Traditionalesque

Dear Friends,

Thanksgiving came a couple days late to Riga this year. The actual holiday found your fellow American working like a turkey on any other day. While I didn't treat my students to anything edible, I did allow them to feast on some great words about gratitude by great writers like Erma Bombeck and Langston Hughes.

Apart from school, I spent a lot of time in the kitchen. Pick your jaws up off the ground, family and former roommates. It's true. One of the craziest things about living abroad is the new-found awareness of national identity. I had no idea just how American I was till I started living in Latvia. At home, I could always look forward to experiencing the sacred kitchens belonging to my mother and grandmother. I love the smell of those rooms; I love what comes from them. But my interaction with them existed only in the passive sense -- me passing by for a cookie, me delivering dishes and occasionally staying to dry a few.

Now, I have a lovely kitchen here in Riga, but as hard as I've looked, I've found no mother or grandmother. As much as my mouth waters for the steaming bowls of rama noodles extracted from my little microwave from time to time, I can't say much of anything redolent in the culinary sense has emerged from my kitchen.

Until last week.

Thanksgiving and no cooking? A cook-free kitchen zone? It just felt un-American. Untraditional.

Some weeks ago, my friends Bob and Cheryl sent out invitations to the seven of us Fulbright people and our families to come over for a Thanksgiving potluck. We were encouraged to bring along a dish or two to share. You must understand that up until this point in my life, I've operated under the assumption that in potlucky situations, everyone involved including myself, would be gastro- and astronomically much happier if I allowed someone else -- like Hostess or Pillsbury, for instance -- to do the cooking. I have been the perpetual delivery boy, never the head chef.

This time, though, there was a stirring within my bachelor's heart. Something deep within inspired the crazy notion to prepare my own dishes for once, for this Thanksgiving potluck. I can't say for sure, but I believe the idea sprung from a rare strand of homesickness. Or existential madness.

I asked myself, WWJD? (What would Janet do?). In the form of a fiery pillar from heavenly ovens above, the answer descended: Thou shall create cranberry jello salad and peanut butter no-bake cookies for Thanksgiving. Selah

Now, these two dishes were absolute staples in my formative years. There hasn't been a single dish of my mother's making that I haven't been entirely over-the-moon about, but cranberry salad and peanut butter cookies are among my favorites. I e-mailed Mom who sent the recipes. And I was off.

Miraculously, I found all of the necessary ingredients after stops at several groceries. The only major set-back was trying to mold my first batch of saturated cookies into clumps on the wax paper. Lesson learned: corn syrup and corn oil are not synonymous. Turns out no one in Latvia has ever heard of corn syrup, so I followed the sage advice to substitute maple syrup, which worked wondrously and even added another dimension of flavor to the cookies.

So, walking into Bob and Cheryl's Saturday afternoon carrying my bowl of cranberry salad -- did I mention I even drizzled the top with whipped cream and fresh mandarin? -- and two plates of peanut butter cookies, I felt kingly. I guess everyone was feeling kind of regal because with each ring of the doorbell, the counter of food came to contain another delightful creation. Our cornucopia began bursting at it's wickery seams.

Okay, I confess it did seem a little show-offy that some of the guests had to make such homemade croissants and such incredibly delicious salads and casseroles and potatoes. And just because she was the hostess, Cheryl didn't have to bake one of the best pumpkin pies I've ever tasted. But, you know, my homely little delicious peanut butter cookies held their own among the vast spread of yum.

And you know what? As we, complete strangers three months ago -- American, Latvian, Latvian-American, Russian-American, and Czech -- ate and drank and dazzled our palates, the strangest thing happened. We melded into family. Pilgrims on similar journeys pausing to satiate our bodies, to converse, to laugh. To nourish souls and give thanks.

I asked one of the couples what their grown sons back home had done for Thanksgiving. One of the guys had run in a race -- running on Thanksgiving morning was something the family had been doing for years. Both boys had called their grandmother on the family farm, another Thanksgiving tradition.

