Flying to Siberia, DC orientation, flying dogs

In his book “Travels in Siberia” Ian Frazier describes how, in his early 40s, he became obsessed with everything Russia. Its people and its landscapes. How the love hit him hard as he stepped off the plane at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport. And he came to know, over the course of his many visits, a particular Russian smell:

There’s a lot of diesel fuel in it, and cucumber peels, and old tea bags, and sour milk, and a sweetness—currant jam, or mulberries crushed into the waffle tread of heavy boots—and fresh wet mud, and a lot of wet cement.

America, on the other hand, he describes as the smell of commerce. Of new cars and milkshakes, malls and fried chicken.

As we prepare here for our own trip, battling it out with the Sitka planning commission and our one neighbor in particular to try and get approval to operate our Airbnb while we’re away (this town does not make it easy), getting the dog’s health checked on for flying, completing our own HIV tests for Russia, making plane reservations, it’s this moment of stepping off the plane I think about it. For myself, but mostly for the kids, who of course have never been on another continent. Whether it will be different for sensual creatures, these wee barometers of sense.

As we go through the motions, moving out of our house, subletting my office, I find myself yelling at paper. The shit we have to do – securing Letters of Invitation, blood tests, proof of education. It’s a big planet and we’re just lifting off one continent and setting down on another. Still the same sun, the same stars above us. Why the big deal? Why so many hoops?

The other night Rachel said this:

“Think of it like this. We’re one tribe, here on our island. And we’re going to the land of another tribe, stepping into their hunting space. They have different morals, a different language. They’re wary. So they put us through the ringer.”

I guess that’s what partners do. They break it down.

Seen that way I guess we’re getting off fairly light with a bunch of paperwork. Though I do think I’d rather experience being boiled or forced into a death match with the sultan than be told I’ve got yet another thing filled out incorrectly.

As we plot our travels it grows increasingly absurd that we’re headed east instead of west. Alaska is just two and a half miles from Russia. People laugh at Sarah Palin calling Russia a next-door neighbor. But she’s really not off base, considering the population density of the state, and what it means to be a neighbor here. Two and a half miles away is pretty dang neighborly, and that’s what separates Little Diomede from Big Diomede – two rocky islands out there between Siberia and Alaska. Chuchki Sea to the north, Bering to the South. These tables of land, Big Diomede Russian, Little Diomede American. I have a buddy who tried, one foggy morning, to kayak between the two . Apparently he got turned away at the border, but not before the Russian border guards gave him cigarettes for his kayak trip back.

We have heard that camo is the way to go in Russia – and so we’re dressing the baby in camo and dropping her off on an island to see how she does. She’s quickly becoming a little survival beast, clawing among the rocks. In the mornings  Kiera-Lee asks for “malako pajowsta” which is actually молоко, пожалуйста though she probably doesn’t know it. Kiera-Lee who has taken to ignoring the tots gymnastics because it’s boring for her – she prefers the three year-old and up, where you can do the balance beam. Tricia, who runs the gym, is excited for the girls to go to Russia and be whipped into shape. Come back goose-stepping little girls ready for the Junior Olympics. Apparently a gold medal gymnast studied in Irkutsk. I can’t imagine there’s that much else to do there in the cold winters. Oh, and reindeer boots. The whole family is getting reindeer boots. We make it to Siberia, that’s the reward. I’m not coming home without a pair of those suckers.

The girls, as I said, sense things, and they know something’s up. The routine, as much as we can say we actually have one, is disrupted. Rachel and I continue to have discussions about striking a balance between risk and routine, safety and education. The other day Haley cut herself with her “big girl knife” she uses to cut carrots. I was thrilled. It’s basically supervised hijinks, and it seems to work. Haley gives woodstoves a wide berth after she burned her hand on one. Of course the problem with this approach is they get scared away forever – Haley still freaks out when a bee shows itself after being stung. I guess we should have batted the bee away. I don’t know.

