The Vastness

The Fig coming soon! My house has been loud this week.

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Dear Friends,

On Wednesdays, I don’t go into the embassy. I knock out some freelance work in the morning, then teach my 10:30 music class to a group of tumbly, smiley 1-year-olds. Then the rest of the day stretches before me. The to-do list stretches before me.

Apply for visas for our upcoming trip to Azerbaijan. Sort tapestries to take to the framer. Sheets in the wash. Box up baby toys and puzzles for the free table at work. Don’t let Nora see the boxes, or else there will have to be negotiations.

Real and imagined productivity. Reaching for order.

Everything is divided, these days, between the desire to stay present and the desire to count down. Last week we checked out a new pizza place with our best Bishkek friends. The kids crammed themselves into one bench and talked over each other, scheming and playing, trying to sneak dozens of plastic straws from the front counter without the adults noticing. The adults crammed around another table. Work talk, school talk. Travel talk. And the churning over our next homes. Arlington and Moldova and Bosnia and India.

There are things I’m ready to leave: the air, thick with construction dust and coal smog. The black ice on our unsalted street. My own illiteracy in the Russian language. I’m ready to move on from mayonnaise salads and plov. I’m ready to leave my embassy job, mostly because it’s winding down to its natural conclusion, and a change of pace would be nice.

But there is so much I will miss about this place. The mountain views on the way to work. Our ridiculous house. The way the light shines through the chandelier in the hallway and casts rainbows all over the walls. The poplar trees. The lack of humidity, which elevates my hair and skin to their ideal form. The people—both locals and Americans—who surround us and make our community here.

I worry sometimes that I’ve grown too used to being uprooted. It’s like what they say about it being good for kids to get bored. Out of boredom comes curiosity, creativity, deep learning. Perhaps this is how I have turned into such a generalist. I haven’t been bored in years because I’m always starting a new job, learning a new place. What gets lost with this absence of down time? Would I be an expert at something by now? Would I feel less disjointed?

So much work goes into relocation. There’s the existential splitting, of course, but also the stuff. The rugs and the art, Nora’s toys, the pots and pans. There are the questions we have to ask ourselves: what goes in the suitcases we will live out of from June to October? How much shampoo is that? How much of my medication should I stockpile until I can get my addresses changed? Why does all of this require graduate-level calculus?

I’ve been in a war with my health insurance company this year.