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