Counting My Blessings

All year round popular magazines offer psycological advices like “breath deep to fight stress and anxiety”. Never worked for me. When I am under stress I need to overcome its root-cause. Until this is done, I am not relieved.

As unpleasant and sickening as stress is, it is my great motivator. When sometimes I try to “calm down and look at the bright side of it” things only get worse… Well, most of the time…  

But in the midst of the winter it is somehow different. When it is cold and dark we need more warmth, more compassion, and more cheering up.  And to get all that we invented the holiday season (please, forgive me those who have a more spiritual explanation!)

Psychiatrists swear by the benefits of counting your blessings - i.e.,  of consciously focusing on the most valuable things in your life. They say the outcome will always make you feel good.

So, I decided to count mine.

First of all, I am blessed with my close family. It is not large and not entirely traditional. And our relations at times are not perfect. But the longer I live, the more I feel extremely lucky to have them.

Over the years my opinions in this department altered substantially: from a naïve thought that I deserved them all, to the unpleasant realization that along the way I made all the mistakes in the book, and later, - to deep sadness seeing many better people losing their loved ones left and right.

The only thing I am certain about now is that life is fragile and relations are fragile. While trying to do my best I only own my past and present.

As for the future, it is more about hope than planning.

This kind of art is called "Americana".
I like it for many details and overall warm feeling 

My second blessing is the fact that we are here, in America. It took me 11 years to become an American citizen. My fingerprints did not come out six times in a raw, and then the file was simply lost. But when I sent a letter to our senator the answer came within a week, and in the next two weeks I had my citizenship interview.

In Russia the story like this would be considered a miracle.

Last time my husband talked on the Skype with his mother in Moldova, she asked him, if it was warm in our house. She is in her mid-80^s and sometimes feels not  too well, but she knows that we have our own furnace (she had been visiting with us several years ago).

However, living all her life in apartments with a Soviet-style central heating system, she is used to suffer every year from late and insufficient heat supply. And therefore, it is hard for her to imagine that we do not depend on other people in that: in our own home we make it as warm as we like.

One of the major blessings in my American life is its dignity. Rich or poor, educated or not, we are not looked down upon. Some people say, this results from the Second Amendment, but I sometimes think, it is in the air of this country that diligently blows out many stale prejudices. 

An example that is on my mind is sad but true. When we lost our mother to cancer both my sister  and me were struggling financially, but the owner of the funeral parlor was as respectful to us as to anyone who could afford an expensive ritual.

He made some inquires regarding our grandparents and filled an application based on what we knew. This knowledge was quite limited, but to my surprise, we were not asked to produce any documents in support of our words.

Being recently from Russia I was thinking: “Why would he believe anything we said?”

“Why would people lie about such things?”  probably was his American reason.

Another "second blessing" of mine is my few lifetime girlfriends. Never thought much about it, maybe because it was so easy and natural when we were young, open-hearted, and life was smiling on us.

Now it is different. One of them lives in the far North of Russia. Many years we communicated mostly through letters and postcards. Twice a year I put Hallmark stores upside down to find the right  post card for her (on Christmas, and then - on her birthday). Recently we started talking through Skype (and even see each other!), but time difference makes it tricky.  Still we participate in each other's lives.

The other one lives in the US but became unreachable. I can only guess her reasons for not returning my calls, but whatever they are - I do not hold it against her. Last time I was listening to her answering machine I thought, “Well, at least this is her voice. That means, she is alive and, hopefully, well. Good enough for me. ”

I also have a dear friend here in America. She is my former English teacher and deserves at least a special posting. We do not see much of each other, because they moved from the area couple of years ago, but she takes time to weed out most ridiculous mistakes in my published posts. So those who read them later (for example, in Australia) are actually at advantage.

And then I am blessed with comparatively good health. Part of it is lucky genes (thank you, grandma!), and the other part is the early developed habit of making some effort. 

In our health club I once walked behind a man in his 60s. He stepped with difficulty being in apparently bad shape. My thought was “He probably provided well for all his family and now can finally do something for himself”.  

