56 minutes 40 seconds

I hesitated to publish this particular entry because of the chain reaction it may cause in some people's minds. In the end I decided that this account of my life a year out wouldn't be complete without it. So here we have the beginning of a friendship from my vantage point.

What's in a name? Everything. I'm not totally sure of the year, but I think it was either '98 or '99. I was in high school and wondering how I could keep playing music once I got myself gradumacated. A youth orchestra that I'd heard of was giving a concert and I decided to go. Unfortunately, the director decided to have some major health problems and the orchestra concert was non-existent. As they say in show business, the show must go on. A bunch of the musicians threw together a solo concert. A few of the pieces were originals by a young Spanish composer - all of them pretty, but not cheesy. Somebody retold the story behind one such piece. It was the last day before the New Year holiday at a boarding school. There was a party happening. Some reconstruction had been underway and a wall was half way finished. Somehow the partially finished brick wall was knocked over and underneath the rubble was a girl. She died. Merry Christmas. Her name was Elena.

Occasionally you meet someone that just kind of clicks with you. "My grandmother used to say to me, 'You can count the number of your true friends on the fingers of one hand,'" reads the first line of a text about classes of friends I use with my Level 3 students. If the text is accurate, then over the past few weeks one of the available Troy-friend positions has been filled. Elena is just that kind of a friend, I think.

Before elaborating further, I would like to clarify that while yes, spending extended amounts of time with a member of the opposite sex does present challenges (for example, I have no concept of the discomfort high heels cause while walking in sand), it doesn't have to. A month or so ago a buddy and I were chatting on the Internet and the subject came up of dating somebody younger than you. He is in his mid-20s and we were hypothesizing about somebody in his position dating a 15 or 16-year-old girl. At first the thought was a bit strange, but as we talked I could see the logic. If the guy is a gentleman, there is not necessarily a problem. Relevance? Already many of you have raised questions about Troy and his new friend. I just wanted to pose another option that is at least as plausible.

So what goes into the promotion of your average Kaliningrad girl into the elite circle of Troy's intimate friends? If the truth be known, I haven't a clue myself. That isn't exciting to read about though, so here is one possibility.

Requirement number one: innately be Russian, yet not. What is the definition of a Russian? Thanks to a chilly war back a few years ago and the wealth of jokes and stereotypes which sprouted from it, Communism is a start. What is the Communist color? Red. That is true, but the red vein goes back farther than the Revolution. Long ago, red was the color associated with beauty and fondness. A few years ago I bought some Russian children's books on ebay. One was pretty old and every page had an abundance of red on it, particularly the objects important for the story. Also, the words for beautiful and red are very similar, but I am not an etymologist so don't know if there actually is a connection.

Is Elena red? Yes, very much so - from her hair to her customary coat to her freckled face. Okay, so now we've established that she is Russian. How about the yet not part? I don't want to generalize and say that all Russian chicks are bad nuts, but she seems to have a different core. Yeah, yeah, she has a reputation for not being the most punctual person and I get the impression that as a schoolgirl, the school part wasn't always at the top of her to-do list. Beneath that though is something similar to Chris Gekker's (my former trumpet teacher) concept of the perfect trumpet sound. Take a steel ball and then put cotton all around it. At first glance it looks/sounds soft, simple, sweet. Yet the more time one spends staring/listening to it, the weight within radiates its mass and makes the cotton come alive or disappear altogether, depending on the situation. Elena, the person, is a force to be reckoned with but this is only obvious after the cotton is both ignored and studied simultaneously. In the words of our favorite ogre, onions and layers...people and layers. Elena's inner layers are made of a different material altogether than your average Kaliningrad girl.

That was a whole lot of gibber-jabber about requirement one. Rather than make up some more mumbo-jumbo about something I don't quite understand, I'll jump back in time eight months or so. After church one cold Saturday morning, I boarded the bus bound for school. Who should come along but Elena. We talked on the bus ride back to town. Mostly she talked and I nodded and smiled. (Note: I should be ashamed of myself for my habit of nodding when I'm clueless about what is being said.) I did understand that soon she would be beginning to work as the baby-sitter for my boss. And that she would be attending a different church from then on out. From that time I saw her only occasionally when I stopped by to speak with the boss.

