher. What happened to him, nobody really understood from her vague explanation. But ever since that day, Marusya found herself indifferent to physics and spent more time looking through the class window, "counting the crows" as teachers would say about daydreaming kids. Marusya did not really count the crows, but thought that life outside the window was way more interesting than what was happening in the classroom.

“Do you mind if I sit with you?”

She suddenly heard a voice that did not seem familiar.

“Sure, be my guest.”

“I am Tanya. We just moved here from another town, my mom and my little sister. Mom got a divorce.”

Marusya was surprised by the amount of details Tanya was willing to share with her, and looked at her new neighbor and, apparently, a classmate, with curiosity.

Soon they found that they both were equally indifferent to the physics. Tanya couldn’t even believe that physics lessons had any potential to be interesting, and the stories of the quiet experimenter evoked a sincere surprise in her.

The girls were not only neighbors in their classroom, they also lived in the same apartments building, two doorways apart, so they naturally started coming to school and coming back home together. Their off-school time was not as straightforward as it might have seemed. You see, it was in those strange Soviet times when not every household could have a telephone. To get an opportunity to install a telephone in their apartment, Marusya’s family’s name was placed in a long waiting list that did not seem to move for years. Tanya’s family got lucky. When they exchanged their bigger apartment in another town for two smaller apartments, one in the same old city where Tanya’s father, or as she often called him, “mom’s husband” stayed, and the apartment in Marusya’s town where Tanya moved in (“Mom needed a new start”, Tanya would explain), the apartment already had phone outlet and a number assigned to it, so the new-in-town family got it without a wicked waiting list. But it does not help communication to have a phone on one side, and not on the other, does it? So whenever the girls wanted to hang out together, as they as well as other kids in their class called it, they had to go outside, pass a couple of doorways which separated their apartments, and ring each other’s door. Honestly, most of the times, it was Marusya who would ring Tanya’s door. Tanya was usually alone at home with her younger sister – their mom worked many hours, just like Marusya’s parents. Marusya, being the more outgoing of the two girls, often would invite Tanya to go outside, hang out in the courtyard or go to a nearby café to buy pastry which she could afford with her pocket money.

Tanya almost always preferred to stay home and read books. That’s was something unusual, Marousya thought. Not that she did not like books. Yes, she also loved books, but you know – particular books, like the stories from her childhood, fairy tales mostly. Tanya’s love of books was not particular – it was universal. Marusya thought that Tanya rather loved letters than books – if there were letters on anything, Tanya would read them. Sometimes they were in books, and other times in newspapers, or even on boxes with tea or cereal.

Marusya would never go as far as reading newspapers, that was just way too boring and she left it to her dad who liked to say that he needed to stay informed. Informed about what? That Marusya did not know, and dad did not explain it either. Matveika also did not show much interest in newspapers or being informed, but he loved reading books, and as both of their parents were avid readers, they collected a rather vast home library. Marusya did not used to pay much attention to the shelves and bookcases jammed with books, thinking they were all meant for adults, much like the books they had to read for their literature class during the school year, and the summer must-read lists their teacher provided at the end of every school year. One word for those stories? Bo-ring!

But when Tanya once finally visited Marusya’s apartment, she was taken with the bookshelves that seemed almost endless.

“These are… yours?”

“Yep.”

“What… all of them?”

“Yep.”

“WOW!”

Tanya then spent almost the entire visit staring at the bookcases, as if she was trying to memorize all the titles and authors’ names.

“Take something home if you wish,” Marusya said when Tanya was ready to leave.

“Really? May I?”

“Sure.”

Tanya picked a couple of books off the shelf nearest to the apartment entrance, thanked her new friend and left rather hastily.

Marusya stayed there by the entrance which her friend just left for a little while. Then she turned around, looked at all the books that were filling the entire wall, floor to ceiling, of the narrow corridor. Her father made those book shelves out of some left over wood from his building project – they got a little land in the country side and were planning to raise a vegetable garden and build a little house, as many of the people they knew had. Some boards were way too short or too thin to use in construction, so dad used them for building shelves for their collection of books. Matveika was helping dad, and Marusya as always enjoyed watching their work and asking lots of questions. Those shelves were just that to her – the wooden shelves her dad and brother made with their hands. But that very moment, when Tanya left in a hurry, holding a couple of books close to her heart, with a happy hazy smile on her face, or maybe even a moment before that, something shifted in Marusya. She wouldn’t be able to say what exactly happened that moment. But for the first time in her life, she turned to the wall of books and saw them as an unknown, intriguing and desirable world. She had this tingling in her chest that she got when she was about to do one of the physics experiment earlier that school year – the anticipation of something new, something that only she can experience and explain, as if the entire science of physics existed for Marusya alone. The books suddenly promised to speak that same secret language to her.

“Matveika,” she yelled.

“What?”

“So what was that book about Paganel you told me about?”

“Oh that is a good one,” her father answered for Matveika.

“Which one is it?”

“The Children of Captain Grant,” (*) yelled Matveika from another room. “It’s on the third upper shelf to the right.”

“Five hundred pages,” Marusya felt a bit intimidated by the thick tome with yellow pages, but somehow the book felt friendly at the same time. Maybe it was in the name. Paganel? She always thought that he must be a fun fellow.

(*) the Russian name of the famous Les Enfatnts du capitaine Grant by the French writer Jules Vern, a novel known as In Search of the Castaways in English.

PS Marusya and Matveika are the characters from a story (potentially a novel) I wrote in Russian a few years ago - that is why I call it "excerpt". This is a newly written piece (I wrote it in about 1 hour today), and for the first time I wrote about my characters in English.

Rise and Write 15-21

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