I know many people who put the question of health on a backburner for most of their lives. Their bodies were supposed to withstand all the coming challenges (and indulgences), and on a rare occasion – be mended up by the ultimately powerful modern medicine.

I was entertaining the same thoughts until my first serious encounter with doctors. It left me pretty shaken and skeptical about any chances of healthy aging.

Started doing yoga I regained my hopes. I even said to one of our friends that with yoga I finally felt protected. He laughed at me and said,

“Oh, Svetlana, don’t be childish!”

Happy New Year!

My American House

After several years of living in apartments we decided to buy a house. Our real estate agent was totally exhausted when five months and 30 houses later we finally found the one.

The task was tough because we needed three bedrooms for our daughters in their late teens - early twenties. In the US children usually leave parents after high school. Therefore, average kids’ bedrooms are comparatively small.

For economic and other reasons we planned that our girls would stay with us while in college.  We needed uncommonly spacious bedrooms to accommodate computer desks (computers were still bulky at that time).  In a reasonable price range such a house was hard to find.

The house we bought was located on a good-size lot in a nice and quiet neighborhood. It was a brick-and-wood two story with slightly boring facade, but otherwise - very smart.

The inside flow was pretty standard with a somewhat narrow hallway but spacious kitchen-dining area looking at the wooden deck and backyard. The upper level was occupied by four bedrooms providing privacy to every member of our blended and, therefore, sometimes dramatic family.

We liked the functionality of the house: light switches in all the right places, old-brass fixtures throughout, and the fact that the girls' bathroom had two doors. We enjoyed nice views from every window, a green lawn in front and seclusion of the backyard separated from neighbors by the hedge of high bushes. 

The first snow in our neighborhood



Everything about this house was reasonable  and thought-out. 

Both  my husband and I were born and raised in apartments. We were not only the first-time home owners, but also - the first-time home dwellers. It gave us deep appreciation of the concept of American single-family house, but no skills in taking care of it. 

When in Rome do as the Romans do. 

We sought advice from our American friends. They told us how to treat the lawn and when to replace the roof or windows.  

In spring we bought a lawn mower, and after several encounters with my husband on the subject of “being really busy” I discovered that mowing lawn was a healthy and joyful outdoor activity. 

We hired a company to treat our lawn against weeds and bugs, but this decision was less successful. Though grass was nice, the smell of chemicals was not. When cats were out we were not sure if they ate chemically treated grass or avoided it (both situations were not good).

In the garden I had another educational experience. For years I have applied commercial chemicals to eliminate pests on my flower beds. That did not work too well because spray needs time to kill insects, i.e., a period of dry weather. Unfortunately, where we live spring rains are frequent. So, as soon as I would apply the bug killer to my Hostas, the rain washed it all off, poisoning the soil but not harming the bugs. 

Disappointed I stopped spraying. Weeks later I noticed little pretty chameleons among the flowers, while bugs were totally gone. 

Turned out, Mother-Nature knew better how to take care of them!

When eventually we decided to plant a vegetable garden, we stopped treating the lawn. Now worms and birds feed on bugs that make our cats very happy. And few dandelions, as soon as they show up, go directly into our green smoothies. 

Well, "garden" - is a very ambitious name for a small rectangular spot that we cleaned from grass to plant some cucumbers, sweet peas and tomatoes.

I never grew a single vegetable before, neither did my husband. But again, we approached the challenge differently. While I was timidly reading instructions on seed bags he declared himself a natural based on the farming roots in his family. 

When the time came to plant seeds into soil, he dismissed all recommendations and simply sprinkled them liberally around. Surprisingly some of the seeds actually started and in July we had crunchy cucumbers incomparable in fragrance and taste to anything from the store. 

It is a holiday season now. We spread some gleaming lights on the bushes in front of the façade windows, just so that kids in the house across the street have something nice to look at in the evenings.

