May 2010
I’m on the precipice of something new. Something exciting.
Next month, assuming everything goes according to plan, I will be living in a one-room apartment across town. It’ll cost me about 6000 tenge a month. The walls are whitewashed, and the cupboards are empty. There’s a rug hanging on the wall.
Next month, when I look out my window I’ll see a dirt courtyard with a rusted slide. The sun will wake me up at 6:30 every morning, barging through the muddy-brown curtain.
Next month I’m going to a puppy. A wriggly ball of fur topped with a wet nose. I’m going to teach him Kazakh, so that one day when we’re back in America we’ll have a secret language.
I am so excited. But I am also so afraid.
If I want vegetables this coming winter, I am going to have to learn to can them. I’m going to have to cook and store tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. I’m going to have to be responsible for something else’s life. I’m going to have to remember to turn off the gas valve when I’m done cooking. I’m going to have to speak up for myself to a landlord, in Kazakh.
There’s a very long weighing process for me. I turn ideas around like a thing in my hands. I consider what it will taste like. What it feels like. The weight of the thing. I think about not just how it feels now wrapped in my fingers, but how it will feel later. How it will taste, what sounds it will make, what expenses it will bring.
I’ve turned this decision over and over in my hands. They are the representation of my physical impact on the world I live in. The decision has been weighed.
I’m going to do it.
I hope my hands are as good at saving my ass as they are at making decisions.