In listening to their stories, it hit me that my personal definition of Thanksgiving family tradition is rooted in presence, not absence. Apart from one abhorrently interminable Thanksgiving spent with the family of the woman I'd planned to marry after college, in twenty-eight years, I had been seated around the family table every single year. Present to read the prayer Grandpa had written and printed on an index card with a black Sharpie... present to piece together Grandma's artificial tree... present to sing the year's first round of Christmas carols... present to watch the recorded TGIF Perfect Strangers Thanskgiving Special... present to take the annual Thanksgiving Day walk up and down the quiet streets of Jacksonville. Though cheerful and relaxed, I had no clue how to handle this holiday away from home. Unlike my friends across the table whose sons had called home to Grandma on Thanksgiving as usual, I possessed no prior knowledge of how to address a Thanksgiving away from home.

So, I did what I know to do: Get up and get another piece of pie, and keep talking. As conversation ebbed and flowed I acknowledged the mosaic of traditions, memories, and expectations I alone brought to the table. And here was the really earth-shattering piece: I realized that everyone else, each one away from home, was bringing his or her own cartload of the same.

Writer Anne Lamott has an idea why we tend to stay close to our families, especially at holiday times. "Everything is usually so masked or perfumed or disguised in the world," she writes, "and it's so touching when you get to see something real and human. I think that's why most of us stay close to our families, no matter how neurotic the members, how deeply annoying or dull -- because when people have seen you at your worst you don't have to put on the masks as much. And that gives us license to try on that radical hat of liberation, the hat of self-acceptance."

By accepting each other, the family-like friends with whom I shared Thanksgiving this year gave each other the gift of marking time, in thanksgiving, together. We talked and laughed long into the night, and when I stepped back outside, many hours after having arrived, I half-expected to see the open roads of Illinois before me. I'd never been so far from my family. I'd never been so close.

Americans seem to put a lot of stock in tradition. And, I'll confess that the slightest little shift in "normalcy" has my inner-Tevye pulling on his prayer shawl and shaking a raised fist wondering what has become of tradition? Tradition connects us to the past and extinguishes fears of the future. But tradition is as flimsy as pumpkin pie crust. Not long after a marriage or birth, we can't seem to remember the way it was before she arrived. And it doesn't take long after a funeral to realize we won't be able to go on quite the same way as we did when he was with us.

Abraham Lincoln delivered his Thanksgiving proclamation on the last Thursday of November 1861, so for years many Americans continued to celebrate the holiday on the last Thursday of the month. In 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt suggested Thanksgiving be permanently set on the fourth Thursday of November. His proposition was met with vehement outrage by many Americans. Could it be people had already established and grown so accustomed to their Thanksgiving traditions that they were unwilling to alter them? You betcha.

Tradition has everything to do with cranberry jello molds and phone calls and prayers and walks on empty streets and what we did last year. And yet, tradition stands independent of all of these. Tradition, whatever it is, carries meaning and such meaning is not bound to one permanent address.

Yours,

Tim

Cran-Apple Mold
2 packages (3 oz.) of jello - one orange and one cherry
1 cup boiling water
1 can of cranberry jellied sauce
1 can of applesauce
Simply pour the 2 jello mixes in a bowl. Add the boiling water and stir well. Then add the jellied cranberry sauce and applesauce and mix well. Pour into cups or a bowl and set in the refrigerator.


Unbaked Peanut Butter Cookies
1 cup sugar
1 cup corn syrup - I use Karo - this is a clear, thick syrup that I buy in a bottle.
Combine the sugar and corn syrup, stirring well. Heat until you see tiny bubbles beginning on the side of the pan.
Then remove from heat and add 2 cups peanut butter and 4 cups Special K cereal. Mix well.
Then drop from a teaspoon onto wax paper or a plate.
(You could use some other cereal of similar type - and often I use crunchy peanut butter that has peanuts in it, but you don't have to.)

