In the Eyes of the Wise

I have been chasing footsteps in London this summer: a city bright with excitement, sparkling with the glint of medals, more cheerful and upbeat than I’ve known her for a long while. Even those of us who didn’t attend the Games felt that we had somehow been a part of it all. We all caught a glimpse of the Gold. We were all brushed briefly with the majesty of the power of human achievement. It’s everywhere in a myriad of ways if you’re looking, but sportspeople show it so clearly; in the tension of muscle and sinew, in the brimming eyefull of pride beneath the flag.

I took a journey to see an old friend. An aunt whose light step and easy laughter lit up magical moments in my childhood: a string of bright beads across time. She is an octogenarian now, another amazing human achievement (a gold medal for living). Stepping out of the car I breathed in the sharp edge of the salt air. There is nothing that can bring you home faster than the smell of the sea. ‘A long journey’, I said to myself as I stretched my limbs back into shape; but anywhere in England is a long journey for me now. My dance with my homeland has changed in so many ways. I was feeling for a familiar step, the link of inner rhythm to the breath of the waves, but could not fall in with it. Out of practise. The gulls laughed as we walked down to my aunt’s house.

When she answered the door she was singing and her eyes flashed a brilliant conspiracy of friendship. My aunt’s eyes twinkle as if with secrets so secret that even she doesn’t know what they are. She’s seen a lot of life in all these years, and her stories still sparkle with it all even now. Talking with her that sunwashed afternoon was a deep and rare pleasure: an inspiring affirmation of living life’s promises and surviving its betrayals. Why is it that there is never enough time?

Flying back to Russia I thought about the other wise women in my life, the pleasure of their company and their subtle and powerful teaching. I began to think again about eyes (I’ve done this a lot recently). I thought of my aunt’s shining, sea-coloured eyes, much creased with laughter. Then my inner eye turned back towards the hospital in Moscow: the Cyclops ward. There we all were, patched up and stumbling, learning to see differently, peering at one another with the good one; sitting, talking, listening. Here I met my Russian wise woman who taught me and healed me with her quiet dignity and peaceful presence. She told me stories of her childhood, and I will never forget how her eyes filled with tears as she spoke of the hunger that they lived with in Stalin’s Russia after the war.

All those years ago.

Time Travel

The metro again. At this time of day it is a ceaseless stream of tired, sagging people who yawn and sway, rattling slowly beneath the streets of Moscow, home to their families perhaps. A spark leaps out of this ashen wash of indistinct faces, and suddenly I have caught an eye. This woman is different.

She peeps from beneath the broad brim of an enormous hat, held in place by a wide silk bow. She has to lift her chin high from time to time to see out. Glancing about her, fascinated and furtive, she seems to be seeing everything for the first time. She looks a little anxious, but amused.

A shawl is draped over her coat: soft, dark green and elaborate, its folds arranged as if she were sitting for an artist who has achieved the perfect arrangement for an exercise in painting in oils. Her posture is unusual, as though trying not to disturb the flow of fabric, while holding her body still against the motion of the train. As if she were being painted. Did she slip out of the studio, (several decades ago) pop out for a coffee and find herself, strangely, sitting on a metro train to Sokol? I imagine that all time travellers have that dazed look about them: it makes me smile. She is an unpainted portrait.

An extraordinary face. Cheek bones that arch with regal curves; a long, Roman nose and a full mouth painted a bright and incongruous red. She is not young, certainly she’s over sixty. But she’s older than that too: a nineteenth century face looking in amused bewilderment at a twenty-first century world.

Still Snowing

I wake to find that Spring was only teasing yesterday. That bright scent in the air, the sunshine (taking off gloves and hat for the first time) had all been a mere flirtation. Today winter is back to whisper in our ears lest we forget, whitening the branches of trees all over again.

I make my way through fresh slush towards the metro station. A woman is standing to the side of the pavement holding a cardboard sign. It says she is hungry. She stands rigid in the gentle snow, a scarf tied beneath her chin, covering her head which is tilted towards her right shoulder at precisely the correct angle to elicit pity from anybody who might look in her direction.

Her right shoulder is slightly raised, lifted just the tiniest shade towards her leaning head, as if between the two some invisible embrace exists, holding her up, and a disembodied voice breathes words which she can barely hear; impossible to tell if they are words of hope, despair or resignation. She even looks comfortable in that position. Snow is building up in little piles on the shoulders of her coat, as on the eaves of houses. Her eyelashes are collecting silent snowflakes.

Upon my return, she is standing in the same place, her body in exactly the same position. She has refined this posture over time. Who knows how long? A small, sharp wind flicks a flurry of snow from the plastic cover of a nearby newspaper stand and blows it over her. Although the sky is clear elsewhere, in her small corner where she stands, perfectly still, it is still snowing.

Hot on Her Heels

This gallery contains 5 photos.

FOOTSTEP ONE: My own feet pad softly on the dusty street. The footsteps I am tracking are heard but not seen. Behind me sharp heels ring out on the hard pavement and while I wait for her to pass me, … Continue reading →

Home from Home

“Are you going home for the summer?” a colleague asked me.

A perfectly innocent question, but difficult to answer, because of the word ‘home’. After a small hesitation, I replied that my family and I are going to England for a month. Shifts in language and changes in vocabulary are significant in relation to changes of thought, feeling and cultural position. I suppose this means that I have begun to truly consider Russia as home. That’s a huge idea to hide within a four letter word.

Shortly afterwards, I was invited onto Sam Gerran’s radio show ‘Home from Home’, in which he interviews foreign expats living in Moscow about their lives in Russia. He has his own fascinating stories to tell, and I wish I had managed to get around to asking him if he considers himself Russian now. I wonder if a foreigner ever truly feels a part of the country he or she is now living in?

Our conversation is here – Home from Home at Voice of Russia:
Home from Home: Sam Gerrans talking with Sarah Semyanik

If you listen and you like it, please add your vote – just below the link there’s a click to be clicked. And if you are an expat, and do (or don’t) know where Home is now, I’m really interested in your comment here on this post; please feel free to leave one.

Seeing Eye to Eye

This gallery contains 1 photo.

Perhaps we never truly know people until we lie next to them in bed? Or in other words, if you really want to get to know Russian people, spend a night in a Moscow hospital and sleep alongside them. There … Continue reading →