Our cat Max likes it a lot – he is sitting there for hours, staring at the lights.

At this time of the year my thing is to clean the house and then sit in the sunny corner of our home office with my family (cats included) nearby. I don't need to look - just to know - they are there.

In such moments I feel very blessed to have them and this house - much more so than many well-deserving people out there...

The Curse of Prince Charles

The royal engagement between British Prince William and Kate Middleton coincided with a much quieter event – the American premier of the new documentary "Harmony" on sustanable land use made by the father of the betrothed, Prince Charles. 

For those who did not know, the Prince of Wales is a long-time promoter of organic agriculture and a hands-on grower of clean produce. In the early 90s his devotion to the cause was considered eccentric by most of the public and only added to his notorious unpopularity.

I often wondered how much of this sentiment was fed by the fact that he never was a Hollywood handsome. And though his contribution to charitable work was no less meaningful than that of his wife, compared with her exuberant charm he always looked dull and his accomplishments – unimportant.

The new documentary had been preceded by an interview given to American journalist who asked various questions in a demonstratively respectable and sympathetic manner.

Prince looked surprisingly good comparing with routinely ugly pictures of him we have seen over the last decades. He had a wrinkled but content face of a man who spent a lot of time outdoors and did not care much about aging. He also looked like one who finally found some peace in his life.

In the beginning of the interview he was pretty reserved, aparently being  used to be bullied and misconstrued. But as conversation evolved Charles became more comfortable, open and, I guess, more himself.

Watching him talk I’ve been thinking that maybe the time has come and his role in the eco-movement will be finally acknowledged. In fact, he recognized the problem when most of us did not even believe in pesticides.

The main idea of the film was that exploitation of the earth should be sustainable in order to keep both humanity and earth healthy.

This simple thought somehow struck me. Not that I had any doubts that conventional produce was plain poisonous. I am also aware of destruction that chemical fertilizers do to farming land.

However, I never really combined these notions together.

It was the unmistakable moment of truth, when many seemingly separated issues came together as elements of one puzzle:

Of course, this is all connected – with our cars, computers and governments we are the part of the same eco-system, just as grass, worms, bears and bees. Whatever is wrong with the eco-system impacts us – we develop allergies, cancers, our kids become less smart. Whatever is wrong with us – impacts the eco-system, because we intrude on so many levels.

In the urban neighbourhood where I grew up there was a family with farming roots. They tried to cut out a spot of land in our communal backyard and grow some vegetables. In a miniature garden our neighbours used compost and crop rotation, because they knew how to do these things, and besides, this was the most economical way (chemicals at that time were expensive!)  

The agricultural industry had discarded this old-fashioned wisdom encouraged by the fellow industrialists – those who produce fertilizers, genetically modified grains and such. They seduced farmers by whispering how smart and superior they would be with all the advantages of the modern science. And economically effective.

Reciprocating cycle was substituted by linear approach of taking much, deceiving the earth with nutritional hoax, and then forcing it to give more…  

And this approach was declared more sophisticated. 

For me the most striking evidence in the movie came from a simple guy – the Louisianan farmer who told the story of how he became an organic grower.

He said that he was like everybody else, using more and more chemicals every year. Occasionally, he was  upset by the next recall of the stuff he used due to revealed links to cancer.

Then he realized that poisoning the earth was not even cheap. The margins between his investments and gains were dropping permanently to the point where it made no economical sense anymore...

Some people say that we have to clean our act, or we will be killed by Global Warming. Frankly, I do not believe much in this theory, because I am old enough to remember an opposite fad – the Global Winter.

Do I really need to think globally to make right consumer choices? Or maybe, just the sense of self-preservation and care for those I love are enough?

And maybe, if I make the right choices,  industries will pick up the trend - out of simple greed, as they are supposed to?  

The next day I browsed the Internet and checked TV news to find some reaction to the movie.

I found none.

Apparently, no one besides me was interested in Charles’s views on sustainability that he relentlessly promoted for 30 years.

