FireEyeButter

Sometimes I try to heal myself by pretending I’m on fire. If I have a cut or a headache or pain in the many places it chooses to settle in the body, I imagine a controlled fire burning away the pain molecules and the virus bits and bacterial scraps. It sears away the bad things, leaving only good intact and able to rise.

Memories

If someone asked you to share your best memory and your worst memory, how easy would the answer be for you? I spent a semester in college at a theater intensive in CT, and in one of the classes we had to share these with each other. For me, the worst memory was easy to recall, if not easy to relay. But the best memory? I had no idea. Not that I haven't had wonderful moments in my life, but the best? Just about nothing comes to mind. How pathetic is the best memory compared to the worst? Profound moments, aha moments, intense interesting unforgettable moments. But the truly happiest moment of my life - I had no idea.

Sometimes it feels like life is just about dealing with things that go wrong.

milk in the bag

Listening to NPR the other day, they were talking about the 20th anniversary of the first opening of McDonalds in Moscow. People waited in line for an hour, and were taken aback by how friendly the staff was (they had been trained to smile nonstop - Soviets definitely not used to that). Many people said they didn't like the food; it wasn't Russian enough.

It reminded me of my own McDonald's memory. Many, in fact. I remember waiting in that long line, and seeing people in their Sunday best going out for a meal there after church. The people eating hamburgers layer by layer - the bun, the lettuce, the meat. They'd never had a hamburger before.

What I really remember, though, was going to the McDonald's factory on a fieldtrip and seeing the milk bagged. Seeing the milk put in bags.

In Russia, at this point, fresh milk wasn't something to be relied on. When Stockmann's, the Finnish grocery store, had it, we would buy several bottles and freeze all but one (as previously mentioned - obviously had a big impact on me and my memories). The other option, in the early post-Soviet years, was McDonald's milk. I don't remember where we bought it, but it was from a store, not from the restaurant. It would come in this white plastic bag with "McDonalds" written diagonally in a pale orange. At home, we would cut open a sliver in the top, and place the whole bag in a pitcher, to be put in the fridge.

Just thinking about that fridge brings so much to mind.

We had a tv on top of it. Sitting at the kitchen table watching the news when Princess Diana died.

Our cat Spike would lie on the ground in front of it because it gave off so much heat.

I thought "Fridgerator" was what it was called, and my American teacher thought that maybe I was British and this is what we called them.

Saw The Road last night. Can't stop thinking about the writhing bodies in the basement. I keep trying to imagine a good way they can off themselves. No rope down there? Is it possible to break your own neck? What I find most disturbing about this movie is the realization that if a human is locked in a small room with nothing at all, he/she has no way to end it. There were so many moments in that movie that made me hope they would find a way to kill themselves. Will be on my mind for awhile.

Memory Snow

Remember those snow angels -

down in front of the swings

where we later made that secret pact.

I've been wondering where the first was from

That first Snow Angel.

How is it that the shape of our bodies

on the cold white

forms this other thing?

Is it reasonable to think

that the heaven angel

was born out of snow

And not the reverse?

Later we carved a turtle out of ice

And some words on a tree

And pretended we lived in a little hut made out of sticks

near the metal fence with the green peeling paint.

From "Repulsion"

The Stash

This proverb (previously mentioned) also makes me think of our bathroom when I was young. The book I read it in (complete with folky drawings) was often left there, perhaps on the white hamper. An American child growing up in early '90s Moscow, I didn't realize how funny our little bathroom was. The sink was in a different room. The toilet didn't flush the same way. And on the shelf above it, hidden behind a curtain of fake lace, were stacks and stacks of toilet paper. Toilet paper was hard to find then, so we often brought it back with us after trips outside the country.

It was the same with milk. Whenever it appeared at Stockmanns, the Finnish supermarket, we would buy several cartons and freeze some.

There is nothing appetizing about watery milk with thin slices of ice.