Здравствуйте!

One of the most fascinating things about a blog is that once in awhile you run across someone who is accessing it at the same time you are. In the case of my blog I can not tell you how excited I get when I see other countries pop up on my little world map. Europeans seem to be such global thinkers – and I feel as if I have lived in a box. Once in awhile I see someone check in from Russia so I wanted to say “Hello” and I looked up the translation.

Lest anyone think that isn’t very forward thinking of me since most of the world tends to be bi-lingual and us Americans tend to be spoiled by that I’d like to explain. It’s not that I haven’t heard or seen Russian. As a child I was not allowed to learn it or mimic what I heard. My maternal Grandparents were Russian. My Grandmother died before I was born but my Grandfather lived with us and until I grew up and moved out. He was a constant in my life. He spoke several languages and occasionally redressed my mother in Russian. When I’d ask him to teach me he would politely refuse. My mother told me it was because he believed you should assimilate to the country you chose to live in. Bunk I thought, but I respected his wishes.

My Grandfather taught me to dye eggs with onion skins, render fat for soap and make soap, grow a wicked garden and save the seeds of the best plants for next year, and so many wonderful things. How can you not love all of those things and be fascinated by the country that made him who he was?

Some where, I am sure, I am probably related to someone overseas – my Grandfather had family. He refused to tell us much – Bolsheviks, Khrushchev, and a great fear of someone punishing him for being the first born and being sent off by his family. He really did think if he went back to find family that he would be kept. How the world has changed, huh? I hope it continues to evolve and to my friend in Russia I hope you are reading and know how happy it makes me – personally and artistically, that you stop here to read this blog.