Letters from Nikolaevsk

Annitta

12-3-98 -- Musings

Hi from the full moon casts it light on the snow covered hill village:

To the Dane.... I am sorry about how my e-mails turn out. It is Internet Mail... all I know... Heck, I've been trying to learn to do a web page... Ohhh, hear that? Another brain cell fizzled.. happens everytime I try to think computer.. darn..... another one.

Chickened out and had my son drive THE HILL. Of course we stopped by and picked up a friend who happens to be a priest's wife... one can never be toooo careful. Ah, well, ok, I admit it... I sat in the back of the Dodge Charger and she sat in the front. Son and friend had better view of THE HILL. Really, it wasn't that bad. We made the best time going down a hill in first gear than any vehicle known to man... Guiness World Records should have been there..

It has stopped snowing. The spruce trees hang heavy with wet snow and no breeze in the night air to disturb them. Some of the trees bend under the weight of the snow and reminds one of an old bag lady standing still on a street corner. Clouds gently gather around the moon and together they welcome the freshness of a coming new year.

The air is bright and clear, the smell of wood burning hangs lazily over the village, and in windows, shadows cast by the wood stoves chase across walls and icons. Girls in colorful Russian dresses down to their ankles with ruffles showing and pleats carefully set, go two by two across the back yard and down the trail to the school to play outdoor basketball. They fear no one.

Men with long beards and shirts with embrodried patterns and handmade cloth belts around their waists walk under the moonlight heading for another house where a marriageble girl is at. Romance can be touched and felt by the heart under the full moon that casts it beam-like glow, upon a small and humble village. Soon, a marriage will take place and another lifetime together begins.

A village of many marriages: of moonlight and clouds, of dreams and possiblilities, of spruce trees and little boys who climb them, and of old couples who waltz together in their living rooms under the glow of the winter moon.

bless all this coming holiday season...

annitta
from downtown moonlit shadow dancing nikolaevsk