Freud & the Queen of Thailand

Blog July 11, 2007
I feel a slight sense of urgency right now, and woke up in the middle of the night and several times in the early morning feeling a bit panicked about what I have not yet done, and have not yet written about. In terms of the “not yet done”, I managed to get to the point where I can let go of feeling that I need to do what I have not yet done. That’s a relief. I have done a lot, I have thought about many things. Although just when I think I have no more room for anything else, something else “happens” that causes me to think. I’m starting to remind myself of the person who once said to me, frustrated with some proclamation I had made, “the problem with you Anne, is that you think too much.” That was a long time ago, and I must have been struck by the sentiment that it IS possible to think too much, because until that moment, it had never occurred to me. Think too much? I still haven’t wrapped my mind around that one, and that must have been about 20 years ago, in Calgary.

So, my urgency about needing to see the last few sights that I “should” see has subsided this morning, but my sense of needing to “record” what has not yet been recorded was not so easily quelled, so I found myself this morning writing a list of points that need to be made. The list is long, incomplete, and I don’t dare go out and experience anything else before catching up on this writing; I don’t want to get ahead of myself, have so much to say that it will never be said.
I know that some people are reading this blog; you send me emails, like cheerleaders, or something, responding to some small story or suggestion I’ve made, and I love those emails. The other thing that happens while I’m writing the blog is that I think of particular individuals reading particular sentences, and it’s an interesting way to be communicating. On the down side, I wonder if the blog sounds like one of those group Christmas letters, and if it does, would someone please write and tell me, and I will stop immediately. The other consideration I have to make is the fact that soon this Russiannie trip will be over, and thus, the blog. Being able to write in this way, so consistently, has been helpful to me. It has ensured that I’ve kept up to date with my notes, and it has helped me to identify what really has struck me. It has also helped me to distinguish between what is private and therefore not bloggable (I may have been too conservative in this respect) and what is public and open to all. So, for instance, I have not written about individual characters (and there are many of them) except in fairly general ways; and with a few exceptions, have not written about my “self”. Well, I just think the narrator of this piece and the random comments made by the narrator are “self” enough. Don’t you?

Anyway, I just have a few more days left here, and on Saturday as the sun is rising in British Columbia, I’ll be heading to Milan for a night of hot showers and a comfortable bed. On Sunday I fly to Toronto and spend a night there in a generic hotel near the airport; on Monday night I fly to Ottawa where I’ve planned my plane to arrive somewhat before Steve’s does, so that I’ll be in the airport to meet him when he gets there. Yeah! Then, it’s a week in Ottawa with Steve’s family.

So, there, you see that while I have seldom written about the future, here I am, writing about the future, which tells me that I’m ready to move on, that I have let go of needing to “do” certain things before I leave. That doesn’t mean, of course, that I won’t be doing anything else. I am most certainly doing a few more things, but won’t bore you with the details of the future any more than I already have; I’ll focus on the recent past.

Saturday afternoon was different from all other afternoons I’ve had here, and since nothing was planned in terms of lectures or workshops, a few of us headed out to see the mosque. We headed out at about 12:30, and since it had been my idea to go to the mosque, which is not far from the Peter and Paul Fortress, I was the navigator. To get there we had to cross the kissing bridge and the Field of Mars (google it, you’ll get the Wikipedia version of Russian history, better than my summary of National Geographic’s tour book) and then over the Trinity (Troiksa) Bridge which crosses the Neva. It was windy out, but the sun was shining, and while I had had a huge cheese omelet at Zoom earlier in the morning and was not hungry and had been prepared for a long walk to many places on this other island, others in the group were hungry and much needing their first Americano with milk for the day. I capitulated to the group (see my earlier blog entry about traveling alone) and found myself, after seeing the blue mosaic exterior of the locked mosque, sitting in a small dark uniquely Russian bar. There were few others in the bar, and at first the bartender eyed us suspiciously; I’m not sure he wanted us to be there. But we ordered from the menu (with Christina’s help – she speaks Russian and is writing an amazing book set in Georgia – not the American Georgia – look for it in about a year or two, I’m guessing) and soon a variety of small plates of pickled whatever arrived and since I had already eaten this massive omelet, I just ordered a “Homestyle” beer.

Mistake.

