Ballerina!

Thursday, 8 October 2009, 9:15pm in TARAZ:

I have a little Russian Babushka neighbor named Kamila. I wish I had a picture of her so you could see how tiny and beautiful she is. She’s maybe 5 feet tall, maybe 90 pounds, always covers her hair and wears an apron. She’s 87. She watches out for us—comes out whenever someone knocks on our door, calls us her babies, and kisses our cheeks. Since we still don’t really know much Russian, she communicates through charades. Sometimes it’s SO funny to watch. This time was no exception. Here’s the story: Kamila had been telling and showing us bits of her Soviet-Era life over the last 5 weeks—a snippet here, a picture there… Tonight, she knocked, eager to give us the two apples she had bought for us. She came in when we invited her, and we stood talking in the front room. She was trying to tell us something about her past, but we just couldn’t get it— You like to dance? You were a gymnast? You know Karate (wouldn’t surprise me, actually. She’s basically a ninja.)? You want us to dance for you? We just weren’t getting it. So, she puts up her index finger, like she just got the greatest idea ever, and DROPS INTO THE SPLITS! Right on our living room floor! We both lunged forward to catch her, but she pushed us away and declared triumphantly, “Ballerina!”

So, here we have our 87-year-old neighbor on our living room floor, doing the full-out, no holds barred SPLITS. Before we could gently pull her back up (and no, this next part is not a joke.), she flipped her back leg around in front of her and did a backwards summersault! I couldn’t have kept my jaw shut if I had held it there! Then she laid back onto her back again, and started doing bicycle kicks into the air. Truly, this happened. In our house. With out 87-year-old neighbor. She jumped to her feet, unaided by our outstretched hands, and put her arms out for applause as if she were competing in the Olympics (watch out, Russian gymnasts.). We clapped, still wide-eyed and not really sure what to do next. But she was tired and ready for bed, so she told us she loved us and said goodnight, and left. And that was how our night ended. Our neighbor rocks.