Pretty Little Nobody: Reflections of a Ukrainian growing up in Americana

By Mira Vasilivna

Mira Vasilivna captivates the readers with her joy and tribulations as a kid from Ukraine growing up within the American suburbs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9798823023214

Mira Vasilivna

My name is Mira Vasilivna and I wrote Pretty Little Nobody, a memoir of my life as a Ukrainian immigrant in America in the 1990s; balancing cultures, religion, and expectations. It is a tribute to the diversity of human experiences and identities, and a healing journal of feeling both privileged and marginalized. I hope my story inspires others who feel invisible to speak up. Besides writing, I am a working parent who loves movie nights with my family and is passionate about sociology. I seek balance and happiness in life, and I wish you the same.

Book preview

1. GAME OVER

A person’s tragedy does not make up their entire life. A story carves

deep grooves into our brains each time we tell it. But we aren’t

one story. We can change our stories. We can write our own.

—Amy Poehler

I STEPPED OUT OF THE SHOWER and quickly grabbed my towel to avoid Mom’s wrath. No, ma’am. No pool of water today. I was, after all, a д івка .

If you must know, дівка is Ukrainian for an elegant debutante waiting to be swept away by marriage. Perhaps it’s similar to what the Irish call a lassie. I threw in elegant because that was what I was going for. I’m a work in progress.

I cleaned up well. And I wasn’t actually waiting for marriage. No cute boys seemed worth having to cook potatoes for every day or having sex with. The way Susanna described her wedding night was so anticlimactic. All the girls huddled in the church parking lot, hoping for some revelation after she returned from her honeymoon. We hung on her every word as she whispered what it meant to be a woman. It’s OK, she said. You get used to it.

Huh? I gawked. That was it? We scampered away defeated. Apparently, there wasn’t much left to say.

I already knew what sex was, but somehow, hearing Susanna describe it made it real and disappointing. What did she mean it was O.K.? So what was all the hoopla about? My vulva was something I scrubbed clean every day for fear it would smell like Laura’s. So why on God’s green earth would I want to condemn myself to a life of having a penis inside of it if it was only O.K.?

Reality is that hearing talk of marriage ten times a day gnaws at you until you become consumed by it. What if a wedding would be my salvation from the charade I kept finding myself in? I was paraded around church, choir, and youth groups like some fantasy, modern-day Bridgerton remake. But can you imagine not getting married? That would have broken my parents’ hearts. As their firstborn daughter, how could I deprive them of a bride to fret over? The thought of planning a wedding gave my mom a buoyancy that no Macy’s sale ever could, but I hadn’t yet decided if it was in my future. Something had to give. After all, it was what got Coco Chanel her first investment and cost Caesar his demise, no?

The only solution would be to find a nice boy who was secretly gay so we wouldn’t have to actually consummate our marriage. He would have to have been Americanized, and we’d spend our happy lives traveling, decorating, and adopting babies. I just had to find him first. And at that moment, just out of the shower, the last thing my seventeen-year-old self wanted was more cleaning or whatever duties the wife package came with, to set me straight. The sooner I met up with my friend Katusha, the better.

Bam! Bam! Bam! The door shook with urgency.

Mira, have you talked to Anya? Dad asked from behind the door. His raised voice wasn’t angry. It was frantic. And it was disrupting my deep thoughts about life.

Dad rarely got angry. He was impatient and direct. But rarely angry. His ability to command the room was due to everyone’s respect for him. He had a charismatic air that filled the room. And he was one of the few preachers in our Ukrainian Baptist church worth listening to in the long lineup on Sundays. He’d walk up to the pulpit and beam his American smile, which he had inherited from Babushka Vera. The crisp white shirt that my mom had ironed the night before would peek out from under his fitted suit, drawing attention to his sun-kissed complexion. His skin was a good 7 shades darker than me. If it weren’t for my freckles, I was certain I would blend into the white walls of the congregation. I was the only one of my siblings that had such fair skin, a trait I got from my grandma. She would console me as a little girl by telling me I still looked like my father because of my nose and that it was only a matter of time before my freckles would fade with age. From where I sat, my dad looked like he belonged on the Hollywood red carpet. He knew how to dress, and preaching seemed to be in his blood. Any speaking mishaps he had had, have long since been perfected while translating for our English-speaking Indian pastor when we first arrived in the States.