Difficult to stay when things started to change (my personal journal has been dead since shortly after I arrived), but I'd have to guess that it was sometime around 10:53 on the morning of June 25 when one of the young dudes at church asked me to help out with a wedding in a month or so. I agreed. The only problem was I had only been to the rehearsal location once. That one time was mid-September. Lady luck shown her face on me and for maybe the third time ever, Elena came to the Saturday afternoon English class. That was my ticket to the rehearsal location. Me being on the hungry side and she having some cookies to share was nice.

The following weekend was probably described a bit too much in detail already (prior post), so I'll make my additions short. I enjoyed Saturday evening's concert with Kostya (brother), Elena (sister), and Vika (cousin). When I bid them farewell, they promised to call me for the concert the following evening, and never did. Sunday afternoon when I saw Putin in his Benz-stretch, Elena was about 15 meters away on the other side of the street unbeknown to either of us.

More or less so far, we'd only happened to be in the same place when doing things. Then I offered to walk her to the bus stop one evening when I stopped by the boss's place. The conversation was nice and I asked for a repeat sometime else when she wanted company. Several days passed and then the phone rang. For the past two weeks, practically every day we have had a nice walk and talk. Last Friday evening was interesting, so I'll talk about that stroll.

We decided to try and rehearse a piece of music we wanted to play together. I had remembered that the music college closed at ten, so we came a half hour before closing time. My memory ain't what she used to be, so we came and the building was already locked. Stopping back at my place, I deposited my trumpet and then we headed in the direction of the bus stop. A light rain began to fall, but rain is nice and I asked what was on tap at home for Elena. Nothing too exciting, so we decided to walk. This turned out to not be such a good idea from the clothing department perspective, but from every other perspective, it was a blast. The rain picked up a little bit and this coupled with poor lighting and worse sidewalks made avoiding the swimming pool sized puddles a challenge. So why avoid them? Jump, splash, giggle, repeat. Eventually her home was in sight and I was clueless as to where I actually was. She offered to walk me back to the bus stop, but that seemed crazy and I crossed my fingers as she explained how to get back. A rather wet evening finished as I promised to call saying I got home safely (not the safest region).

Well, I knew which direction my home was, but some of the finer points of the route got lost on me. Thirty minutes later, I decided I better call and say that I would soon be home, so as not to cause any un-needed worry. The phone rang and a modem picked up. I tried again and the lady told me I had the wrong number. Oh well, homeward ho! I stopped by a store to buy some milk and finally got home a few minutes into the Sabbath. I had only gotten my shoes off when the phone rang. Standing in my sopping clothes and still with raincoat donned, I picked it up. "Why didn't you call me?!" "You gave me the wrong number." "Oops. How long have you been home?" "Not too long." The milk was sitting on the ground. Don't ask me what else we had to talk about, but we talked about it for a good little while. A few days prior I had stayed up late IMing a student and she told me a Russian lullaby. Cheating a little bit, I found the scrap of paper where I had copied it and recited some good night wish about birds and fish. Conversation finished, shoes with three days worth of drying ahead of them, and milk still sitting on the floor, my bed beckoned and eventually I heeded its call.

Saturday evening at rehearsal, there was a small shock waiting for me: Elena told me the amount of time we spoke the prior evening - 56 minutes and 40 seconds. The way I see it, this could mean any number of things, but I am choosing to view it as the juxtaposition of a person with a digital display on their phone and a good memory for numbers. If hearts are involved and I'm too blind or naive to recognize it, consider this my apology.

When I set out to write this entry, I thought it would be relatively easy to jot down a few thoughts about my new friend and why I value her friendship and gift of time. Re-reading the results, I must say that I'm not terribly happy with it in terms of readability, logical progression, or representing the reality. Rather then censor what I am unhappy with, I'll serve it up for your viewing pleasure. Sometimes thoughts, whether perfectly formulated or colorless, green, and sleepless, are better shared than kept.