Tuesday, August 28, 2018

Hidden Village

 

Last Saturday night, feeling exhausted and a little chilled after the whole day spent outdoors, we stopped at the closest restaurant we could find, which happened to be a vegetarian and pescaterian Thai place in Bellevue, WA. We are neither, but sort of naturally leaning that direction in the last couple of years, and we love Thai, and our dinner was amazing! Anya got wide rice noodles with "veggie meat" (you wouldn't know the difference, honestly), Justin had pineapple rice with prawns, and I had pad thai with mixed seafood - delicious! No wonder I look as pleased as punch in these pictures! 



Nothing's new here - you've seen pretty much everything I was wearing that day. The olive green dress with lace you could have seen HERE and HERE (Summer 2017). It's a little difficult to show this shade of olive correctly, it is much greener than it usually appears in the photos. I chose to wear it with my Russian hand-painted enameled earrings which I have had since forever (take a better look HERE), old Converses (recently shown in June HERE and HERE) and a denim jacket (last time, shown HERE).



A good pad thai can please anyone, but it's not the only reason why I look so happy. Last Saturday, we had an amazing day! We were invited to participate in the first ever Educational Fair for the Russian speaking community, and for the first time I had an opportunity to share my books with my community, and I absolutely had a blast!



It was quite a chilly and cloudy day, and the air quality was still questionable - I mean, we've seen worse, but we've also seen better before and since Saturday. So Justin had to wear a mask almost at all times. Most people don't do it, but oddly enough when we were seated at the Thai restaurant that evening, our neighbor, a beautiful young Asian woman on a date, wore the same kind of mask! I've noticed that Asians are just so much more conscious about air quality and their own health, while most of us (myself included) seem rather self-conscious, at this point, to wear a mask and take care of our lungs. Anya and I shared my Russian platok and even a fleece blanket since we both weren't prepared for the chill.



But despite the weather, we definitely felt warmly welcomed by the community of Russian speaking people - educators, entrepreneurs, and the visitors - parents and children! We were free to decorate our booths as we please, and I decorated our table with a few birch bark boxes from the exquisite Andrei Lialin collection, which is always a show stopper and receives a lot of admiration. It is always very heartwarming to experience, but I wasn't there to sell boxes - I was there to present and, possibly, sell a few our books. Will they generate any interest? I did not know - and I couldn't possibly know that, of course! We've had a few sales here and there, but mostly through Amazon, a local bookshop, or friends and acquaintances. Justin had a few sales at a holiday show at his office last year - but again, those are the people who knew him personally, or at least, they knew of him. But at an event where nobody even heard of me as a book author?..

My fabulous family: Anya, who inspired me to write my first book, Anya and Her Wings;
and Justin, without whom our books would not have happened!


It isn't easy to sell your own work, and most creatives would rather stay in their studies and studios and create, and if you'd ask them, they would never ever have chosen to have to sell their own work. I am no exception! But I knew that sooner or later I had to dive in and just do it. Once I'd worked through my irrational, but very common for creative people fears, I realized that that was it - I've killed the monster. Ever since that, I was able to stay open and lighthearted. And I was AMAZED that so many people who came to my booth that day were also open, curious and just absolutely delightful! They WANTED to meet a new author, a local author - and they WANTED to buy our books! We've received so many warm words about our work, both Andrei's visual arts (boxes and illustrations) and my art - language! They asked good questions and appreciated my ideas of bilingual books. They showed me to their kids and with respect and even admiration, telling them that I'm the author who wrote these books. A few schools invited me to present my books at their classrooms, and I signed over a dozen books to my new little readers! I think if I've ever been in seventh heaven, it was that day, and I thank each and everyone for being there, for being so kind and open-minded. I feel so grateful for this experience! An American said to me that day that they had no idea that there is a whole "hidden village" of Russian speaking people around here, with its own schools, businesses, ideas, events...  I knew about the "village", of course - I made a huge effort to build such a village myself a few years ago. Our world is pretty much filled with such infrastructures hidden from the vast majority of population, and you can be sure that there are not one, but many "hidden villages" in your own town. But you know what I had no idea about? That this hidden village is exactly what was missing from my life, and many people let me know last Saturday that I was missing from their lives, too. 


There is only so much I can tell in one post, but the effect last Saturday had on me is incomparable to anything I've experienced before. Such a mix of feelings I've had ever since that day: happy, amazed, humbled, honored, grateful, curious what's next, floating, soaring, all of that at once and more...


Last, but not the least. Ivana, dear blogging friend and the most wonderful author of the blogs A LITTLE PLACE TO CALL MY OWN and IN LOVE WITH BOOKS, wrote a wonderful, just wonderful review about two of our books, Anya and Her Wings and Superseal. Read it HERE!