My dad’s inspirational sermons were refreshing deviations from the doomsday rhetoric that usually boomed from the pulpit. He was a celebrity in my eyes, and all his children desired to impress him … except for my sister Veronika. She feared him. Or perhaps better said, she feared confrontation. Every night, my dad would regurgitate homework instructions in Ukrainian and English to Veronika as if that would clarify things as my sister sat, not comprehending. When she slumped in defeat, he’d say it again but louder in frustration as if that would somehow change the outcome. Nobody enjoyed those evenings. And we prayed with grateful hearts once the school chapter of our lives closed.

As I stood by the shower, my dad’s question about Anya had a billowy effect. The room fell silent, and the walls melted into a matted background, amplifying the racing beat of my heart.

Wow! She did it! I thought.

No, I yelled back to my dad as if the thundering shower was still on. Maybe too loudly. I heard my voice squeak at the end, betraying me. I too hated confrontation and lying. And I had just lied.

My mouth went dry. The feeling was familiar. It had happened twice before. Once was when I was a bridesmaid standing on stage in front of five hundred people. Everything was peachy until I noticed how parched my mouth was. My heart started to pound louder as my head became lighter, and I realized that I was losing control of my limbs. The room contracted, and the preacher’s cringeworthy words about the bride’s expected obedience faded into the walls. I no longer cared about my posture or sucking in my stomach. I had to find something to hold onto before my legs collapsed and the room started spinning. I wobbled off stage just in time, missing the preacher’s instructions for the groom. The continuous debate in my mind about what women were conditioned to bear in an effort to gain love was something that I would have to continue pondering another time.

Once I exited the auditorium, my claustrophobic panic vanished as quickly as it had come. It was as if God were telling me that the misogynistic bullshit wasn’t God’s plan for me. God didn’t spare me from having to deal with my mother though. She was already waiting in the women’s restroom with water and candy, excited for the innocent drama I had caused. She inevitably milked her worry throughout the reception. Heck, she even called my aunts in Ukraine. It was only fair that they hear about the ruckus firsthand. I didn’t have to hear the conversations to know what was said. They attributed this fainting spell to my poor diet and hard work ethic. My aunts deliberated whether I should have stayed up the night before to help decorate the venue or if I should’ve known better given that I had to wake at dawn to tame my hair.

My anemia was starting to show, and they speculated whether the decor was worth the effort. In their defense, the interior of the church already resembled a cupcake with all the eloquent trimming. It was as if someone could swipe the whipped cream–looking molding with a finger. It was a gift when half the congregation worked in construction, and it distracted from the old, salvaged pews and inherited carpet the color of dried blood.

I escaped the worst of my fainting that time at church. I really didn’t want a repeat of the time I had actually collapsed. My mom kept that story under wraps. On that particular windless summer night, Katusha and I had been weaving aimlessly through cars and shadows like a lost human train. We were holding our cigarettes high in the air and outrunning the smoke that lingered from our exhales. We took our usual precautions to hide in the parking lot shadows on the off chance someone associated with the church decided to come down to the marina. Being a preacher’s daughter in the network of Slavic churches removed any layers of separation. Our every move seemed scrutinized by hidden paparazzi with direct lines to my mom. Before going home, I washed my hands and popped some gum into my mouth. Usually that was enough.

