Strawberry jam and toast

This morning, I stumbled to the kitchen to put on a cup of coffee before making breakfast - two slices of buttered toast with strawberry jam. Without rush, I sat down to eat, news radio on and a newspaper open on my kitchen table. Biting into my toast, I glanced down at my feet, toes recently painted "Revlon red."



Phooom! I was taken straight back to my grandmother's kitchen in central Wyoming, mint green colored kitchen cabinets, red geraniums on the sill, Fiestaware dishes, and Formica table. With backcombed hair maintained through weekly visits to the hairdresser, striking blue eye shadow and red lipstick as well as a huge collection of beads and costume jewelry, my grandmother always ate toast with strawberry jam for breakfast, often while mulling over a crossword puzzle in a housedress, and always with red toenails.

Funny how such a small moment can trigger such a vivid memory. Even funnier when you can see those pieces of your personal history - family and friends - reflected in the way you go about doing things. We are who we know and have known... we have in us where we are and where we have been.

Family memories seem to strike me when I least expect it. Humidity and heat followed by a sultry summer storm take me right back to my other grandparents' farm and the summers we spent there, stealing grandma's chocolate chip cookies from the deep freeze in the basement, helping to do chores, playing Uno and rap poker with my grandpa for ice cream, picking peas in the garden, and attempting to ride Smokey, the most ornery horse. Early morning dishes clanging and the smell of pancakes, mealtimes signaled by a triangle hanging by the door, coffee for anyone who might show up, and quiet evenings eating peaches with sugar and a bit of cream on top. We fixed ourselves up to go to "town" in the car, but we liked getting dirty even better so we could help bale hay or drive around on the tractor with grandpa.

They were good summers that my brother and I spent visiting our grandparents' homes. From the time we were really small kids until we were through high school, we spent one or two weeks every summer at the North Dakota farm, and, until my grandma moved to Gillette, we spent a week each summer in the big city of Casper. The contrast between my two sets of grandparents could not have been bigger. However, I am glad that I got a chance to really know them, to understand where I came from, and to internalize those details about their habits and lives. And, I am most grateful that memories surface on quiet Saturday mornings when I least expect them.

Digressions

I've been composing a come-back post in my head during my commute to work, turning over how to describe to you all of the newness that has been happening lately. How those 30 minutes are the most tranquil of my day as I trail up the Potomac and whiz past Roosevelt before giving Lincoln a good morning wave on my way to work. The city so green is most beautiful in the morning when it seems like another innocent Capital City (that is before those on Capitol Hill have sipped their coffee and begun their partisan bickering about the debt ceiling). But I digress.

"The Potomac," you say, "that doesn't sound like it's anywhere near Tartu." Indeed, in the proper tone of summer, we've had more transitions. I'm endeavoring to be the most revised entry in your address books, although I am sure many of you have already given up. One year after returning to leafy Tartu, the winds have switched directions and taken me to another green city, albeit hotter and stickier, on the other side of the Atlantic. In fact, I find myself right back where I was about a year ago, as a resident in the nation's capital of Washington. If it seems wild to you, you cannot imagine how it feels as I re-encounter friends, co-workers, neighborhoods, and old haunts after just saying a definitive good-bye. I guess "see you later" is always a safer way to leave things.

After a slow but beautiful spring in Estonia, I began to feel restless and ready for some new adventures. My first adventure was a long time in coming and I had it in full sight during my 16-week training program. The end of May, I ran my first Marathon - 26.2 miles (42.2 kilometers) in Stockholm. The feeling of training for something so big, especially as a non-athletic sort of person, is really indescribable (but I'll try). My muscles and endurance grew and grew each week, and I could feel and see myself get better at running, especially when nature thawed things out. Most of my training was done in sub-zero temperatures, and, quite to my liking, I only ran in shorts once before the marathon. Cool temperatures make running a lot more pleasant and a lot less sweaty, so Estonia was the perfect training ground, even if it meant jogging on snow and ice. Uli came along as my one-man cheerleading team, and he did a brilliant job of racing around town to meet me along the way with energetic smiles (and a camera). The scenery in Stockholm was spectacular and the weather was dry and about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Another cool thing about running so far in a race is that they have so much water, energy foods, entertainment, and really cheerful crowds along the way -- it beats pounding out 20 miles on your own by far! I had some moments when I was truly sloughing along, but with only about a kilometer of walking, I made it! To be honest, I almost cried when I finished. Not because of pain, but more a feeling of accomplishment, of setting a really huge goal and finally reaching it. At the finish line, I got a t-shirt and a medal. Perhaps the most disappointing part of the race was that my medal didn't have a string on it so that I could wear it around my neck for the next several weeks to show off. I'm not sure that the euphoria was enough to stir me to run another marathon, but it did feel pretty awesome. OK. Even these thoughts are a digression.



