There is nothing like climbing a snowy, icy mountain that rises far above a Siberian village in winter to introduce you to the complex relationship you have with yourself & your place in time & history. After you blow your nose a few times & stop crunching the snow under your boots, your ice-crystal breathing returns to normal & soon you can't hear your heart pounding in your ears anymore. The little houses & barns below look like toys waiting for some giant baby to knock them over.
Beyond them, Lake Baikal, the deepest, cleanest, largest, oldest, bluest, most mysterious lake on earth cups around behind the village, as far as the eye can see on three sides, cold translucent blue to the horizon & beyond, down over the curve of the earth. There are no people about, no twittering winter birds, no wind in the trees, no cows mooing, no wolves skulking by with their guilty faces. Even the village dogs are silent. No phone, no earbuds, no notebook. It's just you & the big, big blue.
And let us not forget the ghosts of Siberia, the millions tormented & tortured & starved & slaughtered in ways that make ISIS look like kindergarteners, not the junior leaguers our president once deemed them. Underfoot, under my feet, the bones of these ghosts are now grateful dust.
Time & the lakes & rivers, the mountains & forests & earth of Siberia doze their sleepy, eternal ice naps.
When it gets really cold in Siberia, especially in the far north, your breath freezes into ice crystals & tinkles to the ground with a noise they call "the whispering of the stars."*
*I discovered this last poetic fact by reading In Siberia, a magnificent book by the British travel writer, Colin Thubron.
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