life as understood

If anything I've learned in grad school that has really sunk in personally, it's this: there truly is a place where my career aspirations are realistic and my specific skills are valued to their fullest extent. Unfortunately, that place no longer exists.


"The writer is the engineer of the human soul."
-Josef Stalin

Among the endless array of reasons that make the Soviet Union a mind-bendingly fascinating place, first and foremost are the ideas and circumstances surrounding its foundation. If you're not a historian, stick with me here. No other revolution, before or since, has been more ideologically driven than the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917. Of course there were everyday, бытовые reasons which paved the way: no bread, death in an unpopular war, idiot tsar followed by indecisive provisional government. But most of all, the Bolsheviks just saw this time as an opportune moment to seize control. Their new experimental nation was supposed to signal both the beginning and the end of history, and the glorious era when injustice would perish, and utopia would finally, finally prevail. (They were all philosophy majors.)

It's funny that in the early days, the Bolsheviks actually used the word "utopia" to describe their bright, socialist future, considering the word's etymology (no place) and the fact that no truly "utopian" society had ever, in human history, survived for a significant period of time. Of course, we know how it all turned out--revolution immediately followed by a bloody civil war, immediately followed by 30 years of history's cruellest mustache, millions of deaths, disillusionment, stagnation, quagmire, and dissolution. The fact remains, however, that behind each major state decision was a vision of paradise.

In this world aspiring to perfection, the artist, and especially the writer, was king. Literature and sloganry were among the most powerful tools employed in order to accomplish whatever the state needed: patriotism, enmity, espousal of new ideas, subjugation. And for better or for worse, the Soviets were incredible at it. Good writers are respected everywhere, but in the USSR, wordsmiths were gods. As quoted above, Stalin called them the "engineers of the human soul," which pronouncement carries hefty connotations. A writer doesn't just interpret the soul or enliven it. He creates it, teaches it how to be a soul. Besides, engineers were important in early Soviet society, and nothing is more precious to a Russian than his soul. If I didn't ruffle too many feathers (or starve), I could have scored a meaningful job in the Soviet Union.

I don't live in the Soviet Union.

My design/marketing class last week was all about storytelling--how to use words, and specifically characters and plotlines, to sell products and persuade people. The professor was lively and convincing. She told how the human brain is wired to remember and learn from stories, not facts or logic. She gave examples from business, as well as support from cognitive psychology and other fields. She didn't have to tell me, though. I already knew. But as I glanced around the room, I beheld a strange and startling sight. My class of 44 students, almost all Stanford MBAs, stared blankly ahead. They didn't get it. They didn't remember the powerful story from the class before--only the numbers that came after. They asked really stupid questions. It was as though their human brains had been re-wired. From the back of the room, I reluctantly lifted my hand time and time again to address the softball, supposedly human, questions because nobody else could.

In this current era of relative material stability, people seek stories more than anything else. They seek to contextualize themselves, to surround themselves with beauty, to feel like protagonists in a narrative that makes sense, and is moving toward a resolution. Literature isn't dead, but magazines, newspapers, literary journals, and other organizations touting the real, but invisible power of words and stories are dying off by the day. The Soviet Union went out of business in 1991. Alas, after all this time, the soul remains unquantifiable.

If my classmates of today are going to be my bosses of tomorrow, I may have some more explaining to do about how a writing background and humanities degrees make me a smart hire. I thought it seemed clear.

Everything echoes in the Asian wing of the Cantor Arts Center. Even with mountainous canvases lining the walls, all vocalizations bounce. Tsune has a hard time communicating over the phone in English, and I have to assume whispering will be similarly hard, but there's no other way.

He points out how the left gargoyle's mouth is open, unlike the one on the right. The slight asymmetry is immediately noticeable and almost jarring to the Western eye, but Tsune explains how the faces represent two separate but simultaneous invocations for the people entering the building. He can't remember what exactly--something like justice and mercy. Though I can't catch every word from his still, small voice, the article on wabi-sabi he printed off provides enough context for me to fill in the gaps. The intentional asymmetry demonstrates the Japanese man's healthy acceptance of his inability to reach perfection. It's in the pottery too. Obviously, I'm the one being tutored.