Photos are taken by Anya and me, with my phone.

Dress - Lane Bryant (2017)
Denim jacket - Old Navy (2017)
Converses, Russian platok and earrings - old

My new site - ChickenlegHouse
Free games for the whole family - AnyaStories

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14 comments:

  1. its wonderful!!
    what a marvelous experience! i´m very happy about your success at the russian community! ***doing happy dances over here*** :-DDDD
    you look so sweet in that dress and platok and the gorgeous earrings! and anya - sooo glam in sunnies and your platok - wow!!
    hope the smoke is gone now and justin can breath easily again.....
    many hugs and tons of love! xxxxx
    p.s.: could not kill MY monster yet - wrote something & deleted it - again... :-(

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    1. Thank you, my dear, I appreciate your joy for me!! We have been experiencing glorious blue skies this week, all seems to be back to normal now! As for your monsters, don't worry about it, it all will come together in the right time! Lots of love!

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  2. Oh what a change! Not moody :-)))) anymore. I told you it would happen! You look so great in your dress and Anya as well!! Love to see it and to read about all the lovely things the community does. Great for you and the books which look wonderful! Hugs, Sunni

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    1. Thank you, dear Sunni! For your encouragement and faith in me - it means a lot to me!
      Lots of love!

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  3. Wonderful! Thinking of it as sharing your art---not selling!!! I'm glad you've gotten out there and connected with so many people through the stories you've written. <3

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    1. Thank you, dear Becky! The most brilliant advice!!! You know, it's exactly how I felt during the fair - and how I feel now, but for the longest time it really was a monster in my head... It really is all about SHARING - sharing our gifts with each other, we all have different gifts, and mine happens to be writing as well as bringing people together and sharing the joy of life through community events. Lots of love!

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  4. Natalia, what a great expirience! Dreams come true Natalia :)
    Anya is growing up and such a beautiful girl. Good that justin take care about his lungs!
    Have a good time. A very huge hug Tina

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  5. I'm so pleased for you! It must be the greatest feeling that everything seems to be going your way. It also must be heartwarming to be embraced by the Russian community. You are looking quite radiant standing behind your lovely pitch. Anya is growing more beautiful by the day, and she is looking so grown up in these photos. Good to hear that the air quality is slowly getting better, and that Justin is taking the necessary precautions for his health. I think in some Asian cities the air quality is bad all the time, with lots of smog, and people are used to wear these masks. I see quite a lot of Asian visitors in Antwerp wearing masks even if it's not so bad over here. Hugest of hugs, my lovely friend xxx

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    1. Thank you so much, my dear Ann! The feeling is amazing - but it is really humbling, too. There are so many wonderful people doing wonderful things in life - and we all are in this together!

      I agree with you about Asians. I visited Taiwan many years ago, and in their overpopulated big cities, people do wear masks a lot more consistently, whether it is in relation to smog, or flu and things like that. I think it's a good thing. Here in PNW, air is good usually - the forest and the ocean do their things! But in some places, we have problems with wood smoke - too many people here use wood stoves in winter (the climate is so mild that old houses don't have a proper insulation. Government initiates programs for such households to convert into more modern ways of heating (our cottage got the upgrade), but there are still too many houses that use wood stoves around here, which isn't good for our lungs. And of course forest fires were really bad this summer. But it seems to be back to normal now, so we enjoy our blue skies again!

      Lots of love!

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  6. Anya is so beautiful!And you look great. As for the mask we don't see them much in the north of France. There was a boom in Poland some time ago but the air was really bad with dusty smog and all. I don't wear mask but hey, I'm a smoker so ehmm...should stop this habit first I guess:)

    Congrats on the new experience. Your stall looked very nice and I love that you wore platok! I wish we had community meetings at my place. It would be nice to speak Polish once in a while...except just monologuing to Bastet:P

    Kisses!:))

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    1. I'm so happy to see you here, my dear! Thank you for kind words! People are communal creatures indeed, even though the modern Western world is highly individualistic. But I see that even very individualistic Americans value the feeling of belonging to their local community, or artistic community, or whatever else is important to them. To us, immigrants, it is vital to find and connect with people who speak our language and share our cultural background... I wish you from all my heart to find a friend or two, and maybe you can start your own Polish community in the Northern France! That's how I started my community many years ago - it wasn't easy in the beginning to even find people, but then it started growing crazily... I'll write a book about that one day. Lots of love!

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  7. Sukienka piękna i ma wiele możliwości:))Pozdrawiam serdecznie i powodzenia życzę:))))

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