Earthquakes

Friends with Words is a newsletter about language, culture, and identity, created by a Russian-born, Israel-based essayist, linguist, former world traveler, and single mom.

If you’re disillusioned by the current state of humanity, but still secretly hope that curiosity can fix the world or at least make it a less horrible place, this space is for you. Welcome.

The other day, I noticed calluses on my palms. Those rough patches of skin that you get from hanging off a metal bar for too long, and that pleasantly scratch your face when you wash it in the evening.

Normally, I don’t notice them. But now I looked at them and remembered how a long time ago, before last Thursday, I was the kind of person who worked out three, four times a week. Hardcore functional CrossFit-style workouts. Bench press, deadlift, squat, pull-ups. Man, I can hardly remember that life anymore. Now the only workout I do is nervous pacing around the apartment between bouts of news watching.

It’s unnerving how quickly your mind gets used to a new normal while your body holds the memory of the old you.

I take calculated risks now. Our dog park is a nine-minute walk from our house (eight if Shiloh doesn’t stop to poop on the way). The pre-siren alert usually comes 5 or 6 minutes before the actual siren. That gives us enough time to either run back home to our safe room or rush to the dog park, assuming there are people there who would take us to their safe room.

There is a new dog named Muffin in the park. A medium-sized white mixed breed with pointy ears and brown patches over one eye and belly. Are they new here? I wanna know. No, says his owner, a guy in his late 20s - early 30s. They’re here temporarily. Their apartment in Holon doesn’t have a safe room, so they’re staying here with their parents.

A Seismic Shift

I woke up on Sunday to another creepy pre-siren alert at 7:30. Felt grateful, immediately, that a) I woke up to see another day (no kidding) and, b) I got a full night’s sleep because there were no sirens that night, at all. That this one comes at a time when I have to get up anyway.

I got up to pee, then grabbed my pillow, my two backpacks (one with my laptop and some books, the other one with my sketchbooks and coloring pencils — my most valuable possessions that I keep dragging back and forth to the safe room), and headed to the safe room, where my kids were still asleep.

Lied down intending to doze off some more on Maya’s mattress, but reflexively checked the news: “Americans have attacked Iran’s nuclear reactors.”

A mix of horror (now the retaliatory strikes will be even stronger), relief (the nuclear threat has finally been eliminated?), and hope (maybe this whole thing will be over soon??)

But as I was still processing this new seismic shift, and just as the sirens finally sounded, a small voice called me from the dark room. “Poigrayem?” (“Let’s play?” In Russian).

I looked up: Maya was awake and holding one of our favorite board games: Sushi, Go!

….Reminding me of another tectonic shift that was underway in my own house.

The Cold War

I've been trying to get my daughter to speak Russian for more than a year now. She understands it but doesn't speak it.

When she was born in England, I spoke Hebrew to her because I wanted her to know this language in case we came back to Israel. When we did come back four years later, I switched to speaking English at home because I didn't want her to forget it. As a result, her Russian fell by the wayside.

This caused me more sorrow than I imagined it would. For more than a year now, I have been looking for a way to sneak this language back into our relationship.

I tried to entice her to speak it so many times, but she only agreed to say a few words, only to please me, and only when no one was around. When I made an effort to speak more Russian to her at home, the extent of the damage was revealed. She had forgotten some basic everyday words. Sometimes she doesn't understand me.

My relationship with my languages is complicated. I prefer to speak English because words come more easily to me in this language. But I prefer to speak Russian to my kids because it's more visceral.

Besides, over the last 18 months, I have been watching my mom gradually forget whatever Hebrew she knew. Nellie, her carer, says that now, every time the minibus from her seniors' club drops her off at home, she gets off, turns on her unsteady legs, and whispers to the Hebrew-speaking driver, "Spasibo!" — "Thank you" in Russian. She was never fluent in Hebrew, but she could function in it very well. And now she can't.

I'm terrified that one day this might be me: that when I'm old and frail, Maya won't be able to communicate with me.

But “terrified” is never a good state of mind to operate from.

One evening, a couple of months ago, when I was making an effort to speak only Russian to her, Maya burst out:

"Mama, I wish you'd just speak English to me all the time! Why do you keep speaking Russian?"

"Because Russian is easier for me." (It’s partially true.)

"But then why did you ever start speaking English to me at all??"

"Because I wanted you to know it! Because imagine how sad it would be if we weren't able to read Elephant and Piggie in English…."

"… and Elmer," she added, sniffling.

"And I Need a New Bum…"

"And Junie B Jones…"

"But I want you to know Russian too!"

"But why!!!!"

Here I lose it: "Because when I'm old, I will forget all the languages and we won't be able to talk to each other!!!"

Way to go, mom. Good job, scaring the child just before bed.

She was crying now: "Why is that even a laaaanguaaaaage!!!!"

After that, I continued to speak Russian to her in the evenings, but I mostly lost hope that she would ever speak it to me.

The New War

And then — then this new war started.

See, war isn't just ruined buildings and explosions that you see on TV. War is also tired parents who can't get their minds together to work on a client project, let alone entertain their children. War is a new dog named Muffin in your dog park, and carefully planning your route to make sure you're never more than a 5-minute walk away from a bomb shelter.

War is also bored and whining children who are stuck at home, who don't understand how these missiles are different from the ones we've had for the last 1.5 years. How come she was allowed to go to the corner store or a friend’s house on her own, all this time, and now she can’t?

Maya takes her scooter outside with strict instructions to stay within 100 meters of our house, but calls me 3 minutes later: "I'm bored. It's boring inside and it's boring outside."

A little while later, Shiloh and I join her, and we go to the dog park. It is there that something shifts. On the playground nearby, a Russian-speaking family — a mom and three kids, the oldest girl about Maya's age. Probably also here because of the war, needing a safe room.

Maya tells me about them on our way back home. She says, suddenly: "I want to have a Russian speaking friend so I could speak Russian to her."

Oh my god. Where did that come from?

"And why do you want to have a friend like that?"

"I dunno. Because it's cool to have a friend like that."

Then she comes to a halt: "I forgot my scooter in the park," and we turn to go back.

"Let's speak Russian when we get there!" she proposes — a sentence she's never uttered before. "So maybe they could hear us speaking Russian and would wanna be friends with me."

On the way there, I taught her the Russian word for scooter: samokat. She said loudly, in Russian, "Gde moy samokat?" ("Where is my scooter?") as we passed by the swings. She said "Sobaka!" ("Dog!"), pointing at Rocky.

We got her scooter and headed home again.

"It wasn't successful," she said. "They didn't hear us."

But to my mind, it was. Something had cracked open.

Samokat

That evening, she announced that she wanted me to homeschool her while we're stuck at home. And that the first subject should be Russian.

At first, she wanted to practice pronouncing difficult Russian sounds. We’ve been there once before, and I knew it was no use trying to convince her that accent is not the most important thing. She kept getting frustrated with herself for not getting it perfectly.

She said she wanted to speak "perfect Russian" by the end of the summer. "Perfect like Yannai's," she said, referring to her brother.

Then — it was her idea — she suggested we set the timer for 10 minutes and speak only Russian.

We had an evening snack and tidied up the living room, all while speaking Russian. When the timer went off, she wanted to keep going. Ten minutes turned into three hours turned into three days and counting.

Her Russian is cute and a little baby-ish for a nearly 10-year-old; she makes mistakes and asks me a lot of words. But the most important thing is that she speaks, and she wants to.

I can hear her scooter outside again as I write (only 100 meters in each direction, I reminded her). "Samokat," she calls it now.

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