The bigger adventure came in the form of a phone call the second week of May. Unsuspectingly, we were hosting a slew of friends for a film night in our basement when the phone rang. A job application process strung out over the last two years had come to fruition. The offer to be a Regional English Language Officer with the Department of State hit me with an incredible force. I had just booked a vacation to Tblisi. Uli and I were strategizing for a potential future move elsewhere in Europe or North America. We'd already made a map of our summer cycling trip through the three Baltic States the previous day. However, the position had great promise as well as a position from which we could continue living overseas, doing meaningful work, and receiving the kinds of financial and logistical support to make that lifestyle comfortable (don't get me started on buying yet another toaster -- that discussion is a true digression). And I was asked to physically (also psychologically?) present myself in a mere three weeks time. Adventure had knocked and demanded a 24-hour turn-around on my response.

We said yes and decided to embrace chaos in these months (and years) to come.

After a whirlwind month in which we were "packed out" by movers, hurried to make arrangements for our "stuff" and our apartment, and gathered friends yet again for farewells, I also finished my final courses at the University of Tartu. As an institution which I have served longer than any other, this was tough. With the realization that I may not be a classroom instructor for a long while, this was even tougher. I had three fantastic writing groups of Freshmen this semester, and, somehow, our course finished without it sinking in. You see, the new job is more about facilitating exchanges and supporting programs, matching institutions and resources, representing America abroad through English language teaching. One-off workshops are possible. Long-term relationships built over a semester, not so much. The kind of end-of-semester stress and handing in term papers did not seem adequate for the kind of farewell I wanted to give, quite selfishly. Nearly two months later, this identity shift still has not really sunk in. I hope it never will.

So, what am I doing in Washington? I am scraping along here and trying to learn the ropes. I've endured orientation and have discovered some aspects of the culture of the Foreign Service. I'm uncovering every single day more information about what it means to be a RELO (Regional English Language Officer - pronounced as a word: Reee-low) and how I might fulfill those duties. See this link for an overview as well as my potential future homes. I'll be here for the next 12 months continuing to figure things out bit by bit.

I'm here at the moment without Uli, and this is hard. The biggest highlight of our last year is that it really was our last year. We were together, on the same continent. Well, most of the time. It was wonderful. Because Uli had to stay and tie up loose ends with his work and also to entertain visitors this summer, we are spending an excruciating 10 weeks apart. I know that it shouldn't be so traumatic after our cross-Atlantic commuting, but it is. We've decided not to do this anymore. Let's hope we don't have to. However, come mid-August, we are a team once again, and that is very good for my sanity.

So what next?

Well, after 10 months of intensive Russian courses, we are headed to Astana, Kazakhstan, where we'll be based (visitors very welcome) for two years. I'll cover this immense Central Asian region: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. Did you know that Kazakhstan alone is the 9th largest country in the world? Overwhelming... I am incredibly excited at the assignment and cannot wait to learn and explore. The Central Asian Steppe, with its wide skies and dry but extreme climate and vegetation, may just be Wyoming with a huge twist. Not to mention that it is classified as lower Siberia and is one of the coldest (if not the coldest) capitals in the world? More on that in the months and years to come.


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In the meantime, we'll be located here in Washington (visitors always welcome). I've had an amazing summer of reunions and new Washingtonian experiences. The Delaware beaches with friends, bluegrass at Wolftrap, the Folk Life Festival on the National Mall, to name a few. Reunions have been numerous and surprising. I've managed to reconnect with several pasts - a Romanian connection 'bumped' into me at the Folk Life Festival and a former Slovakia Peace Corps staff member happened to process my voucher... the world is small indeed.

Just to add one more random remark before closing (if you are still reading at this point). I have joined a knitting group and am trying to cultivate a craftier side. Here are my first two winter hats, as products. I guess I am already planning for cold weather...



Not much more less to confess or digress. Please don't lose track of me in the midst of all of these adventures and craziness. My family and friends are cornerstones reminding me of who I am and where I have been - I need you all to keep myself grounded. (Demanding action: update your address books yet again!)