Tatiana and Tatyana

One the same day that I flew home from India a few weeks ago, instead of going to sleep early, I went to read my story about Morocco at an event called Lit Crawl. It’s the celebratory end of San Francisco‘s week-long LitQuake, and 10,000 people come listen to several hundred readers in various cafés, bookstores, libraries, and other venues in the Mission District.

It was a wonderful event in a packed café, and I read with a small group of fellow travel writers led by Larry Habegger, whose company, Travelers' Tales, will be publishing my book, Mother Tongue, in March.

Toward the end of the evening a young woman walked up and waited while various people introduced themselves to me.

“Hello. My name is Tatyana,” she said.

“How wonderful,” I said. “That’s my name too, you know.”

“Oh yes, I certainly do.”

Someone else wanted to talk to me, but it was obvious this young woman had more to say, so I kept looking at her.

“The coincidence doesn’t stop there.” A big grin settled into her eyes. “I grew up in the same house that you grew up in!”

“That can’t be true!” 

But it was.

Her family, it turned out, bought our family house when my mother finally had to give it up after living in it for over 40 years. 

The house in 1987

On a recent Sunday, Tatyana and I walked around Spreckels Lake — a pond in Golden Gate Park across the street from the house — which my mother walked around every morning into her 80s.

The house in October 2017

Raptly engrossed in each other’s stories, we circled many times. At one point, the founder of the House of Bagels, a sweet looking 70-ish man whose story I would normally be sharing with you now, persistently but unsuccessfully tried to connect with us. We were simply not available. We were on a mission to learn about each other.

My brother Alex and I moved into that house on 35th Avenue when he was 14. Tatyana moved in when she was 14. I went to Washington High School and University of California, Berkeley. Tatyana went to Washington High School and University of California, Berkeley. We both worked with computers. I speak five languages, almost six. Tatyana speaks five languages, and is now learning another, determined to exceed her grandfather’s skill with six languages. We both married non-Russians. We are both writers planning the publication of our book. And we grew up in a house that was the culmination of our parents’ American dream and a home we loved. 

With my brother and parents, Christmas 1987.

The commonalities seemed to end there. My Cossack father’s family left Russia around 1917, during the revolution that created the Soviet union. Tatyana’s family was part of the Jewish immigration of the 1980s and 1990s, when the Soviet Union was falling apart. Tatyana is deeply steeped in Jewish studies and her sixth language is Hebrew. I spent much of my youth feeling vaguely guilty about the role of the Cossacks in persecuting Jews in Russia.

And then something I couldn’t believe tumbled out of Tatyana‘s mouth.

“My grandmother was a Cossachka.” She looked at me, unsure if I knew what that meant. “A Cossack, you know.”

And now the commonalities multiplied. Our fathers were both Cossacks. Their families were both forced out of their homelands by Communists. Mine ended up in Yugoslavia, hers was pushed by Stalin to Moldova. Each married a long-time native of their adopted country, had a son, then a daughter named Tania, and then was forced out again. Both finally ended up in a house in San Francisco on 35th Avenue between Fulton and Cabrillo.

My Russian Orthodox father married a Croatian Catholic who converted to his religion, the one I was raised in. Her Russian Orthodox father married a Moldovan Jew, and in that religion a child’s faith is determined by her maternal lineage. As we talked I realized — 50 years late — that my first fiancé was also a Jew, through Gracie, his zany Russian Jewish mother.

And of course I can’t help but think that had my family stayed in Russia, they too might’ve been pushed by Stalin into one of the outlying republics like Moldova or …

Creating photographs, words, and connections

A great photograph tells a story. But a great written story doesn't necessarily have great photographs to go with it. 

Over the years, my photography and written storytelling have grown more linked. My best stories evolve over time as I internalize my experiences, and are often written later, using notes I made in the field. These notes add detail and can help create a more intimate reality. Photographs taken at the time can also help remind me of specific settings or people.

But the best photographs from a trip might not match the most significant story.

I met a woman on a river trip in Myanmar, and our brief visit will live with me forever. I have a video of her rolling chewing tobacco, and a picture of the two of us together. But I don't have an amazing scene that would tell you the story of her life in one picture. Most often, my deepest connections preclude photography, because I am talking and interacting with people, not shooting.

