it is 4:30 am an i am sitting in the salt lake city
airport. i have been out of Russia for
just over 7 weeks. and it has taken me at least this long to try to begin to figure out how to respond to my experience. when asked, i’ve said things like
“challenging” “incredible” “amazing”
‘life-changing” “the hardest thing i’ve ever done.” and it was all of those things. the thing it wasn’t, was easily capturable. i suppose most profound experiences are not...that's what makes them profound. i have thousands of photos. thousands of stories. hundreds of new facebook friends. i’m only just beginning to figure out how
to talk about my time…how i want to present it…to others, and to myself. i wasn’t able to write this blog during the
last 3-4 months i was there. i was just
too busy. and besides, since i wasn’t
allowed to talk about the show (the opening and closing ceremonies for the olympic and paralympic winter games), or my work (as a producer of all protocol segments for all 4 ceremonies), there really wasn't much to
say. i guess i could have told you about how i was
only allowed a few meager appliances in the tired hotel room where i lived for
three months in sochi: a kettle, a Turkish coffee maker and a toaster. the toaster was the most amazing toaster i
have ever seen…it branded smiling suns on the sides of the toast. As if to say, “yeah, your hotel room sucks
and you work 18 hours a day and are not well nourished, but isn’t it a GOOD
MORNING???” i ate that toast every day.
or, i could tell the story of my relationship with my
housekeeper. which was pretty incredible as i never met her. we communicated thru my large, floppy stuffed
elephant that i got from ikea in Moscow.
let me back up. before we moved
to sochi, a few of us stocked up on some comforting “essentials” at ikea. we had heard the housing was less than
desireable, and to keep ourselves cheered when we finally made it back to our
beds each night, we bought colorful sheets, duvet covers, pillows, candles,
etc. and i bought a huge, adorable
stuffed gray elephant. he was my friend til
the end. and apparently i was not the
only one who loved him. after a couple
months of my living in the ekodom hotel in Adler (the town just south of Sochi...where the stadium, and thus our housing, were located), my housekeeper started arranging
my elephant in various positions on my bed, waiting for my return. i would find him tucked under the covers with
only his trunk sticking out, carefully placed on top of the blanket. or sitting with his arms and legs crossed, as
if i was past my curfew (i likely was…our 11:30pm production meetings generally
ran quite late…). i, in turn, began to
place him in various positions in the mornings, to await the housekeeper. i put him on the rug in the middle of the
room, staring expectantly at the door.
or hiding under the covers, hoping to be discovered. it was a wonderful game and one of the few
things that brought a legitimate smile to my face at the end of severely long
days. sadly, try as i might, i could not fit that
elephant in my luggage to come home. it
was either him, or my ski helmet. and
considering that i live in a ski town, the helmet won out. so, i left the elephant sitting on my bed
holding a note (which i wrote myself in Russian), which said: “please find me a good
home. i would like to live in sochi with
a nice family.” i’d like to think he is.
this was one of my favorite Russian experiences. it shows the sense of humor, love and warmth
that exists just below the surface. the surface
can often seem hard, and cold and without joy.
and for some, i believe that is all probably very true. it is a hard life in that country. but for most, if you poke a bit, if you linger
around long enough and put yourself out there, the truth comes out.
here are some photos of my elephant:
No comments:
Post a Comment