Read As a Teen

Up at three in the morning.  It’s five hours after I lay down.  That’s all my body wants.  I flop once.  I flop twice.  I don’t want to lie in bed thinking about the sleep I don’t seem to need.  Grab a shirt then.  Grab your pants.  

Down stairs my stepson and his mom are at the kitchen table talking.  The topic is marriage.  It’s clear they’ve been at it for a while.  He arrived after I went to bed.  I take my place at the table and join them for the waning minutes of their conversation.  My wife offers me a glass of wine.  That will not be necessary.  I spy the coffee on the counter.  She won’t be interested in any of that either. 

Soon they’re getting drowsy.  They find it hard to believe I’m up this early.  I am glad that I didn’t stay up as late as they did.  I look over the emails that have come in over the last five hours and make a list of the ones that require action.  Then, as ritual has it, I turn to the New York Times.  There is an article that suggests Trump supporters are hardening in their support for the President.  The title alone saps air from my soul.  I don’t want to read this article though I suppose I should. 

Son’s in town.  Girls are done with school.  Despite the odd threat to disengage the wife is ready to join for the big annual trip.  Tonight at 3:00AM we will board Ural Airlines, (no, they are not part of Star Alliance) and we’ll fly to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast of the Russian Federation.  Ever since I arrived in Poughkeepsie last summer, en-route home from Tanzania and spied an older paperback history of Russia on my stepdad’s shelf, I’ve been orienting my mind towards an engagement with Russia.  A year’s a good amount of time to prepare, overtly to read, and imbue and reflect on this remarkable lynch-pin between east and west.  And I remember the books on revolution I read as a teen and the literature I read at college and the literature I reread to my daughters as they grew and all the many people, students and colleagues and others I’ve met throughout my life who were Russian.  Late tonight, we’ll head out and see. 

Thursday 6/21/18