Another hour, and we've only seen a small fraction of the museum, so we agree to come back later in the week. Then, we'll traverse the Western wings and I'll do the explaining. As that day approaches, I'm apprehensive. I'm not an art historian. Tsune isn't either, of course--he's a visiting scholar in the computer science department. But he comes from a nation with a consistent, influential, and overall "rich" culture, and he has no trouble discussing it definitively, even in English. All I'm taught about my own people is that we're money hungry and fat. Innovative, maybe, but generally only at others' expense, and intolerant. When American and Western ways are spoken of, it's almost always derisively, as an impediment to human progress. What could I ever hope to teach a Japanese man about culture?

Two days later, torsos greet me at the entrance to the first European wing--perfect, granite male and female torsos on ionic pedestals, straight from ancient Greece. To one side, a portrait of a lower English nobleman, a medieval diptych of two saints, and a breathtaking painting of a fantastical palace with imaginative architecture, and lighting and perspective so perfect, it could be an extension of the museum. Tsune is speechless. I realize I can explain almost all of it, and without the help of any specialized knowledge. I teach him about classical influences, Renaissance humanism, and Catholic patronage, and the Bible. And it hits me that I am part of a unique tradition--the Western world is unique, even if it's huge--I've just never seen the forest for the trees.

In the Native American gallery, I don't have as much to say, but Tsune correctly surmises that the drawings, masks, and artifacts are closely tied with the belief systems of each specific people. There, under the brightly colored totem pole-arch, I am shocked by another silent, almost spiritual realization--that I belong also to far more unique and tight-knit subsets of Western culture by virtue of my specific geographic and religious backgrounds. We even have our own art. Most of it may not be museum-worthy, but an outsider could learn a few things about me from studying it. It's good to contextualize once in a while.

After a short time, I'm forced to take leave of Tsune and the museum, but he decides to linger. I walk out less alone than ever.

The fact that I'm writing now means it's peace, assuming that the lull between measured attacks constitutes peace. I feel like if we turned off the TV, I could hear the bombers doing fly-bys overhead and the soldiers (hussars, mostly) milling hungrily in the courtyard.

Lately I've been talking a lot about how late I stay up studying--my classmates must surely have noticed. 4:00. 3:00. 4:30. I wear it like a medal. Far beyond the family obligations or the part-time job, though, the truth is that I'm just a slow reader, and as a graduate student in the humanities, that's everything. Literally. No problem sets, group projects, even presentations. A few days ago I had, going by my normal rate, about 21 hours worth of reading to do in 22 hours. I skimmed.

The moral battle starts around 1:00. Chances are, I could slip by without reading every page. I could skim a couple chapters and hyper-focus on certain other things to buttress the discussion in class. One well-aimed comment and my work could be done. In another class, I could potentially spurn the entire 400-page assignment and get by just fine. After all, the discussion is mostly just criticizing such-and-such historian for attempting to wedge this bit of Russian history into a larger theoretical framework which doesn't quite fit. Tolstoy hated that kind of history.

Over the past month, the new longest book I've ever read has taught me all about freedom vs. necessity, chance vs. predestination, consciousness vs. reason, but I've yet to apply any of its lessons to my present situation. Ironically, I'm far too saturated with knowledge to think. I'll take fewer units next quarter. But for now, that reading is finished, and the battle continues.

"On the narrow dam of Augesd, on which for so many years an old miller in a cap used to sit peacefully with his fishing rods, while his grandson, his shirtsleeves rolled up, fingered the silvery, trembling fish in the watering can; on this dam over which, for so many years, Moravians in shaggy hats and blue jackets had peacefully driven in their two-horse carts laden with wheat and had driven back over the same dam all dusty with flour, their carts white--now, on this narrow dam, between wagons and cannon, under horses and between wheels, crowded men disfigured by the fear of death, crushing each other, dying, stepping over the dying, and killing each other, only to go a few steps and be killed themselves just the same." (War and Peace, I.3.XVIII)

This was yesterday during maybe hour four of my epic read-athon just to keep up in class. After the history book, I had decided to shed my outer shirt and settle into the couch for a long winter's 140 pages of War and Peace when the phone rang. It was Rob.

"I got you a present," he said. My first reaction was one of mild self-loathing, because Rob is the sort of thoughtful friend who gives presents for no reason. I, on the other hand, am the sort of friend who forgot his birthday last week, and already felt bad about not calling and saying hi. Hopefully, I thought, he's joking.

