Keeping Up with the Belks

She is sitting cross legged on the floor in front of her laptop. Surrounded by half unpacked boxes full of socks and dish towels and suitcases stuffed with worn paperbacks and old college texts. Pillows are scattered across the living room area of her new studio in fourth ward. The place looks like a very pissed off tornado, who sometimes moonlights as a pack rat, just passed through.

She is drinking $4 sparkling wine bought from the Harris Teeter down the street out of an Eat n Park coffee mug. She is toasting to herself, to the momentous changes that are going on in her life and all around her, for accomplishing one of her life goals, to live in the city. To living and living, blissfully and frighteningly alone.

She is covered and shivering from the second cold shower she took. She can’t figure out how to turn the hot water heater up and it’s the weekend. Also, being incompetent is apparently not enough reason for an emergency maintenance call.

Minutes before, she stepped into the shower, curtain haphazardly hung because several hooks got lost in the trip. She turned on the water and as the sheet of ice hit her back the breath rushed out of her lungs, she remembered. Remembered standing in the showers of her dorm room in St. Petersburg. Hot water was turned off in the summer to save energy. After her roommate moved out there was no more tea kettle to boil water beforehand. So she’d climb into the shower to perform the daily ritual. It was too sticky, too sweaty, too swampy, too gritty, too salty, too exciting not to. Either out of exhaustion or some adventure gone awry, every night when she made it back to the student house on Vasilevsky Ostrov, she had to conquer the shower. After 6 weeks she could get everything done in under 2 minutes. It goes something like this:

She steps into the stream and grits her teeth. She is walking on the streets of the city into the unkown. She is at the airport 2 years ago scared and alone. It’s 10:30 and her dorm curfew is midnight. Her bags are lost and her escort is AWOL. She walks outside of the doors and hails a cab.

And just that quickly she steps back out of the water and grab the soap, spreading it roughly and frantically down her legs. She is at walmart with a carts loaded full of plastic containers and toiletries, cleaning supplies and kitchen organizers. Her apartment is less than 600 sq feet with one true closet that also houses the damned water heater. Putting everything away is like solving a 1000 piece puzzle with some pieces missing from the set. She is running into people and end displays and when she finally makes it to a check out aisle the cart is piled so high she can’t see. The cashier rings her up as she tosses items back into the cart. A set of plastic drawers tumbles to the ground as the cashier announces her grand total: $250…made in China. She winces

And steps back into the spray. The people on the mashrutka look at her skeptically. The van has already pulled away and it occurs to her that they expect her to pass her fare forward. She opens her purse and it also occurs to her that she has yet to convert her money. She holds a crumpled bill up the driver who grins and nods at her through the rear view mirror. No change, he says. She pays $20 american dollars for a 56ruble cab ride.

She’s quickly out of the water again and tosses her head forward to shampoo so that the cold water won’t run down her back. She is scrubbing furiously and carrying big boxes up and down three flights of steps by herself. She is drained and breathless when she finally makes it to the dumpster. Not a lot of space means not a lot of things can stay. There is no room for the past. She is tossing trash bags into the compactor and pulls a scrapbook out of the front seat of her car. Given to her the day she got engaged. She leafs through the pages, running her fingers over the words that no longer have meaning. She snaps close the cover and lets it fly, pages parting and flapping in the arc.

Then she is rinsing her hair and running her finger over the lines of the metro map trying to remember the meanings but being lost in the shock of the situation. The street names push back at her. She sounds out words and says a prayer and steps onto a train.

Head still bent over, she attempts to shave her calves. She is finally in the dorm it took her two hours to find and they have lost her registration. It is nearing closing and her mind is awash in cyrillic and she can’t put sentences together. She happens upon one crucial statement which she forms insistently, over and over again, in the most precise russian that she can muster: I live here.

Just like that, it’s over. She flicks off the faucet and snatches a towel, burying her face in it as she shivers.

She picks up the keys and unlocks the door. She lets her bags fall and crosses the small room, heels clicking on the hardwood. She pulls the curtains open and looks out. The city stares back at her. Noisy and imperfect, complicated and beautiful.

She brings the mug to her lips and swallows the last remnants of the bottle. She parts the blinds from her place on the floor, looks out, and says one thing: I live here.