What I thought would be an uneventful night, was ruined the second my mom and dad smelled the smoke my gum hadn’t erased. The last thing I remember was making a mental note to increase my precautions when smoking as I strained my mind to block my parents’ disappointment from piercing my heart. Why couldn’t I tell my parents to fuck off like the American kids did? Being cornered triggered my panic and my mouth went dry right before I collapsed onto the living room floor. I remember waking up in my parents’ bed and finding it warm and soft. The pillow had my mom’s nurturing aroma and there was the smell of chicken soup coming from a bowl on the nightstand which created the ultimate sense of comfort. Sunlight peeked through the blinds which told me that I had missed church. I was safe and all was forgiven.

I felt guilty though because time that could have been spent outside had been lost nurturing me and making me eat, two things I didn’t care for. I had a fear of being an inconvenience, and I was treading a fine line—to be beautifully thin yet eat just enough so I didn’t die from my anemia. I had to be healthy after all. What family would desire to marry a sickling into their home?

Those were the thoughts and fainting memories racing through my mind as I stood by the shower hearing my dad ask about Anya. How predictable that ultimately my wandering mind thought about marriage. Whatever fork I took converged. All roads led to marriage.

Though my mouth was dry and my heart was pounding as loudly as it had during my previous fainting episodes, there was a twinge of optimism as I stood in that bathroom. I dropped my towel to grab hold of the counter as if it were a security blanket, but my legs weren’t allowing me to move. The bathroom door served as a barrier to interrogation. I was free to feel my true thoughts within the confines of that room. I realized I wasn’t panicking. I was excited. Curious. Jealous even.

I looked down at the puddle of water around my feet. And I willed my foot to move, smearing my dropped towel across the puddle and then patting the towel with my toes until the floor tile was sufficiently dry. Anya deserved this escape, I thought. I was happy for her. I just wished we had finished plotting it first.

2. CALLING IT QUITS

Quitting is not giving up, it’s choosing to focus your attention

on something more important … Quitting is letting go of

things (or people) that are sucking the life out of you so

you can do more things that will bring you strength.

—Osayi Osar-Emokpae, Impossible Is Stupid

B ASED ON THE FLURRY OF phone calls and prayers that followed the news of Anya’s running away, you’d have thought we were living through a sequel of a Taken movie thri ller.

I was interrogated until my parents felt sufficiently certain that I had had no part in it. I had been, after all, at choir practice the night Anya up and left. And I had gone home after.

The truth is, Anya and I weren’t as close as we once had been. Her mom didn’t like me around her daughter, claiming I was a bad influence for having bleached her daughter’s hair. And she disapproved of my parents’ lax attitude in letting me attend youth service. Anya’s mom preferred to keep her children close and under a watchful, disapproving eye. And who knew what I was up to when I wasn’t singing in choir or preaching purity soundbites? If only they knew. If only Anya knew.

As much as the adults tried, the cops weren’t going to file a missing person’s report. They reckoned that at age eighteen, Anya was well within her rights to leave and that it wasn’t any of their business that she had picked an obscure way to do it.

A day later we got word that Anya called her mom to say she was OK. Even my parents’ shoulders relaxed at the news. Whatever courage Anya had had to muster up to leave was at that point replenished with a vengeance. She hadn’t budged when the conversation with her mom went from worrying pleas to angry threats. No amount of religious obligation or patriarchy would convince her to return.

Anya later told me that the hardest part of leaving was when her baby brother caught her sneaking out. Somehow, her careful movement in the middle of the night had woken him up, and they exchanged a tearful, silent goodbye. The tears streaming down his chubby cheeks were forever etched in her brain. Perhaps even at his age, he knew she had to break free.

I came to visit Anya after everything settled. She apologized for jumping the gun on leaving but reckoned it’d be easier on me if I didn’t have to tell complete lies. I understood and relished the opportunities this new life presented her.

When I came home from visiting Anya, my mom intercepted me to ask how Anya was doing.

She’s doing fine, I replied.

My mom’s face relaxed when she heard my reassuring reply. She was doing just fine. Maybe even better than fine.