Rob said he wanted to surprise me, but he couldn't wait. Jeff Hornacek, he said, drawing the name out for effect, came into the campus gym where Rob works, to hold some sort of one-day basketball camp. I instinctively rose up from the couch, walked to the kitchen, and looked down at a recent frivolous purchase of mine--yet another Utah Jazz t-shirt, this one faded green, with the classic old logo emblazoned across my chest. Hornacek wore that same logo on his chest when I was eight through fifteen years old. Notably, he wore it on November 23, 1994, when he went 8 for 8 from behind the arc against the Sonics, and I made shots from across the room as I listened on the basement radio. I remember that night specifically. Later, I modeled my own amateurish game after his.

"Do you like Jeff Hornacek?" Rob asked, knowing only of my allegiance to the team itself. I told him that Hornacek's jersey number, which now hangs high in the rafters, makes up the only two numerals in my internet password--the password I use for everything. It's not a coincidence. As an idol, Stockton reigned over my early childhood, but when we picked up Horny in the most lopsided trade in NBA history, my heart found room for him and his quick release jumper right away.

Apparently, being the good friend that he is, Rob chased down the former All-Star as he was leaving the gym. He said he had a friend who was a huge fan and who just got straight A's at Stanford. Rob explained that he strategically threw that part in as sort of an extra hook, which evidently worked. Mr. Hornacek turned and said something to the effect of "oh, a real dumb-a**." He was being ironic, I assumed from context. Then he signed a T-shirt with a personal message for me. Rob's sending it in the mail today or tomorrow.

After hearing a story of such personal import and bidding farewell to my dear friend, my reading went extra slow for a while. Mostly, I was wired from my vicarious brush with minor fame, but after a while I became distracted by more fundamental questions. What if Jeff Hornacek was right? In the few seconds he thought about me (ME!), I fear he may have exposed me in the sort of shocking, direct way that only a personal hero can. Here I am, like a fool, slaving over the New Testament in Old Church Slavic, a dead language, when all I really had to do was work more on my free throws and get open on the left wing.

Stanford may not have been enough, but mark my words: someday, Jeff Hornacek, somehow, I will make you proud.

Once when I was seven or eight or nine, my parents had me sleep in my baby sister's room on Christmas Eve. Maybe it was my idea. Either way, we kids were to be together on that most special of nights, perhaps for solidarity, as we weren't allowed to leave the room until morning. At that point in my life (as with most of my childhood), my official best friend was the cat, so she was included as well. I'm sure I had picked out and wrapped at least one present for her and left it under the tree--a present she would brush by indifferently as she slinked under the branches to drink from the base. I hope I had picked out a present for my sister as well, but I'm less certain about that.

Back then, in the early '90s, the cat and I were at the outset of a years-long struggle over sleeping arrangements. I wanted her to spend the night curled up on my bed with me, which she sometimes did, but usually she roamed in and out and all over. This Christmas Eve we had to be together, though--a family--so when she took off after an hour or two, I followed her downstairs. When I appeared in the basement doorway around midnight, my parents looked surprised. The light was on and they were wrapping presents. When they saw me and hustled me back to bed, I seem to remember an added measure of urgency, as though I had really caught them off-guard, but maybe that's just hindsight. I didn't think anything of it, and we never spoke of the matter again. I'm not sure to what degree I believed in Santa at the time, but this potentially traumatic incident didn't affect it either way. Why wouldn't they be wrapping presents at night?

That might have been the year I got a Magic 8-ball and an LA Dodgers hat. I didn't care about the team, but my friend Andrew had the hat, and I thought it was cool. I told Santa I wanted those things, and I also told my parents. When I received them on Christmas morning, I didn't have to know the source. I didn't want to.

A few years later, we got an artificial tree, and we had to put a bowl of water underneath it, because the cat expected a drink. Around this time, almost every year, my parents started telling me the same thing: "you're growing up now, so you probably won't get as many presents this year." They said that when I graduated high school, got back from Russia, and got married, though I never noticed a sharp decline. Some boxes were always marked "from Santa" and some were explicity from my parents, and though the distinction was fuzzy, it was always respected. In fact, it still is. For all I know, some obese old saint will stumble out of the fireplace later tonight and leave everything I need. It's never been proven otherwise to me, and that's how I like it. I still don't want to know. My parents' silence on the matter may be their all-time greatest Christmas gift to me, to allow me to be more innocent than I am, at least for one morning a year.

Before bed tonight, I gathered a few little things and placed them in a stocking for Adam: a pacifier, a pair of blue baby shoes that belonged to me, and a piece of ribbon and a paper cup, which he'll like more than his educational toys from Barnes & Noble. I thought for sure that this year, the first year of fatherhood, the unmagical truth would finally be exposed, but it hasn't been yet. Even though I filled my son's stocking, I will never know for sure who filled mine. Some boxes will say "from Santa" and we'll smile knowingly. And I'll thank my parents, but not for the presents.