This “Homestyle” beer, a dark but not syrupy beer, was the best beer I have ever tasted, and so I felt compelled to mention that to Peter, who was in the process of considering whether or not to order a beer. “Try this”, I suggested, holding out my glass to him. “That is good,” he said, and got one for himself. Christina and Charlotte, neither of whom are big drinkers, let alone beer drinkers (like me, except when I’m traveling – and I’m planning to travel more now, so I can drink more beer), become curious when Peter and I each order another beer after agreeing with one another several times that yes, this beer is very good and deserves another taste. So they decide to have a taste from our second beer, and then they each order one of these beer from the bar and now the four of us are drinking large glasses of “Homestyle” beer and ordering plate after plate of very greasy and one-step-up-McDonald’s French fries, demolishing each plate. The salt makes us thirsty and eager for more beer; the beer makes us hungry and eager for more fries, and we are caught in a loop that we cannot escape, and the bartender even smiles, really really slightly, which in Russia is equivalent to uproariously laughter. And, well, we just get really, um, well, really really, happy, until we decide it’s time to go, and because none of us has a watch, and because of the white nights when the sun doesn’t set until midnight or so, we have no idea what time it is, so we walk out and back past the entrance to the Peter and Paul fortress where we see one sick-looking duck floating around in a pond filled with algae and floating garbage. At first we thought it was dead, but then it moved a wing tip, and we took pictures of this duck. The picture I took is more pathetic than the original experience, and over the Trinity Bridge we went and then Peter decides we need to go to a Dagastani restaurant and keeps luring us with the promise of it being “just two more minutes”, or “just around the next corner”, until I just couldn’t walk any farther away from where I am staying, so dropped out of the race for a good meal (besides, I was still full from the omelet and the fries, and didn’t really understand how everyone could be so famished, but they were, and I wasn’t) so, I went back to my room and passed, I mean, fell asleep.

Getting to my room, however, means getting past the woman at the door. I know there is a name for this person, this woman who sits at the front doors of lodgings and gives and takes the room key. Somewhere behind where she sits is often a small room with a bed, and she may be reading a newspaper or doing a crossword puzzle if she is sitting up at the desk by the door when you come and go. Or, she may be watching a small television, or listening to a static radio. Regardless, she does not experience the intrinsic joy of work so much promoted by North American organizational developers, and probably would not respond well to having someone come to her place of work to help her improve her attitude. Regardless of how grim these women usually are, I like them, and can even imagine doing that kind of work: sitting at a desk at the entrance of places, and not exactly monitoring anything except the comings and goings, and watching, invisible mostly, who is doing what, and when. And, of course, having the key that controls the re-entry into private space.

These women, as I said before, do not do their work with joy. When I enter the dormitory building, I need to tell her what room I am staying in, and then she checks a small gray box mounted on the wall to see if the key is there or if my roommate has already come in and gone to the room. Before I can get into the building, however, I may need to ring a bell if she has decided to lock the doors to the building, usually when she is in the back room resting or watching television. She does not being disturbed. For anything, at any time of the day, by anyone. She is just grim. Never smiles, and occasionally yells. One time, as I was leaving the building after having just given her my key and having ensured that I did not smile, not even an inch, she yelled at me as I started to open the first door. I can’t even reproduce here what she said, but she was frowning and yelling at me in Russian. I stopped walking. Stood still. What had I done? What was she anticipating that I was about to do? I looked at her, trying to turn the vertical wrinkles on my face into a question mark. And trying not to look annoyed, but calm. She yells agains, and then gesticulates to me that I will have to slide the lock across before I can get out. You are yelling at me that I have to unlock the door? I keep my face as impassive as possible and nod brusquely (first time in my life I have ever used the word “brusquely”). I slide the lock, open the door, and slam it behind me. I know that she will respect that.

After I went to St Isaac’s cathedral (which is now a museum, but used to be used as storage for vegetables, and photographs inside the museum show that the square in front used to be a field of cabbages), and while standing behind the cathedral between the cathedral grounds and Decembrist square, where poses the famous statue of the Bronze Horseman, I watched to find out why several policemen had stopped all the traffic from entering or crossing the street that runs along one side of Decembrist square. The traffic had apparently been stopped for a while, and the drivers of the cars, who had as little idea of why they had been stopped as I did, sat in their cars, occasionally starting a round of horn blowing to indicate to the policemen that they were ready to move on, and to please get the traffic going again. But the traffic sat still like that for at least 15 minutes, and so I felt it would be worth it to stick around to see why. Maybe I would be part of history in the making or something, and while I have this idea that maybe collective amnesia about history might be an intriguing thought experiment (“we must remember history so that we do not repeat our mistakes” is not exactly working, is it?), I also think that being an active participant in something that might be part of an official history of some kind might be okay. To have my life reduced to something like: my great grandmother was a war bride, or, my great great aunt on my father’s side was the first woman to…well, you know what I mean. Likely neither collective amnesia nor my presence as a historical detail will happen, but I can always imagine. So, I stuck around, and eventually a motorcade came rushing by, free of the constraints of the usual chaotic Petersburg traffic, and in this motorcade of mostly back limousines with darkened windows, one of the vehicles had a small yellow and red flag on it, and I remembered that I had heard that the Queen of Thailand had been visiting Peterhof a few days earlier, and that Peterhof had been closed early for her state visit. So, was this the Queen of Thailand? When ambulances roar through the city streets, no one budges. There is no law requiring a motorist move aside to let an ambulance go through, or if there is a law, no one obeys. A head of state, however, who is probably in excellent health if he or she is travelling to a foreign land, gets free passage. Okay, the comparison is facile, but you just notice these things.
Well, and while I am on the subject of traffic, I’ll just tell you that cars and pedestrians have an uneasy relationship, and I’ve come to think of walking as a kind of “buyer beware” proposition. If, as a walker, you don’t anticipate every possible move of every possible motorist, you are likely to “buy it” and find yourself in one of those ambulances whose sirens sound like they are resigned to the fact that they are ineffective.

