I remember the first time I heard the name Vladimir Lenin. I was about eight or nine years old when I heard it mentioned on a TV show. I assumed that he had been one of the presidents of the U.S. I felt like I had heard that name for years; it was no different than hearing the names Franklin D. Roosevelt or Herbert Hoover. I argued with my mother, insisting that Vladimir Lenin led my country at one point, but she shook her head, laughing, and kept telling me, "No, honey, he was a Russian dictator."

As I got older, I began to notice more things about myself. I have always been the first to finish my meals, gobbling everything as fast as I can as if my food would disappear at any moment. My friends and family have often teased me for my speed-eating habit. One day a friend suggested that maybe I eat like this because I starved to death in a past life. I told him that that was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard.

As teens, my classmates and I enjoyed music. However, unlike the other kids who listened to rap and rock on the radio, I was obsessed with traditional Russian music and the soundtrack to Fiddler on the Roof. I'd get teased about it if a friend looked through my CDs: "What kind of music do you listen to?" My dad would tell me, "It's because you're a quarter Russian and half Jewish. That music's in your blood."

But everything tied together one night when I was about fifteen. While trying to fall asleep, I was suddenly standing on a snowy street in a Russian city. I knew that the year was around 1920 and I felt the freezing snow blowing and saw that everything was covered with ice. I was a small, poor girl dressed in ragged clothing holding the hand of my father, a cowardly and dishonest man. He was trying to make me do something that I didn't want to do. I demanded that we eat before I took another step, but we had no food, and hadn't had any for nearly two days. I lay down on the street in the snow and never got up.

When I drifted out of this reverie, I felt as though I had just watched part of a movie I'd seen a hundred times - the scene was so familiar. When I checked the internet, I found that, sure enough, Lenin had ruled during the same time my recall took place. I am beginning to believe that my familiarity with Lenin ruling "my country," my eating habits, and my love for Russian music may tie me to a past life as a Russian beggar girl who starved to death in the early 1920s.

Kara LeFey
Leladwen@mugglenet.com

Posted Aug. 13, 2006