I rattled off the usual things my mom zeroed in on after my outings—80 percent about what I ate and 15 percent about the decor. That left 5 percent to cover anything substantial. And the point was clear - Anya seemed to be thriving without her parents and church breathing down her neck.

My mom’s relaxed face twisted into a conflicted look as she struggled to turn her reaction into a cautionary tale. She opted to use her tried and true parenting technique—mom guilt—telling me how heartbroken Anya’s mom felt. But it didn’t work. As much as I could empathize with my aunt’s heartbreak, I was certain Anya’s plea to leave if done like that of a respectable daughter would have fallen on deaf ears. Moving out was the equivalent of treason as far as their church circle was concerned.

It hadn’t always been like that. My cousin’s need to run away was gradual and completely correlated with how suffocating their little church gatherings had become. The more cult-like the subculture became, the more toxic the home became and the more dire the idea of staying. What her parents didn’t realize was that they themselves were the inspiration for escape. They were the initial heroes in paving the way to rebuke social norms by crawling out of the stifling cage the Soviet Union held them in and onto American soil.

The problem from my perspective was that Anya’s parents’ bravery had peaked once they arrived in the US and then recoiled. They had no more heroism left. And what started as small cracks of parental worry and social discomfort as immigrants stewed and slowly grew into a gaping hole of paranoia. And so, her parents did what any religious persons would do when conditioned to fear; they defaulted to the familiar stench of control. They sang, Jesus, take the wheel, all the while clenching that wheel until their knuckles lost all color.

You couldn’t blame her parents entirely. Emotional intelligence was never covered in the Soviet school curriculum. They had been raised in a society where their every movement was controlled. And thus they spent their lives trying to find solid footing on the loose gravel of Maslow’s hierarchy. Once grown, the noise of the gravel of survival beneath their feet was so loud it drowned out any rumblings for emotional support. In turn, their grip on their children’s lives, however well intentioned in an effort to protect them from the elements they themselves had experienced had metamorphosed into the very cage they themselves had crawled out of.

Anya was a hero. Her extraordinary feat was to achieve an ordinary, beautifully mundane life in the suburbs. I once watched her cheering at her son’s soccer game, blending in with the other moms sipping pumpkin spice lattes in the bleachers. I smiled in appreciation of how much courage it had taken her to rebuke her predetermined destiny by opting for what others labeled as basic. She went after it the best way she knew how, by ripping off the bondage that pulled her. She was brave, and she achieved her American dream.

My mom asked some more questions after I came home from visiting Anya; she was obviously curious about this Spanish boy my cousin was dating. She smirked when I said they used different blankets at night as if to hint that I was still a naive child who drank the purity Kool-Aid she fed me.

Gaging by the whirlwind in our home when Anya left, you’d think it had to be headline news within the church gossip circles. But it wasn’t. News of the lost lamb was hushed, and life in the Slavic church community trailed on as if the timekeepers of Loki’s Time Variance Authority had sent a clean up crew. Variants didn’t fit the wholesome narrative the church perpetuated. But I will never forget.

Anya was my hero.

3. HOLDING MY PEE IN

It happened on a Sunday. I know it was on a Sunday because

we were coming home from church, and every Sunday in

my childhood meant church. We never missed church.

—Trevor Noah, Born a Crime

C HURCH AND CHILDHOOD WERE SYNONYMOUS from what I could tell back then. It wasn’t until later that I realized not everyone shared that childhood connection. My early memories of church paint a wholesome feeling I’ve since tried so often to rekindle. Anticipating the pangs of joy when driving by the artfully displayed crosses in front of the building we once frequented. Reminiscing how the stained-glass windows cast color on the walls. We had arrived in the States due to religious persecution, so it was a given that the church would play a major part in our assimila tion.

The first church we attended in the States had swinging doors to the main auditorium. The door vastness muffled the sound of worship when closed, letting you soak up the hustle and