Russia, kitchen tables, and gratitude

Usually when people ask what I studied in college, I say “Russian,” even though I double majored in Russian and Comparative Literature (or, as I delighted in calling it when I was 20, “Cliterature”).  If I admit to my literature degree, people ask if I’ve read Anna Karenina, or what I think of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s magical realism, and I’m forced to admit that I am poorly read and lack critical thinking skills.  But people generally don’t know anything about Russian, and I enjoy appearing impressive, so I stick with the short story.

Like a lot of college students, I studied abroad during my Junior year.  I flew to Russia in January, because if you’re going to live in Russia you might as well see some real winter.  After I landed in the country that had almost killed me 5 years before (see, Anaphylaxis: a severe allergic reaction), I walked out of customs to a swarm of sneering taxi drivers.  I was supposed to see a man named Andrei holding a sign with my name, but I didn’t.  I still remember his name was “Andrei” because I sat on my suitcase for a whole hour, fending off taxi drivers and chanting his name as if I could will him to appear.

Andrei finally showed up carrying a sign that said “Kristin Kachison,” which was a good attempt at my then last name, Hutchison.  A for effort, Andrei!  Or if you want Russian grades, 5 for effort.  Except Russians don’t grade their children on effort, only performance.  You fail!

Andrei drove me to the small city where I would live for the next 6 months, and delivered me to the apartment door of my host family.  I had my own bedroom, and there was a good sized living room.  But I was to spend most of my time in the smallest room: the kitchen.

My mom once wrote an essay, after my grandma died, about kitchen tables.  She said that women’s lives center around kitchen tables: big ones, like the one I grew up with in Portland; or small ones, as my mom remembered from her childhood in a Brooklyn apartment.  Being a knowledgeable and righteous 15-year-old, I told her that was ancient and unfeminist.

But then I logged, oh gosh, probably over 400 hours on that tiny, yellowed, plastic-covered table that was crammed against the only free wall in a cramped Russian kitchen.  I would drink tea while my restless host mom cooked and sighed and listened to me “practice my Russian.”  Which meant I sat and complained about the language.  But at least I complained in Russian.

Every once in a while she’d look over the top of her glasses at me and raise her eyebrows, and I thought I might be in trouble.  But I came to learn that look meant something like, “This is life, girl.  Choose your response.”  It was the look she gave me on her birthday, when I came home and asked where her husband was.  She raised her eyebrows slowly so her glasses slid down her nose, looked at me over the rims, and said, “He… celebrated… my birthday all day at work, and now he’s lying down ill.”

This is life, girl.  Choose your response. That look bore so much love and sadness.

One of the best days in my life was on my 3rd trip to Russia, last year.  I walked the old route to my school and thought about how many people had loved and sheltered that wide-eyed 20-year-old Christine.  My host mom.  The American missionary who invited me to live with her, even though I never cleaned anything.  The Russian teachers who couldn’t live off their salaries yet delighted in their students.  The other wide-eyed 20-year-old girl in the English class that I visited, who raised her hand and said carefully, “I would like… to meet you… to drink coffee and talk.”  She ended up coming to my wedding four years later.

I like to think that one of the best days of my life was characterized by gratitude.  As I left on the train later that night, I was overwhelmed with it.