When Harry Potter Saved my Life

;)

Well, sort of. Living in a foreign country is exciting- at first. Then comes the part where you realize you're going uphill in a stickshift and you'd better shift down down dowwwwwnnnnnn- what you hope is that you've got enough momentum and umph to get to the top of the hill; better hope it's not too big a hill, too [speaking of- do any of you remember trying to make the hills and curves down by Shoals, IN, in Rachel J's stickshift Oh about the summer of '95, '96?;)]

So- some people are in 'head start'- these things happen to them sooner rather than later. I'm not- I'm slow. Always have been... proly always will be. I was sort of sailing, drifting, flying along merrily the whole first year I was here and into the 2nd year, not really aware of reality or something. Don't know just when it changed- I do know that the apartment we were living in at the time evoked a jumble of feelings in me- pre-Communist era, it could have been wonderful- very old, fairly well-kept, very high ceilings (18 feet, as I recall- is that logical?), neat old ceramic tile heating stoves in the 2 rooms and the kitchen; also cold as kraut, extremely dark (no surprise with those high high ceilings), all windows facing north and looking out onto a narrow street with another building too close to allow for any sunshine ever- I always felt like that place swallowed me whole and dumped me off in a dark pit. I still have visions of darkness with little tiny circles of light where the lamps were- and I have not been able to tolerate dark rooms, hallways, spaces at all ever since- except when I'm trying to sleep. I craved fresh veggies, esp leaf veggies for years afterwards. It took me awhile to realize that I was heading for big problems there- psychologically, emotionally. Part of my problem was the pressure of speaking and reading Ukrainian- I was relatively fluent, but I hated the fact that I was having to use it. Let's face it, if you're living some place long term, you do yourself no favors at all by clinging to another language exclusively. Of course, you can always quit- throw in the towel, say It's too much, I need to go home, I am going home. But, like a good friend has said, I was too stubborn to quit; I hate the thought of being a quitter. There are enough things in my life that were left undone, not done well enough, whatever. I wanted to make it; I knew I could... well, I hoped I could.

So, sometime- I'm not even sure just when it was- Feb? March? sometime about then- I was sort of keeping my head above water, barely. Bill and Vasyl came by. V is perceptive- a whole lot more perceptive than I'd ever given him credit for. His eyes were twinkling as they came in the door. He had a brown paper package- Just a little something for you, He says.

I rip into it. I mean, next to being with good- best, in fact- friends, mysterious packages are about as good as it can get.

And I found the first Harry Potter book, in Ukrainian- fresh off the press... and not cheap in local currency. I could have cried; or hugged him. I managed not to do either, but he did know just how much it meant to me. I read that book- the first thing I'd managed to really successfully read and understand in Ukrainian... and I've never looked back. It was the turning point for me.

That day a good friend become more special than ever... and Harry Potter did a good deed.