When I wander with my camera looking for scenes, photographs often come before I connect with people, or in the moment of connection. I don't consider myself a great portrait photographer, because I don't think I have the personality required for that art, for patience is a key ingredient, and patience is something I lack.

I have been asked if I get permission before I photograph people. I do sometimes, but not as a general rule. I typically acknowledge the person with a nod of gratitude or a smile. If the person does not want their picture taken, I will not persist. 

One place where I have easily captured portraits of people is India. I love how welcoming many people are, and how much they enjoy having their pictures taken.

Women have to carry water long distances in tribal areas of Odisha, India, and sometimes are reluctant to be photographed at the source. This woman clearly didn't mind at all, and paused with over 40 pounds of water on her head to smile at me.

That used to puzzle me until the prevalence of camera phones led to people asking if they could take my picture. I find it easy to say yes, and I am usually flattered, especially when it's a handsome young man!

Looking at my pictures, I can often trace the path from surprise or suspicion to acknowledgement or connection. While for many photographers that is the moment that initiates the photography session, for me, it will initiate the final photograph, and the moment that will start the shift to whatever level of personal connection I will have with that person.

This is probably the first time that my writing was initiated by my photographs. I hope as I continue to combine my stories and images the marriage will be fruitful to both!

For your laughing eyes

Traveling through Central Asia reached me on levels that peeled away years of my life. For the first time since I was young I was surrounded by people who spoke Russian. People who wanted to know why it was that I, too, spoke that language.

My fellow travelers came to understand when I responded, "I am American, but my father was Russian. He left Russia 100 years ago." The questions flew at me in rapid fire succession, lest I disappear before the mystery was clarified.

Waiters hovered around me in Bukhara, Uzbekistan,  knowing that I would translate mysterious requests, as complex as the need for a fork or a second beer. They saw many French, German, and Italian tourists. But English knocked them flat. They did not see many Americans.

Toward the end of dinner one night a handsome young lad walked up behind me and gently said, "This is for you," as he handed me a delicate white rose.

I don't mean a green-stemmed white rose. I mean a delicate all-white object that seemed to glow in the open-air caravanserai where a violinist played Mozart and a singer had just finished a rendition, in Russian, of "Очи Чёрные / Dark Eyes."

And just as I had finished explaining to my friends that it was a song about captivating dark eyes, this rose was placed in my hand.

I stumbled through a thank you, and asked: "But why are you giving me this?"

And the gracious young man said: "For your laughing eyes."

I doubt that he expected me to leap up and hug him, but how could I resist?

My rose didn't make it home intact, but I photographed it before going to sleep. I had walked home holding it delicately before me, marveling that someone had taken one of the paper napkins that graced almost all of the tables in Uzbekistan, and had created an object that could give me such joy.

On research and writing: From dusty tomes to instant information

During the process of writing Mother Tongue, I was reminded that things happen in small steps.

Sometimes, it is remembering this that gets me moving again on my writing when I feel stuck. One doesn't need endless hours to start writing. A few minutes here and there will do.

However, a few minutes in, I would often find that once again, I was wonderfully distracted by history, as writing a historical novel in the age of the Internet is definitely an experience shaped by its time.

Many years ago, I decided to explore the question of my mother's nearly mythical heritage. She kept telling us that 500 years ago her family came from Montenegro to Istria. As far as I knew, that information was not written down anywhere, although in my book there must be a mysterious old Bible. 

Exploring the question meant exploring the New York City Public Library. At the time, the main library on Fifth Avenue was an astonishing source of knowledge. The staff who peopled the Slavic department rivaled my professors at the University of California, Berkeley. They had already confirmed the veracity of the stories about why my family and I had fled Yugoslavia. I would talk to them at length about my questions, and they would refer me to old New York Times microfiche reels, or head off to the stacks to come back with mysterious dusty books. 

One of those dusty tomes told of the plagues that wiped out the population of Istria during the Middle Ages. They told of the Venetian empire strengthening, and taking over the area. Of Venice sending ships to Montenegro, where the Ottomans were invading. Of the ships picking up the fleeing 'barbarians' and depositing them along the Istrian coast. 

