When I began writing Impressions of an Expat over thirteen years ago, the idea of carving out a quiet moment every Monday morning to document, to paint a brief portrait, to cry out in celebration or pain, to recognize, to stand back and marvel - it seemed like such an innocent pursuit. Over time, the options have been whittled down. No more accounts of run-ins with my nightmarish ex-wife. No more feet-on-the-ground anecdotes about politics in Russia. No more discussion of the moral and social bankruptcy I witness in the States. No more this, and then no more that. So I worked the basics, the creative process, the act of picking up a camera or a guitar and trying to make something honest and rare. I wrote about the simple pleasure of cooking with my children, of that triumphant feeling we get when a fresh loaf of bread is pulled from the oven and rests like a trophy on the counter.
Then last March, we began to live in the same story. Our thoughts turned toward a universal, shared experience. We all tried to find sleep with the same fears painting their faces across the ceiling. We all stared out of windows, wondering "when". We all dutifully followed the directions as they trickled in. Of course there are people that ignored all of this, but I doubt they are readers.
As the days tiptoe past, the very walls close in.
There is the mundane, and then there is the stagnant. There is a nothing where a little scrap of something lurking in a corner can be coaxed out, soaked in water and boiled into a fragrant soup if you do it with care. And then there is a vacuum, where there is no life. Just as this virus steals our sense of smell, I have started to witness a space we live in where nothing matters, where that fresh bread does not satisfy any more. As soft and tender and crusty as it is, can we taste it any more?
I don't see any way around this.
I also wonder how many more years, how many more decades I will rise on Mondays with a story bursting from my ears, yet one more message in a bottle to scrawl out in my best handwriting, and throw into that ocean. I try to think this is all for my children to read when they are older, and that is reason enough. It is a legacy written on scraps of paper, a library of rocks rolled up hills, the work of a fool, the labor of an invisible man.
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