A Poem for Thanksgiving

I look down Gertrudes iela to catch a glimpse of this church building

in the center of the city twice a day... walking to and coming home from work.

This Lutheran church has recently partnered with Salem Lutheran Church in Jacksonville.

Listen

with the night falling we are saying thank you

we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings

we are running out of the glass rooms

with our mouths full of food to look at the sky

and say thank you

we are standing by the water looking out

in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging

after funerals we are saying thank you

after the news of the dead

whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

in a culture up to its chin in shame

living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you

in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators

remembering wars and the police at the back door

and the beatings of stairs we are saying thank you

in the banks that use us we are saying thank you

with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable

unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us

our lost feelings we are saying thank you

with the forests falling faster than the minutes

of our lives we are saying thank you

with the words going out like cells of a brain

with the cities growing over us like the earth

we are saying thank you faster and faster

with nobody listening we are saying thank you

we are saying thank you and waving

dark though it is

W. S. Merwin

Falling on Riga

The stuff of fairy tales and story books...

First snowfall in Riga, November 3, as seen from the open air top of St. Peter's Cathedral

Dear Friends,

Maybe the feeling is common to everyone living in a new place. I can think of no other word for it than virginity.

When I woke up in Riga for the first time on August 25, which happens to be my birthday, the first thing I did was clean the refrigerator, which is small, but because of the Latvian freezer flora growing inside, beckoned my urgent attention. I'm a Chipman; therefore, I clean. While scrubbing away, I distinctly remember thinking, Tim, you are cleaning out a refrigerator... in Latvia!! just as a falling skydiver might say, My parachute has developed a slight tear, but just look at the view! I went so far as to giggle.

A few weeks later, when I dusted my flat for the first time, the thought occurred to me -- and, I concede, this is alarming, even to me -- that this wasn't like dusting at home, for this was Latvian dust darkening my rag and tickling my nose.

When you're living in a foreign land, you don't go grocery shopping. You set out on a journey to discover nourishment.

When you're traveling in a foreign land, you don't casually stare out the window of the bus. You study and gauge and gawk and note take, like Magellan.

When you're working in a foreign land, it's not a staff meeting you attend. It's an hour of opportunity. It is information sharing. Of course, speaking a bit of the natural language comes in handy.

When you clean your toilet in a foreign country, you first give thanks you have one to clean, and recognize the privilege of having what has become such an integral part of your happiness away from home -- a private bathroom.

And then, slowly, over time, the alchemy mystically breaks down. The changes are subtle at first, as the extraordinary turns ordinary. What once were small wonders begin to be filed in the folder of Small Annoyances. The sound of the morning alarm, that once was so melodic and Latvian and luscious, becomes an ambulance siren, just like your alarm clock at home. The once beautiful walk to work turns into the laborious marathon hike.

In short, the toilet turns out to be... well, the toilet.

It's not that the world once so rosy turns gray. It's just that things start looking the way they should. The way they are.

The changes are good of course. They indicate you are settling into your life and that your life is settling into you. Face it, it's a lot of work going through life with Disney eyes, big enough to take in an entire hemisphere.

But when the changes occur -- when virginity gives way to experience -- you'll probably come down with something.

I did.

My first Latvian cold.

There was nothing glamorous about it. Nothing I could marvel over. Nothing I could admire, apart from the gallons of phlegm my body is capable of producing. With each cough, I expectorated another wad of blame into the air. I blamed the airline for the night of lost sleep coming home from Crete! I blamed Latvia's climate in which a polar bear and her three cubs could thrive! And, since I'm not above blaming myself, I blamed myself for continuing to go about my busy little life as if nothing were wrong, with no intention of slowing down. (Evidence that the virginal child is still active inside of me.) The push to keep going is a personal quality I've grown to simultaneously love and loathe.