The only thing I heard was that his vague and reluctant mentioning of Camilla  as a possible queen in the preceding interview outraged the entire Great Britain: 

 “Because many blame her in her husband’s tragic divorce she can not be queen, but only a princess consort!” – was the verdict. 

* * *

Frankly, here I planned to finish this post, but then they were attacked in the car and the title which I thought was kind-of smart, does not even seem funny anymore.   

Misconceptions of Yoga

In our club yoga is not as popular as core strengthening or kickboxing. Those classes are really packed, music is loud and instructor’s voice is even louder. When the doors open people come out panting and dripping with sweat. 

Then the yoga class quietly begins with visibly lesser attendance and  with prevalence of women over men.

I think many people still avoid yoga due to various misconceptions.

The deepest is the one I had myself – you have to be flexible to do it. I can only repeat: initial level of flexibility does not matter. A stiff person probably gains more by finally “lubricating” long time neglected body parts. 

Some men are convinced that yoga is for women. This perception is probably rooted in magazine images of young ladies in tight clothes.

In fact, yoga was created by men and primarily for men. Women joined it quite recently and there are positions not exactly recommended for us as well as moon cycle related restrictions.

Some people aim to overexert themselves in each and every position; otherwise, they think, one cannot have a good workout. This is hardly recommendable in yoga, where health benefits are gained only when your body cooperates; and the major indicator of this is absence of pain or exhaustion.

Same is true for excessive fidgeting and trying to move fast. I noticed that with too much commotion my muscles became tired before they warmed up. It feels like the blood vessels do not get a chance to dilate, and when the muscles are not properly warm they are prone to injuries.

Now, this you really do not want. A minor overstretching of a shoulder obstructed once my practice for weeks. Trying to protect it I was amazed, how many movements and positions that looked totally unrelated, in fact engaged my hurt arm.    

Although one can always do yoga on his/her own, a good instructor gives you the  advantage of meditative following. You do not need to think what is next and count your breaths but can be totally focused on you current sensations.

A knowledgeable yoga instructor will always invite you to modify a position according to your  ability and to take a relaxation pose when necessary. But to go with a flow you really need to trust the guidance.

Over the years of practice we have met many wonderful instructors with their  interesting approaches.

But some instruction styles must we warned against. Beware of a coach who tries to lead yoga class as a military drill. Jumping around to loud music accompanied by screaming encouragements like “3 crunches more!!… 8 more!!… You can do it!!” may work well in cardio but totally wrong for yoga.

If you came to yoga class not just for a flat stomach, but in pursuit of health improvement - change the instructor.  

Also be mindful about popular concoction classes like “fitness yoga” or “yoga-pilates fusion”. Sometimes we get lucky when instructor actually offers a version of real yoga, though somewhat simplified.

I imagine this woman coming home and telling her boyfriend (or husband) about an opening for such a class which she would not dare to apply for because the word “fusion” puzzles her.

- I am a trained yogi, and have no idea what this “fusion” is about! 

And he says,

- Hey, don’t be shy - just agree to whatever they want and then do what you do best! 

But when the instructor comes from a different background, trying to add “some yoga” into the routine it can be really bad. Though many physical activities utilize yoga-like positions, yoga hardly blends with them due to a very specific breathing and transition techniques.  My suggestion is – separate: do a core class on one day and yoga – on the next, or take consecutive classes.

For us the most important benefit of yoga was in a better control of our well-being. Good fitness came along naturally, though I doubt that doing yoga while eating and drinking poorly would make you fit. Yoga just provides good assistance to any other healthy approach in life.

By the way, doing yoga also improved my dancing skills. I started feeling more energetic and could use my body better.

And remember the mantra "We prepare ourselves..."? 

Walking once down a steep hill on vocation at Lake Huron in Canada I slipped on a wet rock and fell. I saw in disbelief my left shoulder protruding unusually far and then I hit the ground flat.

Well, it was not pleasant for a moment, but as a result I just got a minor bruise.

This is how I want to be in my 80s!