Everyone, including the Russian consulate in DC, seems to be confused as to whether we need to draw blood from our two children, three and two, to make sure they have not contracted HIV. Rachel and I have already been tested. We once tried to take blood from Haley for a lead test after finding it on the Adak. She struggled like no one’s business. I’d like to avoid a similar experience.

But it’s the dog who presents the problem. The obvious answer is to leave him in good care back here. He’s fourteen. And we’re going Sitka to Seattle for a couple days. Then Seattle to Wyoming for a week. Then Wyoming to Philly. Then to Jersey Shore. Then to New York City. Then to Moscow. Then to Irkutsk.

Tough on his old bones. The obvious answer would be to leave him here. And yet. As Rachel tells me he goes on hunger strike when I’m out fishing, or doing a cruise. And so. We will take him. On the plane. It will be long. And hard. But hey as our local vet here Burgess Bauder tells us, if that’s how he goes out, on the way to Russia, then that’s all right. He knows travel. From New Hampshire to Alaska to New York City to Philadelphia up to the mountains down south to New Orleans, across the country, in a boat back up to Alaska. He’s just a trooper. I fear my children are now bearing the brunt of what he once experienced.

So far though they seem to be coming out okay. They play in cardboard boxes by barrel fires, spend hours picking salmon berries by salt-whipped, abandoned island gear sheds. Haley loves to fish, loves cutting up fish, loves smoking fish. Always the two big pieces go in with the two smaller pieces – the mommy and daddy go in with Kiera-Lee and Haley Marie. And if anyone’s separated all hell breaks loose. Seal the bag. Fill it up. Seal it.

Late at night after the kids sleep  and we load the dishwasher or have drinks the issue of child-rearing seems to come up. I found an article that speaks of the old manner of parenting as obsolete, the model where the parents said a thing and the children did it. Oudated. Negotiations, a healthy back and forth, are now in order. The dialogue prepares the child for a flexible world where nothing is stable. It gives the child a sense of self. If the child wishes to say no,  I do not wish to do this, that’s fine. They must think of a few good reasons why they do not wish to descend from the transom of the boat while the outboard ploughs a wake at 25 knots. Say, I’m practicing my balance – nevermind if I fall I’ll be chopped to bits for the killer whales to eat.

Haley was recently given a book called “She Persists” about a girl that pushed forward in the face of resistance to get her way. That one went straight into a milkcrate in the garage. How about a book called “She Didn’t Persist.” Or, even better, “For Once In Her Life She Listened To Mommy & Daddy Who Collectively Had Half A Century Of Experience On The Face Of This Earth And Maybe Could Guide Her.” I’d like her to read that book very much. That would be a very good bedtime story.

The Fulbright brought me to Washington DC for the pre-departure orientation. Put me up in a pretty sweet room except I felt guilty because back home we all sleep in one room, Rach and me and the kids. Poor Rach. Except the heat in the city made me want to choke someone. Or get choked. I searched the area for Brazilian jiu-jitsu dojos but there were none. Spent my time instead visiting congressmen lobby against Don Young’s proposal to except Alaska from the Roadless Initiative. How fascinating to be in the capital, to see how hum-drum politics as usual are. Passing Paul Ryan’s office where, unlike the other offices, you must knock before entering. Stopping by Dwight Evans’ office, (Dem. – PA) because he had an Eagles sign on his door. A cool glimpse behind the curtain of what happens there.

I visited Representatives Reichert and Lance and one other dude I can’t recall. Tried to channel my moderate Republican, to persuade them to vote against that crackpot Don Young. The vote is Thursday. We’ll see how that goes.

As for the orientation it was a bunch of men and women much better dressed than me speaking much better Russian than me. My Russian, at this point, is fairly basic. “Personal Safety and Health.” Basically they don’t want us to get recruited by the FSB.

