I am Columbus! Russian Girl In America

Russian girl's first year of immigration in America.

The source of the river. In accordance with life you settle down on the new place, it becomes harder
and harder to force yourself to make notches for the memory… There passed a year from the time
we came to the US. It looks like the human thoughts structured from the chaos of emotions and
reminiscences make the writings, as well as small mollusk, suffering from the sand drop inside its
shell, make pearl from it…

The times of the paper from the beach trees dates back in centuries. And even the beginning of my
carrier in journalism in Moldova at the end of 1980-th with the typing texts on the printing machines is
now also what the far past! But I am not old yet. I am only 36. But how many things are squeezed
and compressed in this thirty-six. The first, warmest reminiscences of acknowledging myself while I
was five years old child, sitting on the couch and mother explained to me where is the left and where
is the right hand. Right is this, which is next to the door; it means that the left is that is next to the
window. The flat was small, tiny room with the kitchen in the hostel. And as soon as I learn how to
be oriented in the space of my sprawled hands (may be even in those times in order to hug all the
world) we relocated. Because our father got our own new flat from the tractor factory he worked in. I
am five and a half years old in those days…

I clearly remember how we walked for ten minutes after the final stop of trolley bus towards the new
house (now there is in fact the center of the huge district with such wild traffic!) And those past days
we climbed for long into the emptiness of the hill, where now are growing the sky scrapers, through
the waste grounds, which in those days you can hardly called the street (now there is the suffocation
of the mini markets and the human fuss near the new entertainment center) far and far up to the
house with the big hole for the new building in front of it (oh, God, how many childish unforgettable
games were played on this building development!) toward our gate, in front of which nothing grew.
Now there towered with the same high as my five stores house the poplars of pyramid’s shape.
Really our is only what we gave back, what does not belongs to us any more, that’s why I am saying
now “my” house. I am with some unusual childish intuition remember, that I throw back my head and
as if something stitched me: this window in the forth floor will be ours, as if somebody said this to
me… Later it happened in reality. And we settled with the parents into the new nice two bedrooms in
the five-store building…

It will be later when in our life will appear my brother, the parents will brought him from the maternity
house while I will be already seven, and I was rooted to the spot and putting my hand into my sides
with the master’s intonations in voice will say, opening the door to them: “I knew for sure he would
cry!”

And then will walked and run years of my childhood, when I was studying in English school, was
trained in musical school, took care about clean in apartment and helped my mother to baby-sit the
brother. And this way will flew by the whole decade…

The red, middle line. And there I am 17 years old girl with the bag in my hands and the father in the
role of escort, settling down into the student’s hostel of Moscow State University, which I had luck to
enter as soon as I graduated the high school with golden medal (highest reward). I am watching the
walls of this “new” house, where I need to live the closest five years, along those walls are running
the small bug-crouched with big mustache and thinking with disgust: “Probably, after the graduation
the student populations have only one desire – to return home as soon as possible!”

I did not want to return back home after I graduated - I wonder why? But I had nowhere to go, any
case. I was 22 and I was alone as this from famous movie “the poplar of the Pluchiha Street”. My
university love with the marriage consequences did not succeed, because my boyfriend was like
worker who operated several machines (girls) simultaneously. And from no escape (alas, there was
no new big destiny for me in Moscow or somewhere else in Russia, although I loved Siberian, from
the heart of this land!) as a compromise with my own morality I returned back home, to Moldova, to
my parent’s oven.

And there started my new working life. Moscow holidays, which I was gifted by so generous in all its
historical and cultural variety, were ended. Now I had only never ending business trips as a
representative of the republican newspaper to the small counties and villages, where readers of
periodical lived, thorough work on improving the style and literary language of journalist, overcame the
intrigues of much more adult colleges from professional department – oh, with what only I was not
faced in this new for me year 1988! After year and a half, already got my hand in journalistic, I
jumped into the marriage like a bird of passage. Probably, many of those who now is still working in
the Moldovan Press House remembered this much talked-of case. Or may be it only seemed to me
that it was notorious affair?

We could stood it with him only for the couple of years, while our daughter was born and got on her
own feet. He was completely useless creature in the house, because from 6 o’clock morning till 12
midnights he spent in his newspaper. I once decided that even if I could kept him as a lover, he had
no chances to be any longer my husband, and collecting my staff and participating before leaving in
the prestige CIS competition “Miss Journalistic” in Moscow, I returned back to my parent’s house,
where already the whole year was widowed my father (my mother, alas, passed away prematurely,
untimely)…

There start new drab routine and new weekdays. Year 1992. The Soviet Union already collapsed, and
I was left in the small nationalistic republic with the impoverished economy. I need to learn those
days how not only to live myself, but how to survive together with my daughter Anastasia, how to
grow her, on what to upkeep. I had no other helpers in those days. Of course, even now I want to
miss from my description this the dullest part of my story of resistance and overcoming the life and
its troubles. I want to say only that as some people tell on the East: “The way you measure, you will
be measured” and “all that the God wants you to pass, you’ll make”, because we are facing only
those tasks, which we are able to handle.

Now, when I overview the events of the past days from the distance of decade, I still can hardly
understand: whether I did it? Whether overcame? And in my words – there is no sadness, no joy and
no anger – just emptiness. As if the protest from the strange ingredient inside my body. It was I. But
already not I. It was somebody I knew. And who passed this entire not childish road, all this adult
way.

I am, sitting now in the warmth of American comfort, which was not arranged by me, can afford this
luxury – reminiscences. A lot of those who were left over there, in my past, and still rolls like the
squirrels the circle-go-round could not allow the same: the lushness of memories, the splendor of
denial, the magnificence of security and comfort. I will say only one thing: I do not need the
attractions, which will freeze the soul, I do not need extreme tourism – I had all these before, over
there. This initiation, this reincarnation. And I do not want back - alas to those who still love me.
Even if I would be rewarded by free (usually such expensive) round trip tickets or other treasures. I
just simply do not want back to my past. I do not want to allow it to come inside me again with all
this reminiscences that all this years crucified me in my conscious…

The mouth of the river with the name “Life”. You know, I just finished to write those lines and got up
from the computer, then again returned back and sit to continue- and do not know for sure where the
energy of thoughts will take me this time. The pain of the first year in the new country on the new
continent has gone. There happened the denial of the past life. There happened the birth of new “I”.
And thanks for the people and the life that they took me after the crash into this island, full of green
leaves, singing of birds and the…hopes! And indifferent what destiny can occur with me, what will
happen to me, I am even today, blessed and damned at the same time with a lot of people over
there, will never tired to thank the chance with gifted for me, with the break in one year of silence,
these TWO life’s. One - that was left over the other side of the ocean and this, that I am only going to
embody.

I feel thankfulness to my parents, who presented the life to me and to this huge continent – America,
who granted to me the new destiny. I am – the Columbus, whose ship cracked new the new shores
and never returned back to his own land…
I am welcoming you, new life with the open visor!