Listen up, because there's a good chance I'm never going to say this again in public.

Utah is a cool place.

And you thought you knew me. This all started Sunday afternoon during a leisurely Sunday drive Sarah and I took through the south end of the Salt Lake Valley, rolling between mountains, temples, and new housing developments. As we began our return to her parents' house, the conversation turned to a familiar topic: the question of where to spend our lives together.

Sarah moved to Utah when she was eight, and loves it as one should love her home. I came in college, not intending to stay long, but after five years, I became softened by something that often skirts cursory conversations about the Beehive State: nuanced reality.

You see, for me, growing up near the state but not in it, Utahns were the annoying neighbors and perpetual joke-butts. Stereotypes, of course, ran rampant. Since before I can remember, it's been a place constantly derided by friends, family, and others who have spent many years there and elsewhere. I myself even participated in this action on occasion, tossing the term "Utard" around more than I'm comfortable admitting now.

(For a full and proper context, please see my landmark June 2009 posting "Striving to Improve Idaho/Utah Relations.")

Actually, many people jab at Utah from inside and out, but it's important to note that nearly 100 percent of the derision is directed solely at its residents. No one really speaks ill of Utah's cities, which tend to be clean and modern, or its natural wonder, which is extraordinary. A hefty portion of the derision comes from Mormons from other states, but that's not the issue here.

The issue is this. I live a couple states away now, and when I tell people I'm from Idaho, I get a wide variety of reactions--potatoes, skiing, fishing, neo-Nazis, BSU football, hicks, corn (for those confusing it with Iowa)--and this is good. Variety and reality, out of which a friendly conversation may ensue. But try to tell someone you've come from Utah, and the initial reaction is the same every single time. It's remarkable. All 2.8 million people, including the 1.2 million who are active Mormons and the 1.6 million who are not, are painted with the exact same brush. I've watched it countless times--in a split-second, the person looks you up and down and almost nods a little, then gives a distinct look that says they immediately know everything about you. Say no more. You're from Utah. I've heard about you.

The easy answer, of course, is to not let this bother me. First of all, I'm not from Utah, and secondly, the majority of Utahns don't seem to let the profiling and essential condescension hinder their ridiculously high quality of life. Who knows if we'll ever move back here or not, but if we decide to, I might have to do a little maturing in order to fit in, considering my upbringing.

That, and I'd have to stop using my turn signal. Zing! I'm sorry, I know. Sort of sends a mixed message about the place.

Well, hey.

By now, you must have noticed it. Of course you have. This blog, you've said, doesn't have a theme, a brand, an essence. It's alternately witty and sappy, trivial and overblown, and pretty much every entry is too long. If you hadn't noticed it, don't feel bad. I noticed it a long time ago, but I never did anything about it. That's probably worse.

Why is it that we blog, again? Remind me. For me, maybe my writing voice is the voice I wish was my speaking voice. Maybe it's because I no longer keep a journal. Maybe I just want to be heard. But some of the world's most annoying people are those who just want to be heard. Yes, it's not the most ignoble of desires, but it spawns some bad stuff. Either way, there are something like 13 million blogs out there (made it up), so no one's really getting heard anyway.

I remember remarking to my friend Blaine once in an Indian restaurant in a gas station that I thought that writing, for me, represented the most likely opportunity for me to make a real "mark on the world" or something like that. I'm pretty sure I still believe that, but I don't know if I care anymore. Writing for me, I think, represents the thing that makes me feel the best, the most productive. That's what it is. And when someone might stumble in the door and read it on accident, it forces some degree of accountability.

This next three weeks might represent the longest vacation I'll have until I retire, assuming I find a job someday. So here's this: I'm going to do my best to write here at least two or three times a week until winter quarter starts and we'll see what comes out of it. Maybe I'll figure out why it is I do this, and what form future postings might take. It might suck for a bit (see "Searching for Teen Wolf" or this entry), but I have hope for a brighter future.