So, once again in Decembrist square and finding myself face-to-buttocks with Peter the Great’s horse, I see the many, many newly wed couples getting photographed (are these the same couples who also go to the kissing bridge, or do some go to the kissing bridge and some to Peter the Great’s stallion (and it IS a stallion, I assure you from my examination of this impressive, anatomically correct steed)?) in the most bizarre positions and combinations and permutations of hand holding, branch waving, body twisting, tongue extending…well, it’s as if this is the bride’s one day to be a fashion model. So, job tip, if you are thinking of a career change: come to St Petersburg and set up shop as a wedding photographer, and be prepared to be as edgy as possible. You’ll make a living, I’m guessing, and it even occurred to me to set up shop while I’m here, but my 4.2 megapixel Canon sure hot camera is not up to the task, which is why I also bought a CD with 2100 digital photographs of St Petersburg on it, none of which I assume will be photographs of weddings of people I don’t know.

A final story for today, and that’s the story of yesterday, the trip to the Dream Museum. Otherwise known as the Freud museum, and billed as the 3rd Freud museum in the world, the two others being in Venice and London. It made me want to design a Lacan museum, and in a note to myself, I need to find out if there already is one. The St Petersburg Freud museum is designed to be mostly conceptual, and relies on the imagery from Freud’s dreams and dream analysis for its subject. But first, most appropriately, to get to the museum, we descended deep into the St Petersburg subway system, a descent perhaps equaled by the long and deep tunnels into London’s tube, but I don’t know for sure. It seemed like the escalator was going down for a long long time, and quickly, and I had gotten separated from everyone else I was traveling with (there were 15 of us trying to “keep together” in the subway, and that was a bit of a challenge, as we have all started to look Russian ourselves, we just sort of blended it…), so I waited at a crossroads, and yes, they turned up, which was a good thing, as it was the first time I had not taken my map and guidebook with me when going out.

The subway train moves really really quickly and makes horrendous noises, similar to the sounds made by the mill next to the campground in Merritt, which are reminiscent of some demonic factory whose task is to manufacture human suffering. No one talks in a St Petersburg subway, and I think that’s because you are all wondering if you are going to meet your death in this underground bullet, either from plunging head first into a train coming mistakenly towards you on the same tracks, or from an unexplainable electrical failure leading to fire and oxygen depletion (oxygen, I’m guessing, has a short half-life down there); and you also wonder how the Chechnyan situation is going, and whether any disgruntled terrorist has decided that today is the day…and so I think that everyone on a St Petersburg subway is not talking because they are busy planning their own response to oxygen depletion, sending mental messages to their loved ones, considering just how pissed off they will be in the afterlife to have been forced there too early, unprepared, unfinished…we all become little existentialists down there in the subway system, and so when we arose from the train at our stop, only to be stopped, en masse, by a grumpy police officer who wanted, arbitrarily to know who we were and where we were going, none of us really cared. I mean, what could he do? He only had a small club in his hands, and there were 15 of us. We could have taken him on and made small work of him in minutes. Luckily Dmitry was with us, the only one among us able to talk “police speak”, which is a specialized form of Russian, and involves a combination of politeness and firm resolve resulting in confidence. The policeman was angry because one of our number had taken a photograph of one of the mosaics in the subway station, and he wanted to fine all of us, or just her, I’m not sure, was never clear. A discussion between the police officer and Dmitri went on for a few minutes, maybe 6 or so, and then the officer went over to the woman who had taken the picture, and demanded 100 rubles from her (about 4 dollars). The funny part of all this is that she just looked at him, really offended, and said no. And then looked to the rest of us and said, I’m not giving this guy money just so that he can walk away with it in his own pocket. No way. And the police officer backed down, probably because his partner had much earlier walked away from what she probably knew was a stupid situation and he had no support, and he waved us on, and on we went to the Freud Museum where we saw sexually explicit drawings done by students of Freudian studies (I think – I was never clear about who did the drawings); a photo essay about Freud’s life; a series of drawings based on the images from Freud’s dreams; and a dark room in which are suspended a variety of images, letters, mirror fragments…all related to dreams.

Well, okay, that was the dream museum. I see that now when I am writing about it, the most interesting part of the trip for me was the subway ride there, and then the subway ride back, when Dmitri forgot which stop to get off at, and so we went too far, got off the train, backtracked, and then got out and walked…and the descent into this mania-factory was foreshortened and I went home to my room where I fell asleep and dreamed.

I still have not told you about Kostia and Masha Pentium, Lola and the Transvestite, the Scarlet Sails, or the two-tailed dog. But I’m done for now. I’m actually feeling really faint, and I think I probably need to go and find an omelet and see if I can get this blog entry sent off.
Bye,

Annie
Music from Zoom: tomorrow will be the 22nd century