Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1995
As you read this, I’ll be unpacking in an apartment in Anchorage. And while the family is looking forward to malls and Kentucky Fried Chicken for six months, my heart tells me we’re doing the wrong thing for winter. We should have stayed put in Nome. “But there’s more to do in the winter in Anchorage,” I’m hearing. And, “You get great concerts and shopping and there’s always the zoo!”
Zoo, schmoo. I have three sons who will soon remind me that wintering in a small apartment has universal challenges that even the biggest city can’t dispel. I look over at my sons bouncing on the couch and tipping back in chairs and practicing kung fu forms in front of the television. No wonder the Russians have great ballet!
Somewhere along the line they transformed that energy of young boys in cramped apartments through Russian winters. Can’t you hear Mrs. Barishnikov shouting as she rolls out the kolache, “Misha, OFF THE COUCH! Stop bouncing!” And Mrs. Gudonov is hanging up the wash, yelling, “Alexei, stop with the running around!” And Mrs. Nureyev can be heard repeating, “Rudy, Rudy, Rudy! The bed is not for jumping!” Famous dancers they turned out to be but only because their mothers had had it with the leaping around at home!
How different will an Anchorage winter be for me, then! Will it really matter about the concerts, the zoo, the library, and the biscuits and rotisserie meals from Kentucky Fried Chicken? Not much.
Think of me as the winds howl and the drifts collect and the sun is something I see in books. It’s another winter with three boys. It’s containing those bodies in a small space when they should be leaping and spinning with Misha, Alexei, and Rudy. It’s looking forward to an almost Russian winter without the Tchaikovsky. And I’ll be thinking of you up there, too.
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