When I lived in Russia, I became witness to a fascinating phenomenon which I like to call "babafication" (бабафикация). That's pronounced BOB-ification, from the word babushka (бабушка), which is one of the two Russian words you already know. Babafication describes the process by which this


becomes this.
Notable is the rate at which this process occurs among Russian women. The above change represents something like a week or two tops, during which time the women must stay inside their apartments, because to my knowledge, no one has ever witnessed this transition, or in fact, any true middle ground between the two varieties of women. On a side note, it is unknown whether or not a similar process applies to Russian men, since there are no Russian men over 55.

Over the years, I've conducted a long, informal study on both sides of the Pacific, and I have my theories about why Russians age the way they do. That's not the point here. What fascinates me is the fact that babafication is much more than just a dizzying natural metamorphosis. Much of it appears to be, to some degree, voluntary.

* * *

Adam watches from his stroller as the tiger sharks swim overhead. He doesn't watch closely. I want him to, but he's still too young to appreciate such a sight. I watch for him, hoping he'll get a sense, through me, that he's witnessing something special.

When we talk about Adam's future, snapshots flash of a young man my age, but without any clear distinguishing features. It's nearly impossible for me to picture my son in any state other than baby, and yet, he'll move on eventually. I stroke his tiny fingers as he grasps one of mine, and it floors me to think that these very same fingers will be big someday, and will belong to a man who goes on dates, gets promoted, and grows crippled, hunched over with the weight of the world. I can't equate the baby with the man, or even older child, that he'll become. I can't equate myself with either my past or my future, either. These fingers can't be the same ones. It doesn't make sense.

* * *

Those that have spent time in Russia know that being a babushka entails much more than just being old. Babushki (pl.) possess enormous cultural importance in the motherland, and have for centuries. They are the consummate representation of the past, the stubborn link to a folkloric time on the steppe that, without them, may have vanished generations ago. Babushki somehow embody the in-born instinct of the Russian soul--not 60 but suddenly 600 years old, complete with all the wisdom, reserve, and longing tediously gathered over such a span.

The universal babushka wardrobe, conversely, can be assembled almost instantaneously. It's as rigid as the bristles on the crooked brooms they scrape with. Regardless of the season, the standard-issue outdoor babushka get-up begins with several layers of multicolored sweaters and dresses peering out from under a drab, scratchy overcoat, and accompanied by a scarf, felt boots, and the shawls that have come to symbolize them almost as a distinct race.

The question I've wondered for years is this: when do babushki decide it's time to don the uniform? What spark causes them to set out shopping for felt boots? And do they hunch and snort on the way to the boot market, or does that not happen until the bus ride home? The differences between Maria Sharapova and the axe-wielding matriarch are enormous, but the time gap is razor thin--comicially so. One day, one direction, the next day, another. Generations, states of mind separated so clearly, it may as well be law.

* * *

Deeper down in the Aquarium by the Bay, after the tiger sharks, a man peers into a tank. He wears a red 49ers cap and has a red 49ers tattoo on his right bicep, which is visible thanks to the manual removal of the sleeves from his red 49ers shirt. The physical characteristics of his face escape me, but what I see on his face will remain etched in my mind for many days. As he puts his hands on the rail and looks into the blue, I think I witness the exact moment he advances a generation and becomes old. Maybe this moment has lasted a month or two for him, or maybe I truly am beholding a once-in-a-lifetime realization. Either way, I've never seen a face bearing two opposing forces--the young and the old--in such desperate struggle. He is carefree and immature and then suddenly wizened. Suddenly it's no longer ok to wear a sleeveless shirt to the aquarium. Now he'll be embarrassed when he leaves.

* * *

I have to admit I'm not sure what all this means, these two approaches to aging. Maybe Russian women have it figured out, and they can pinpoint when this transformational moment will come, and thus mentally prepare for the instinctual migration to the felt boot market. Why fight it like so many western women attempt to? To me, the idea of a foreordained babafication ritual seems more graceful than the forced metamorphosis I see at the aquarium. It also seems possible that the anticipation and cultural expectation contribute to the babushki aging so quickly all at once, though.

Back in Russia, tangled up in these very questions, I also looked into the possibility that babushki are, in fact, a distinct race, and that they're born in their present form, just slightly smaller. It almost makes more sense.

I hope Adam stays tiny forever.

For quite a while now, possibly my entire life, I've been trying to be awesome. I mean, most of us have. We know the actually awesome people are the ones that don't have to try, but that doesn't stop us. It just forces us to be sneakier -- to cover our tracks so it doesn't look like we're trying so hard.