Thrilled with my discoveries, I neglected to make copies of the pages, or to write down the name of the book. On a recent return trip to that library, I learned that the department had been desiccated by budget cuts.  Moreover, those people that helped me were probably long retired, if even alive.

At home in San Francisco one day, I decided that I needed to do a little more research about more ancient history. Instead of flying to New York, I picked up my iPad. Instead of talking to some gentle elderly man, I talked to Siri. Instead of dusty old tomes, I got Wikipedia and Google transcripts. 

That Istria was the ancient Illyria discussed in the Iliad was another story I have shared with people for years. One more time I decided to confirm the veracity of my statements. One more time I learned I have not been incorrect. 

Illyria, it seems, covered much of what was once Yugoslavia. In fact, it was right near the dividing point of Montenegro that the Roman and Byzantine empires abutted. The rationale for the Bible being written in Cyrillic rather than Latin was discovered from my desk, as the sun rose over San Francisco. 

Rage and Love

My brother Alex and I fought bitterly as children.

He doesn't remember it well, but I do. What I remember of my childhood is tempered heavily by a massive rage. A rage at the injustice of the world. A rage at being smaller than my brother, and him being able to beat me up. A rage at being smaller than my parents and having to listen to them unless I wanted to get hit. An all encompassing rage deepened by it not having an outlet. Because I was small, there was not much use in expressing that rage physically. So I tried to use words; and that was not terribly effectively.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!" I hated the apparent truth of that silly rhyme, learned in the Inner City school I went to, for words were all I had to fight back with. In the end, it was the hard manners of those street smart kids that I learned so effectively. I shoved that rage somewhere deep inside, stored and tempered for the day I would somehow learn to keep people from walking all over me.

I do remember love as a child. Love for my adopted grandfather, Dyadya Zhenya, who I met in the refugee camp where we lived in Trieste. Love for a new Zhenya who took in our family when we came to America. Love for another wonderful man, named Wise Owl by the Hopi Indians he spent so much time with. Zhenya Ishevsky. Zhenya Kvasnikoff. Tolya Wise Owl Zoukovsky. There were many others. Olga Turskaya. My Aunt Galya. My kindergarten teacher Miss Laskey, who became Mrs. Lane halfway through the year. Their love filled my childhood, their names roll off my mind as easily as if they were still here in the room with me. 

Alex and me with my beloved Dyadya Zhenya in Trieste. That day he was on duty at the guard station at San Sabba, the refugee camp we lived in. 

It's as if I veered between love and anger, and not much in between.

My parents I mostly remember as taskmasters and rule setters. My mother believed saying good things about us would swell our heads. She thought love was expressed through actions, not words. It never occurred to her that a child might not understand the deep love behind her instructions on how to live. 

So instead of praise I stored up rage. Rage at my tone-deaf efforts at singing with my boring alto voice in a social circle where singing Russian songs and being part of the church choir weremandatory activities. Rage at the term of endearment "my little elephant" turning to insult when transferred from my father to Prima Ballerina Jana — Wise Owl's willowy but fierce wife who turned me down for ballet lessons. Rage at our family friend, Olga, who would sing loudly in my ear, sitting next to me as I banged away at the correct piano keys, finally telling my mother it was hopeless, I was a robot when it came to music, I didn't have that oh-so-Russian trait of a musical soul. Rage at my lifeless fine hair; at my height that refused me the last inch I wanted; at my weight that insisted on pounds I didn't need. Rage at being too smart and too white at a school where being tough and black was prized and normal. Rage at Betty, my one possible American best friend, whose mother didn't want her little girl hanging out with "one of those Russians." Rage at the brown stubs that were my early teeth — probably due to some lack of nutrients — and at the dentist who saved us money by pulling them at night without novocaine when they refused to drop out, to make room for the new crooked set we couldn't afford to straighten. Rage at being foreign when I wanted to be like everyone else.

Alex remembers a “normal” childhood and I am amazed every time I consider that. I remember my father sitting for hours with him every night, banging the table at his son's incomprehension of anything mathematical. Alex occasionally cried, but I always raged. My father believed his son had to be an engineer, in case we were evicted from yet another country against our will, for engineering was supposed to be the international language. Never mind that my father couldn't find work as an engineer because he couldn't learn English. His son had to be an engineer. Never mind that his daughter was a mathematical genius. His son had to be an engineer. Never mind that for Alex 2+2 could as easily be three or five as four. His son had to be an engineer to protect him from the random injustices of the world.