A presenter tells us how Russians don’t smile because it’s a sign of stupidity. Another person said it’s because the Russians have experienced such extensive hardship. I can’t stop thinking of a New Yorker fiction piece I read by David Gilbert. About a man who has lost a wife and a daughter and is going with his remaining daughter, Willa, to purchase a vehicle. It’s heartbreaking. In my class at Sitka Fine Arts a student grew angry when she wasn’t given a trigger-warning to a piece about suicide. We all want to be prepared for the worst that could ever happen. That’s why a dry run for surprise is so important. So that you can continue to smile even with it’s the worst. I wanted to tell my student this, and so much more. 

In these preparations I myself grow disoriented. This happens when I’m not working as much as I’d like. Not writing as much. True north disappears. It’s all only ever been a way of making sense of the world. And when there’s not time, or when it’s summer in Alaska and you are just out all the time, or when you’re preparing for a big move, it’s tough to find the time. Though I have been reading a good novel, John Straley’s novel “Baby’s First Felony,” once the other day with a coffee and chocolate chip cookie at the Backdoor Café. A happy place, reading a book by Sitka’s favorite author in perhaps his favorite place in town. Thrilling, actually.

Last week Rachel and I took the girls camping at the Chai Chi Islands. They played in the sand and traipsed about the woods, picking salmon berries and roasting marshmallows and playing a game we called buckets, where one person tries to knock the other off with a kayak paddle. Haley has a low center of gravity and was actually difficult to knock off her bucket. Until she backflopped into the sand on purpose and had the air knocked out of her. How when your children are hurt there’s some secret well inside you that you automatically empty into them as you hug them. Some secret daddy-store of replenishment. Take this, take all of it. Fill yourself back up, child. Here I am, here I will be, over and over and over. There’s a scene in that David Gilbert story – it’s called “Fungus” – where the father makes a bad joke to his six year-old daughter, and she’s laughs in wonder at his humor. And yet he knows in four years she will see him as corny. Maybe outdated. Not cool. That will happen too with my daughter. It kills me.

What else? We found a company that ships turtles and gorillas around the world, 150 turtles at a time apparently. We asked for a quote on our dog, from Sitka to Irkutsk. 8,875 dollars – but only if we could somehow fly the dog to Anchorage. Then they’ll do it. For 8,875 dollars. As I said, we’re taking the dog.

My friend who I meet in the aisles of the hardware store says he’s started to read. What is your book about, he asks. I tell him. He runs a painting company and just bought a red truck. He used to own a van. I have seen him post on social media looking for a hunting partner. Up to this point in his life the only time he has had available to read has been in jail. Lately, he has started to make more time in his life, especially for novels, and he’s happy about this. And then I think more that I should be writing.

Instead I’m worrying. Worrying over letters of invitation or what agent might represent my next book. Whether my daughters have enough structure in their lives. If I should let them scroll through the photos on my phone. Haley has such large eyes. She watches your every move. Dad, why do you throw away the broccoli? It’s for the chickens. We don’t have chickens anymore. Oh yeah. What about other chickens?

The dog will fly with us. Perhaps he will wear a service vest to make sure our well-being remains intact as we fly halfway around the globe. I don’t know. I know it would break his heart if we left him. And yet, and yet. So far, so far.

The joke about going willingly to Siberia grows old. Though I’m sure it’s one we’ll continue to hear. Circling back around to orientation I do get the sense if I had applied to go to St. Petersburg or Moscow I would not have received this Fulbright. Or at least they would have asked for the 20-minute interview and discovered my Russian (then) was fairly non-existent. I do find myself wondering if my namesake Isaac, who was Russian (my grandmother born in Russia) has seeded inside me some love of this language. Russians – all eastern Europeans – strike me as having a beautiful sadness to them. I mean they’re very good at being sad. Or just looking like they don’t care. I also excel at this, I think. This honest sadness. One of the reasons I like to dance salsa, to bounce out of this Slavic rut of woe.