Fighting Faucets

There is a popular perception that stress and anxieties are our inevitable companions - so, stop complaining and learn to cope with them instead.

I personally doubt that stress is supposed to be with us on a permanent basis. Otherwise our bodies would not develop such heavy reaction each time it strikes.

We also often forget that life on a modest income and full of hard work can be quite peaceful and dignified, and even promote longevity. Classic literature gives us numerous examples of such lives in well-rooted, though not necessarily most advanced communities.

This is, what I call peaceful

Francoise Duparc (1726-78) Woman Knitting

But abrupt and frequent changes bringing endless uncertainties so eagerly embraced today as signs of progress may be really detrimental to our health.

For many years my major source of stress was, of course, immigration. The whole undertaking can be described as perpetual pressure to absorb new things.  They say kids do it easily. So, here comes an immediate cook-book recommendation:

Embrace childish attitude, and you will be fine.

Well, you probably wouldn’t. Because no matter how hard we try we do not react to novelty at 45 as at 3.

I once saw a TV documentary that may illustrate the point. It was about an elderly deaf couple who decided to get cochlear implants. They were very exited, especially the old lady, your optimistic, enthusiastic type, who could not wait to join her children and grandchildren in their wonderful hearing world.

The results of the surgery were more sad than happy. While her husband eventually gained some hearing ability, though inadequate and overwhelming, the wife developed severe post-operative inflammation and had not improve a thing. She desperately tried to convince herself (and people around her) that she could actually hear, but her daughter - the director of the documentary - saw clearly it was not true.

When you come to a totally different environment in your forties there are very few things you can easily enjoy right away. All others you have to identify, accept, and then, - figure out their appropriate treatment. I mean basic everyday things, like how to write a check, or regulate air conditioner, drive a car,  give a tip in the restaurant, or order a bus ticket by phone…

Did you know that while light switches are mostly the same two-position type all across America, tap faucets are a quintessence of creative variety?

For years I had been finding myself in front of a new one, which operation was a mystery: turn-a-handle type; pull-out-and-turn type; the one where you place your hands under and water runs automatically (photo element!); with undistinguishable cold and warm knobs, etc. 

Please, remember, you find them in public restrooms, the last place you wish to be surprised. 

This is one of them:

 you helplessly look at it and think that all the people around stare at you

Driving… I heard some people start driving in their fifties with no problem whatsoever. I am not one of them. It could be so because I grew up never dreaming of becoming a driver some day. I always thought I would die a passenger.

My first feelings in the driver’s seat were intense. The fact that this big and heavy thing could move at a slight touch of a wheel or gas pedal made my mind freeze and body – perspire.

It took me years to stop being scared behind the wheel. And every time I was going somewhere on my own, my husband, a very good and experienced driver, would comment with a sigh, “I wish I could take you there”, or instructed me "to drive with caution". I was losing confidence just as he was speaking.

Even now, many years later I have not developed back-seat driver’s habits.

As soon as I am in the other seat I immediately switch to passenger mentality, like the lady in the picture above.  

Language… Where do I begin?

On my first Delta flight from Moscow to New York and being totally consumed with thoughts of my mother, I bumped into ridiculous situation. I happened to drop the plastic fork and could not ask for a new one, because I did not remember the English name for the damn thing!

Sitting in front of fettuccini chicken with a stupidest smile on my face, I sincerely regreted that 5^th grade lesson on “dinnerware”. Then I was bored to death by lifeless black and white pictures in my textbook. Now I needed this missing piece of knowledge desperately!

When finally, after my active gesticulation and helpless murmur “I need…, I dropped…” the fork had been handed to me its name was imprinted in my brain for eternity.

In our early days in America I misled many people by using such words as “contradiction” and “criteria”. They expected me to speak well and could not believe that I did not know names of common plants, birds or kitchen utensils.

TV became one of my teachers. At first I thought that news ladies were talking inconceivably fast. The only movie where I managed to recognize some phrases turned out to be British and very old.

Now, by the way, the situation is quite opposite – in the process of mastering American English I completely lost the ear for British and use captioning to watch “Pride and Prejudice”.   

And for years I practiced one trick when could not understand someone. I would keep listening with indefinite smile on my face hoping to catch the meaning later,from the more detailed content. Sometimes I was lucky, and sometimes – totally embarrassed by the need to explain my inadequate reaction.

I think, in our multicultural environment people should be aware of this trick. Many need to work way before they become eloquent English speakers.

Then one day I learned that all this was the easy stuff.