Last Sunday morning before church I went to visit Inga. I owed her for the month of October. Inga has become such a positive force in my life, that when I go to see her, I inevitably stay for awhile. I become Patrick Dennis to her Auntie Mame, and she always makes me laugh. This particular morning, my laugh sounded more like a chain-smoker's last wishes, and Inga became worried. "Poor son," she moaned. Inga sent me home with a jar of her mother's berry jam, honey, and a glass bottle of an unidentified dark liquid. I had strict orders to mix it into tea and stay inside.

Which I did. For a few hours.

The next day, Monday, was going to be a big day. In addition to my six classes, I had been invited to speak to a group of 12th graders about democracy and freedom. Then, after school, I had to sing in my first choir performance with the young men from my school. A visit to the school nurse after lunch seemed warranted and prudent; without my friend and co-worker Marta's help with the translation, I would really have been up a creek. Instead, I rowed away from the loving nurse's office with a prescription.

When I stepped out of the front doors of the school about 4:15, I hardly noticed the snow falling. Experienced Tim emerged and commanded me to make survival the number one priority by pulling the scarf a little tighter around the neck and walking a little faster. I found the small pharmacy where I was directed to go, and after a brief wait, I greeted the woman behind the counter and showed her my prescription. I became aware that if she tried to hassle or question me at all, I was going to become very un-Tim-like and bark like a boar. She must have seen the sickness in my eyes, for she gave me my bottle and my little box with a smile.

Thanking her, I turned and headed to the nearest open spot to hit up.

Now, I'm one of those people who believes I feel better the very minute medicine or anything healthful enters my body. It's the same feeling I get after prayer. So, already, when I stepped back outside, I was a changed man on the road to health. I had to cross the lovely park between my school and Old Riga to get to the choir concert in the History Museum attached to the famous "Powder Tower." The snow was falling like powder, big white wet flakes. In spite of my affliction, I had the sense enough to peer up at the dark skies from which it was falling and offer a short prayer of gratitude.

When I looked straight ahead again, I noticed I had come up behind two teachers from my school, one of whom works in the English department. Not feeling like talking in my moment of medicated, reverential bliss, I decided to slow my pace to keep a few steps behind them. This was wise, I assured myself, since the pavement was a bit slippery.

Now, I should mention that I was carrying my umbrella -- opened and over my head -- as most people do in rain. Ahead of me, I didn't see anyone else with an umbrella. No umbrellas to either side as well. Just as I was wondering if I was the only idiot carrying an opened umbrella in the snow, a huge cough from the lower rings of my soul rose up through my innards and deposited an ungodly amount of goo in my mouth. What to do? Couldn't spit -- teachers ahead of me! People in every direction! But I can't swallow! Be a man, just spit it out! Be a man, just swallow it. You'll have it for later!

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I stopped. I was on a bridge. A quick peek over my shoulder assured me the coast was clear, and the teachers were more than a few steps ahead of me now, so I relinquished what I'd been carrying. I lifted the burden, as my Baptist friend would say, but the burden lingered... the break was not a clean one. I removed my hand from my glove to wipe my mouth when she walked by and looked at me: a tall, beautiful Baltic brunette. She wore all black and stiletto boots. She carried an opened umbrella.

*****

Last Sunday was a Day of Remembrance in Latvia. Pastor Calitis preached on the text from Luke 21, "By your endurance you will gain your souls." He suggested endurance to be one of the foremost and important characteristics of a follower of Jesus.

Endurance may or may not constitute walking through a park in Riga on a wintry November day with a frozen gargoyle of phlegm dangling from your chin, causing you to blend in with the Art Noveau architecture in the background.

Maybe endurance has everything to do with insisting upon seeing the world with "new eyes," as Marcel Proust so eloquently noted. Maybe endurance is reclaiming virginity.