Alex and I visited Istria in Croatia together a few years ago and at the end of that trip we traveled to Italy, where we walked through San Marco Square in Venice without a fight. During our previous effort to travel together in Italy, as I was ending my teen years in 1968, we argued bitterly in that famous spot and parted ways for the rest of the summer. This time, we drank champagne on the Grand Canal as the sun set and day tripping crowds departed. I knew deep inside that there was no better place my life could have led me. 

I call that progress.

Enjoying a Campari spritz with brother Alex at the famous Harry's Bar in Venice, May 2014. 

Survivor's guilt: Another refugee crisis ... hits home

Sometimes I can't get out of bed because I get wrapped up in the confluence of my reading, my writing, and my thinking. 

It was one such morning. I needed to get up, I had an appointment at 10. It was important.

It's importance, however, conflicted with my need to keep working through images roiling in my mind.

It started with one more headline about refugees being smuggled into Europe, about Germany turning the other way because of a current election, about Macron in France perhaps opening up.

But It was the following lines that hit my eyes:

Thousands more have been stranded in Serbia…

But the migrants themselves told USA Today they don’t want to stay.

“I tried to leave Serbia 17 times,” Jawad Afzali, 17, an Afghan refugee in Belgrade told the newspaper.  “Every time, they bring me back here.”

My mind drifted back a couple of years to 2015, when my brother Alex and I were visiting my Cousin Goga in the heart of Belgrade, staying in a hotel near his apartment, across the road from the train station, next to fields teeming with homeless refugees.

Alex and me with my cousins in their apartment in Belgrade.

Near an apartment I had often visited as an infant, over 60 years ago, when my family still thought we were safe, when they didn't yet know that being refugees was soon to be in our future again.

An apartment where my cousin had grown up, raised his family, made a successful life for himself. Where divergent histories played out within one family.

The nearby apartment in Belgrade where my family lived when I was born.

My thoughts crept back another year, to when Alex and I had visited Trieste, where we had lived in a refugee camp of old army barracks as children.

On that visit, in 2014, in addition to our first visit together to the memorial for that camp, we spent time in an abandoned dockland, a port driven out of business when the Iron Curtain crashed and East Europeans had free access to the West, no longer needing to sneak into Trieste to shop for those desired Western goods. That abandoned port was home to hundreds of Afghan refugees, and we talked to young Afghanis playing soccer in a makeshift field.

With Afghan refugees, 2014, in an abandoned dockyard at the port of Trieste, now in Italy. When we lived there it was a United Nations protectorate, still being fought over by Italy and Yugoslavia. 

And then my mind went back almost 100 years to 1921, when another infant landed in Belgrade, a refugee who had fled his country, Russia, on a crowded ship and spent months in a tent camp on a Greek island on his way there. The same island, Lemnos, where Syrian and Afghan refugees were now living in tents. And the parallels kept multiplying, threatening to choke me, my eyes leaking, my survivor’s guilt mounting.

That final infant was my father, but Belgrade was the end of his family's journey. Serbia was their safe asylum. Or so it seemed, for the next 30 years, until that safe asylum grew unsafe.

My Russian grandfather's grave, in Belgrade, restored by Vladimir Putin as part of a new push to reclaim the Russian Orthodox Church globally.

I'm beginning to understand why I'm struggling with the story I'm working on about my recent travels. Understanding why getting almost arrested in Iran led me to just a hint of understanding about my father's experiences in Belgrade is one thing. Writing about it is another.

Христос Воскресе!

Христос Воскресе!

"Oh! It'sNadia, Helen's goddaughter," Victor whispered to me as one more person barreled into a room already full to bursting. The table had been carefully set for around 15 people, the elders and youngsters already exiled to the sunroom, and still they poured in. Helen had been careful to specify it was not an open house, but my cousin and her husband are a focal point for a tight Russian community, and it was, after all, Easter Sunday.

They had sung midnight mass in the Holy Virgin Cathedral on Geary, leaving at 2:30 in the morning, long before the service was over. Son Nick had gotten home around 4:30, but a friend from a church further south said their service continued till past six. I vaguely remember this inverted form of boasting about the length of those interminable services.