Since among my generation, Facebook is the ultimate medium by which awesomeness is not only conveyed, but oftentimes created (and destroyed), I have naturally spent careful hours over the past years tweaking my Facebook profile in calculated efforts to elevate my own stature. The ultimate goal of this, of course, is that in the event of a time warp in which we're all transplanted back to high school, I'll have a greater immunity from dorkitude than I did the first time around.

The Facebook profiles of awesome people are often characterized by extreme terseness -- they don't say much. One might conclude that this technique lends an air of mysteriousness to the subject, which we all know is attractive. More importantly, and not unrelated, is that the technique of virtual anti-verbosity lends the impression that one spends little time on Facebook, which is, of course, the equivalent of "not trying." See how this works? In the Facebook realm, as in literature, economy of words equals awesomeness. Ergo, my own profile tweakings almost always take the form of trimming the fat.

Trimming the fat used to be easy to do on the sly. Every so often, I'd log on, delete an unnecessary line or two, and the casual viewer was none the wiser. Much to my dismay, however, I discovered yesterday that Facebook has changed things up. Now not only does it publish on my wall every tweak I make, but it has removed the "remove" option, which means each tweak now enters permanent public record as a damning testament to my repeated attempts at awesomeness augmentation, a heinous crime.

In the context of the "wistful" or "pensive period" that has defined my recent thoughts, yesterday's debilitating revelation seemed destined to cast me deeper into the stagnant tidepool of unawesomeness. Then something else happened which may prove to reverse my fortunes entirely: I watched that shining beacon of modern cinema, 1985's Teen Wolf.

In the film, young Scott Howard seeks fervently after awesomeness, and due to an unexplained genetic anomaly, not only does he find it, but in his words, it "lands on [his] face." After the happy event, the remainder of the film is an unabashed chronicling of his awesomeness, as sampled in the following clip: here it is in Spanish (this level of awesomeness requires no translation).

The lesson here is clear. If an awesomeness of this gut-wrenching magnitude is achievable for one who wanted it as publicly as did Scott Howard, it might be achievable even for me. Not that he hasn't set the bar high. Until I'm doing backflips on top of a moving truck that bears my likeness, I may never know whether or not I've arrived at a commensurate level of awesome. I also have the added disadvantage of being subject to logical transitions, a backstory, and a plot without holes, none of which burdened young Scott.

More importantly, the wistful period is over. It may have made for more vogue, publishable memoir, but heaven knows that's not awesome.

Note: Sarah says my writings have been "angsty" lately. I'm not sure about that. I suspect if future anthropologists were to discover this link and hold my blog up as a standard of human achievement in early 21st century literature, the last few posts may be considered to constitute my "wistful" or "pensive" period. It's what's in my heart. So sue me.



Last weekend, at Half Moon Bay, Adam saw the ocean for the first time. The pumpkin festival had the highway choked for many miles around, but once we actually arrived at the beach, it was nearly empty. Only after exiting the car, which we parked at the edge of the cliff, did the sandy postcard beach below, with no people, present itself.

I came to California to get closer to Siberia, which has been whispering past my ear since before I can remember. Even as I stepped cautiously to the cliff overlooking the ocean, my body, like a magnet, oriented itself 45 degrees to the north. The unifying capacity of oceans is remarkable. Even thousands of miles away, it felt like it was just over the horizon.

Just as with oceans, the concept of distance is hard to grasp within Siberia as well. Such vast emptiness plays tricks on the mind, especially when you step past the last house in town and find yourself on the periphery. The next Siberian city, after all, is considered "close" when it only takes an overnight train to get there. I can recall countless instances looking north, especially from the taiga forests outside Ulan-Ude and Novosibirsk, thinking that if I could just walk straight in that direction, I could reach the Arctic Ocean, hundreds of miles away, without encountering a soul. Of course, I'd never survive the trip. I could just soon walk across the ocean.

There's something about being on the periphery that's really mystifying. It's impossible not to notice it. In Siberia, of course, that's everywhere. That's all Siberia is--the very edge of a gigantic abyss, as dark and cold and inhospitable as the surface of the moon, and just as far. It's incredible. I guess the ocean's the closest thing we have around here.

I wanted to explain all that to Adam, and I will someday, after he's older. Hopefully I can show him in person, so he can feel it too. All I told him last weekend is, "Adam, this is the ocean. Isn't it beautiful?" And then I pointed north, and said "that's where Siberia is." I think I may have said a couple more things, certainly kissed him on top of the head, and then after we took a picture, we returned to the car. Hopefully we'll be back soon.