My cold has subsided, thankfully, and as I glance around my small apartment, I can see that the layers of dust on the coffee table and window sill give the surfaces a new dimension in this particular light, rather like snow on the rooftops of an old, old city.

Yours,

Tim

How To Live

Sun rising on the Sea of Crete

How to Live

"I don't know how to live." –Sharon Olds

Eat lots of steak and salmon and Thai curry and mu shu
pork and fresh green beans and baked potatoes
and fresh strawberries with vanilla ice cream.
Kick-box three days a week. Stay strong and lean.
Go fly-fishing every chance you get, with friends

who'll teach you secrets of the stream. Play guitar
in a rock band. Read Dostoyevsky, Whitman, Kafka,
Shakespeare, Twain. Collect Uncle Scrooge comics.
See Peckinpah's Straw Dogs, and everything Monty Python made.
Love freely. Treat ex-partners as kindly

as you can. Wish them as well as you're able.
Snorkel with moray eels and yellow tangs. Watch
spinner dolphins earn their name as your panga slam-
bams over glittering seas. Try not to lie; it sours
the soul. But being a patsy sours it too. If you cause

a car wreck, and aren't hurt, but someone is, apologize
silently. Learn from your mistake. Walk gratefully
away. Let your insurance handle it. Never drive drunk.
Don't be a drunk, or any kind of "aholic." It's bad
English, and bad news. Don't berate yourself. If you lose

a game or prize you've earned, remember the winners
history forgets. Remember them if you do win. Enjoy
success. Have kids if you want and can afford them,
but don't make them your reason-to-be. Spare them that
misery. Take them to the beach. Mail order sea

monkeys once in your life. Give someone the full-on
ass-kicking he (or she) has earned. Keep a box turtle
in good heath for twenty years. If you get sick, don't thrive
on suffering. There's nothing noble about pain. Die
if you need to, the best way you can. (You define best.)

Go to church if it helps you. Grow tomatoes to put store-
bought in perspective. Listen to Elvis and Bach. Unless
you're tone deaf, own Perlman's "Meditation from Thais."
Don't look for hidden meanings in a cardinal's song.
Don't think TV characters talk to you; that's crazy.

Don't be too sane. Work hard. Loaf easily. Have good
friends, and be good to them. Be immoderate
in moderation. Spend little time anesthetized. Dive
the Great Barrier Reef. Don't touch the coral. Watch
for sea snakes. Smile for the camera. Don't say "Cheese."

By Charles Harper Webb

So, You Think You Speak English?

Typical Smiling American... in spite of the fact a Greek flag is protruding from this bloke's skull.

Dear Friends,

It's no wonder that the British implanted their version of the English language in Latvia long before American English arrived. There may be no arguing the fact that British English came first, but it's a shame that we couldn't have saved our Baltic friends the trouble of repeated consonants and nebulous answers of when to use singular or plural verb forms with collective nouns.

Here in Latvia, Great Britain are the champions. No doubt about it.

What a pity.

But, with a little help from my American friends, we can attempt to equalize the English language instructional programme.

In The Canterville Ghost, Oscar Wilde wrote, "We have really everything in common with America nowdays, except, of course, the language."

Here's the case in point:

In one of my classrooms there hangs a poster boasting, Increase Your English Vocabulary! It's chock full of words and definitions. I've selected a few of my favorites/favourites to present to you. Turns out, my comprehension of English words is sorely lacking. I hope you'll fare better than me... than I... than myself... eh, whatever.

So, pour yourself a spot of tea, ol' chap, and try your hand at deciphering these esoteric English words. (And I do mean English words.) Post your definitions, if you dare, and I'll provide the actual definitions in a few days.

Now you can see what I'm up against as a teacher of English in Latvia.

1. shetload

2. pants (not the things you wear on your legs)

3. bling bling

4. snaffle

5. zine

6. sorted

Good luck!

Tim

Live Coverage

Dear Friends,

Temperatures in Riga today hovered just around the freezing mark. For me, the cold day was a day of celebration: with official paperwork completed, Timotijs Vilijams Čipmans is now an official resident of Latvia.