Vic sat next to me, savoring his first meat in seven weeks, after a serious Lenten fast. A banking executive and serious salmon fisherman, he was telling me about his new passion for singing. Soon I was watching a video of a robed figure standing in a dark church surrounded by kneeling penitents, his deep tones echoing around the interior of the large onion-domed edifice. With little formal training, he was evolving into a soloist and clearly enjoying an experience he still found terrifying. "You're out there all alone," he said, "there's nobody to lean on."

Cold rain continued it's destruction of our long drought, but every woman under 60 was dressed for Palm Beach—rather than San Francisco's Ocean Beach—in skimpy sleeveless dresses patterned in spring flowers. 

"I decided to wear this more sedate outfit," said Helen, "when I realized it would be cold and raining." An elegant form-fitting sleeveless sheath of pink lace delicately played with the tops of her knees and pulled your eyes down to shapely ankles where spring wildflowers burst forth in creative heeled sandals that could have been an Easter outfit in themselves. I gave up on trying to imagine the racier alternative she had passed up and shivered in my long-sleeved outfit, grateful for the little black under slip that kept my middle toasty.

The room was bursting with family news. Nick had finished his first day on a new job that filled his face with a bounding joy I will remember for a long time. Daughter Kat was studying for her GRE, applying to Cambridge, planning a move across the Atlantic, where a new future was beckoning. 

I realized Nadia was the daughter of the sister of someone I had gone to Russian school with—of course—and listened to a plan to retire early from a stressful career as an ER doctor, buy a multimillion dollar yacht, and sail the seas. Their phone showed the yacht that triggered this dream on a recent trip to Malaga. They explained how it would solve the problem of traveling with their dogs better than the current trailer that had trouble crossing oceans. I idly wondered about the cost of maintenance, but the husband emphasized that he had worked on car and bike motors since he was a kid and could handle anything that came up.

I know that Vic is starting this morning singing at yet one more service in the church, one I am considering joining as I watch a heavy mist blanket the bay and enjoy my private Kulich, the Russian Easter cake that Helen graciously bakes for me every year. I think she has finally exceeded the best I have tasted from either of our mothers.

Христос Воскресе! Christ has risen! 

I am blessed to share their celebration in this tiny but wonderful manner.

Dr. Freud and Siri

Dr. Freud and Siri

When you try to use Siri with the wrong alphabet she might swear at you. I accidentally left the English alphabet on my keyboard while trying to dictate in Serbian for my cousin and would like to share the result.

"That's not a faggot ass" she started, when I dictated words that mean "I don't know what else to tell you."

Another nice sentence was: "good night sick as shit" when I said "kod nas se kaže" or "we sometimes say."

It's not the only time she's done it. I will just try another random sentence here:

"Goodness bother you very kinky shit," she writes, as I dictate"kod nas padaju velike kiše" or "we are having a lot of rain."

I don't swear very often, certainly not while speaking to Siri, and never in Serbian—which I learned from my mother, who never swore and taught me a very moderated version of that language. I don't know why Siri does this. It's a bit disconcerting. When she doesn't understand she assumes I'm swearing? Why not loving kindness?

As I write this another thought enters my mind. Is this what it sounds like to all of you when I speak Serbian? What did my grammar school teachers think I was saying to my mother when I translated their words for her? Oh dear.

This effort was all in a good cause, mind you. I just learned that my cousin's grandson was born on their Christmas Day, which falls on January 7, in Belgrade. I was trying to dictate a congratulatory reply to the note. 

"I am very happy" or "Ja sam jako zadovoljna" came out as "Yucca some sod the wedding."

Well, sod you too, Siri. 

No, I take it back. Thank you, Siri. I have enjoyed our conversation immensely, but I will be more circumspect in my future keyboard selection.

I've had enough!

I've had enough!

I am tired of being served defeatism for breakfast, lunch and dinner. One month of that diet is enough.

I am being barraged by the most cynically intense disapprobation of every action of our president elect. Yes, I greeted the mind numbing news of his election with uncontrollable tears. Yes, I am still grappling with the complexity of the issues that allowed a country—my country—to elect a comic book ogre to the highest position in our land.

