I don't see myself... This is why I decided to write only about myself. It started in 1995. I was fourty six, I saw a lot, except myself. "Write," I said to myself. "Write about yourself, write for yourself, for nobody, write to see."
I still believe that is the only way how I can get to the big story and history. I even thought it's my dutty -- I still think so.
Of course, I didn't see many places in this world, but I was the place I wanted to see.
...
... I didn't like what I saw. Nothing was publish. Nothing I wrote I liked.
I came back to Alaska the way we return home. I was bitter, at Russia, Africa, New York, at myself, at life.
No, I can't betray you, this sky above me, this day, this moment... because it's not just my life, it's life! Your and the people before me, the life of my children and so many living... I can't do it, because if I do -- nothing matters anymore. I have to remember it all, everything, every small deatil -- the cloud, which will be gone within the minutes... You can see how it changes it shape, moves, disappears. I must write about it, even if it's only about my life, my thoughts...
It's important, the feeling -- and therefore you will find the words. Only remember how important it is...
1995. I see that in my diary, the same notebook the Russian writing yelled to English language. Who do I speak with now?
What? American? Russian? It came my way; I was thrown into this river of time and the wind of history into my face. Yes, even this African part of the world. "Too much," like a pulse in my head, "Too much of everything!" I don't understand. I don't understand my yesterday -- and today is here. There must be a way to love and live with this speed of changes. You have to find the blessing.
1995. Summer. From New York we flew to Addis Ababa. By the end of the year we were back. How could I squiz those African months into my American Book? Does it belong to my American experience? How does it link to my Russian memories? Oh, get it, Anatoly! Don't you understand that everything is your American experience? What else? Learn how to be this New American, man! It's time! No more Russians or Ethiopians, they all are Americans. Write about it. Write about yourself.
I look back with owe, watching my own life evolving into something unknown to me. Confused by the immidiate past and fast future, I have make a sense of my day, my life. I have to connect it all into one big picture, because I can't give up on myself and you.
There is a dream I see often; the flying. Rising up in the night sky, coming down with the breathtaking speed and getting high again into dark cool peaceful heavens. There is the end of this dream I have sometimes, not always, the falling. And I fall fo so long, knowing that I am falling -- and I can't stop this fall. I have to wake up to stop it. ... Same with Ethiopia. Read HIM and see Sellassie websites.
It went wrong, too. We left Ethiopia knowing that we won't live there. Ever. Like with Russia we left without even plans to visit it again.
We came back to Fairbanks.
I knew that this is another my defeat. Not Ethiopian, but my American defeat. Maybe there were too many of them. Maybe she needed a break. Luck, maybe.
We were blessed that our son didn't die. But what kind of fortune is that? It always could be worse. That is not what I call luck.
No more travel. No for awhile. We will stay put and children will go to normal American school -- and they went to the Cathlic school in Fairbanks. We bought the condo-house -- and this was the time, when I began to write my notes. Without any plans, mostly because of my postmodernist reading.
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