Since I had my camera in my bag , I decided to commemorate the occasion and capture the scenery that's become so familiar to me. (I regret not doing this three weeks ago when the trees were still ablaze in autumnal splendor.) Standing where the City Center merges with the Old City, I start and end with the National Opera House in view. You'll notice that I zoom in on my school and also take in the stately Freedom Monument. The crisp air hardly seemed to effect the embouchure of the saxophone player.

The link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Oc2Sbdv0-ws

Yours,
Tims

Translating Dictionaries

Dear Friends,

"Tim, would you like to turn a page in a dictionary?"

Lasma is one of the dozen or so English teachers at Riga State No. 1. Small in stature, she has a constant gleam in her eye indicating she is always waiting to tell the perfect little story. She has an anecdote for every occasion.

Without hesitation, I picked up a wine glass and handed it to Lasma. "I'd be honored," I tell her. "Fill it up!"

Latvia is the world's northern-most producer of wines. Here's the vineyard...

As I watched her fill the glass with sparkling white wine, I recalled my first official day at the school -- now, well into the year, already a foggy memory. After a series of meetings, the faculty gathered over finger foods and drinks in the school canteen. Like everyone, I was enjoying the light-hearted, convivial nature of the gathering after a day of technicalities and before the ensuing whirlwind that is the dawn of a school year.

I had just bitten into my sushi, when one of my colleagues (I didn't know her name at the time) said to me, "Oh, Tim, some of us will be meeting after this for the purpose of translating dictionaries. Do you translate dictionaries, Tim?"

"Yes," I said. Lying through my teeth. Lost as a duck in the desert.

"Good. Then please come to our meeting this afternoon..."

Directions and time and place ensued. My colleague exchanged glances with the others around her. Each of them nodded approvingly.

Suddenly, my sushi wasn't settling so well.

Translating dictionaries? What the--? What kind of work-slaves are these people?

Not only had I pretended to know something about something I didn't, I had actually stated that I'd be willing to what... lend my expertise?!

All in a first day's work.

And, what kind of dictionaries were these, anyway? I pictured myself sitting Indian style surrounded by building-block towers of Latvian dictionaries. A pencil behind my ear. A notebook on my lap. Hand through my dishevelled hair as my Latvian counterparts, dressed in traditional garb, danced around me waving a Latvian flag. A certain initiation.

Following the orders I had received, I met the group outside of the school at the set time. We proceeded to the bus stop and moments later boarded a bus leading us outside of the city. A Funk and Wagnalls helping of weight was on my shoulders.

Eventually we arrived at one of the teacher's flats. I followed the happy herd inside. Awfully excited about dictionaries, I thought. Poor, poor people. Oppressed for so long.

After a brief tour of the lady's flat (new to her and her husband), the group unanimously agreed that it was time to bring out the dictionaries!

I'm a bad, bad man, I told myself.

"To start us off tonight," one teacher said, "French dictionaries!"

Doh!

"Followed by Italian!"

Gulp!

"Tim, please take a glass," someone suggested, handing me a goblet. Well, this may help a little, I conceded.

"And here comes the French dictionary!" That from the host, emerging from the kitchen holding a bottle of red wine.

THAT was the dictionary?

My face must have given me away.

"Tim, what did you think we'd be doing here?"

"I really had no idea," I responded. "But I think I'm going to like this... translation."

Ernest Hemingway called wine "the most civilized thing in the world." He had this to offer about wine-drinking in Europe:

In Europe we thought of wine as something as healthy and normal as food and also a great giver of happiness and well being and delight. Drinking wine was not a snobbism nor a sign of sophistication nor a cult; it was as natural as eating and to me as necessary.

As necessary and natural as translating dictionaries.

Needless to say, I've been enjoying my school meetings like never before.

Prieka!

Tim