But now instead of reading news I believe I am observing a chilling exposé about the future of news coverage. An existential debate over the very word news itself. This feels like less of a story about the election of Trump than about the death spiral of responsible media. We need to stop letting it drag our emotions and beliefs down the drain with them.

Now—when it's too late for responsible coverage of the election—now they are playing Chicken Little, forecasting the sky falling in on our heads. Fuck that. We have four years to get through. A combination of optimism and pessimism is required here. This moment requires the aspiration to believe that America will survive and prosper. This moment requires our undivided focus on that effort.

The people who voted for Trump want a better future. So does everyone who didn't. And while we may not agree on the means, I suspect we would all recognize the goal were it to materialize.

The majority of the people in this country are not radical in either direction. But we are all terribly frustrated. Our congress needs to figure out how to serve that majority. Surely today more than ever is a time for the middle to coalesce—for the rational Republican and Democrat leadership to align in a powerful and unique opportunity. A fear of lunatics in power can hopefully do what nothing else could've accomplished.

Let's stop wasting valuable time. We need to plan, coordinate, and discuss our future. To create partnerships and coalitions. To reach across the aisle and find common ground. Congress allowed itself to be gridlocked for most of the last presidency. Here is an opportunity to move forward in a different manner. Democrats can show that tit-for-tat is not the way to govern our country; not a way to be great; not a way to lead. 

Dealing only in negatives is a position of weakness. It's just ranting while fleeing the field of combat. We are too good for that. Dealing from positive choices is the way to move forward—and the positive choice is to focus on what is important to us and how we galvanize the support to articulate and realize that vision. One issue at a time. Pick the one you care most about. Make a difference.

Spending—no—wasting precious energy on crap like guessing future actions of various cabinet appointees rather than helping to steer those actions is a self-defeating, frustrating and debilitating waste of time. If we continue listening to the press we will soon have a depressed nation all on Prozac.

"The magazine Trump doesn't want you to read! Subscribe to Vanity Fair."

Now there is an advertisement to make you stop and think. It was the line that finally made me say: Bullshit. Enough.

Let's move forward by concentrating on what we want, not who we hate.

Diving into the deep

Diving into the deep

The Moken—or Sea Gypsies—of Myanmar elusively led us on a seemingly random chase across constantly changing seas. Searching for the gypsies of the waters, we finally understood that the Moken had found a new hideaway. They and their one-time way of life were buried in plain sight—on land—the last nomadic boat abandoned over ten years before. 

Gypsies by nature are vagabonds, nomads, people who shift their homes when the environment forces a change. For thousands of years these people, of whom maybe 3,000 now exist, wandered in the Andaman Sea among islands that lie off the coast of today's Myanmar and Thailand. They had long boats with woven palm frond covers to sleep under, and a deft way of leaping, spear first, from the bow into deep waters to reemerge with a fish for the next meal. In monsoon, they would move on shore and harvest the natural bounty of plant life, particularly coconut and a form of betel nut.

Over time, boundaries and governments interfered, as did large motored fishing boats coming from far away to their rich waters. The tsunami in 2004 ruined many boats and structures, although the story of these people's ability to forecast the crushing wave and flee to higher ground is apocryphal in the area.

It's not the first time outside forces shaped the direction of Moken lives. The very name Moken means "drowned in the sea" in their language, and it seems the original people were driven from land by the kingdom building Mon. The Mon were the famed tribe of artists and architects that all current cultures here lay claim to, fighting over a heritage more sophisticated than most. But at the edges of that culture were people, unable to keep fighting for their territory and too restless to adapt, who escaped to uninhabited islands and waterways, beyond the awareness of those building their empire on shore.

Their current evolution will lead to an unknown future. In Thailand tourism is changing the face of their world, but we saw no tourists in our travels in their Myanmar homeland. Most of the men went off to fish in long tail boats powered by propellers. Women rowed closer to shore to set their nets. And there were signs of boat building, including the traditional burning of the bottoms.

We traded drinks for fish with a small fleet of boats resting in a secluded inlet, waiting for the large ships to come purchase their catch and restock their ice. Children rowed out to greet us as our sailing schooner neared shore. And young men were happy to demonstrate their deep diving technique, spear in hand.

As I flew home on election day, I learned upon arriving in Tokyo that I too was leaping into deep uncharted waters.