In Russian folklore, Baba Yaga is
a supernatural being who appears as a deformed and ferocious-looking woman. Baba
Yaga flies around in a
mortar, wields a pestle, and dwells deep in the forest in a hut usually
described as standing on chicken legs. I
grew up on many Russian fairy-tales where the pictures and stories of Baba Yaga
never scared me. I saw them as theater
from age three. There is a vivid childhood memory; however, that stayed with me
to this day.
My mother was putting me to sleep. I was probably four years old at the time,
and didn’t want to settle down. She has
put a handkerchief on her head, made a grimace, and said. “ I am not your mother, I am aunt Yaga. Go to sleep or your mother will not come
back!” In the dim light, my mother’s
face was so distorted that I really thought she is transformed into an evil
witch, and I cried.
My mother was never a kind or affectionate woman. She lacked a sense of humor and was always
too busy and overworked. She had one
hidden talent of physical parody that made people laugh and gave an elusion of
wit and sense of humor. In retrospect,
her parodies though accurate were never kind.
She illustrated people’s faults with ease to laugh behind their backs.
Today, with her anxiety and depression, I see that evil
witch in my mother’s face quite often. The humor and parody are gone but the
meanness remained. The funny thing is,
she doesn’t’ scare my daughter. Maybe
this is due to Disney movies like Brave and Rapunzel, or to the fact that she
love playing Peek-a- boo like all toddlers, but my toddler laughs. She laughs at my mother’s desaturated face
and strange moaning sounds. But, I
wonder how long this Baba Yaga will continue to make her laugh and when will
she catch on. One of those days, my daughter
will realize that something is wrong in this picture.
When my mother’s decline began, and she started with “I don’t’ know how to hold a baby,” my husband bought a newborn doll. The plastic baby was the size of a newborn
and quite ugly. We all practiced
diapering it for about a week.
Now, that my mother became a recluse, my husband bought a
book of Russian Fairy Tales featuring Baba Yaga. He jokingly threatens to buy her a mortar
barrel and a pestle. We are doing our
best to find humor in the saturation, but it’s not that easy.
At the end of the
day, she is not the first or the last person with depression, yet her
personality puts a twist on it. I hoped
for a Yiddish Bubby for my daughter and I got Baba Yaga instead. Because of her unaffectionate personality, I
am not mad at Ha-Shem for it, I am mad at my mother instead. My husbands’
mother is dead. My father, whatever I
think about him, has passed as well. Maybe
that is the only draw back of being older parents, but my daughter will not
know her grandparents. As it is today,
seeing Baba Yaga on daily basis, serves as a constant reminder of that
fact.
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