The First Post-Russia Entry, by Request

So, this is my first update in over almost two months. Wow, I wish I could blame this lack of updating etiquette on something more excusable, but like many of my fellow amateur bloggists, I just forget that I even have an online persona to tend to. So my blog was starved, but will now feed off my fresh-off-the-jumbo-jet experiences.

The last two months in Russia were some of the most difficult, but also the most truthful. Summer was completely gone, and walking outside turned often into a painful play of will...first the brace, then the shake, then the submission and finally acceptance. But Russians just do winter better (maybe some Minnesotans or Montanians will challenge me, but whatever). They dress for it more properly, they embrace it more fully, and it seems as much a part of Moscow as the Metro. I feel as if Ohio and Iowa just put up with winter because it comes after the gorgeous fall and the amicable spring, but Moscow really felt winter, the mighty foe and partner that it is. The sidewalks are covered in glassy black ice, gutters clog with gray, tarry slush and vendors' hands seem to burn pink with cold. But there are the lights that were up for New Years...much brighter and gaudier than ours but disparingly appropriate for the dingy cold.

Coming home was, of course, a shocker. Not a horrible one, really, but noticable. The people were louder...Chicago was blazingly sunny despite the 30 degree temperature, and the spaciousness and brightness of the airport was jarring. The airline we were taking to Des Moines managed to jerk us from counter to counter till we missed our flight and had to wait 4 more hours in the airport, after we had been up for over 30 hours. I think we finally got to sleep after 48 hours of awake time, which included two goodbye parties and a mad-dash clean-up and pack-up session in our apartment. Once in Marshalltown, we ate Mexican food, resisted the strong urge to address strangers in Russian, and started the slow, but not entirely unpleasant experience of becoming us again.

As far as my experience went, I found it pretty hard to be totally myself in a foreign country (though I suppose there are degrees of difficulty). I don't think this feeling is entirely dependent upon exoticness...I almost feel a very exotic country would be easier to adjust to than just a strange cultural shift. My Russian skills got much better but fell far from fluent, so that probably contributed to my feeling of isolation. But not a strong, negative isolation....it was more like when you first show up in a new, big city, and you wander around, hands in pockets...feeling very unknown and alone, but in a surreal way. Like the city is yours. Yours to watch but not really be part of, and it feels marvelous. That's how I felt many days, even when the cold and hum of unintelligible Russian was getting me down. And I still feel a warm affection for the city I watched and climbed around in for six months. I miss the closeness of everything, the ease of the Metro, the white noise of uncomprehensable conversation.

While in Russia, I started having anxiety attacks. Sometimes those swift whump! breath-gone attacks, but mostly just the after shocks...chest tightness, muscle aches, headaches. And feeling out of control of my situation. Since being home most of the feelings have disappated, but I'm truly amazed at my body's (and others') ability to "flesh" out what churns around in my head. Fears of death and separation came easier, and so did dependence on those around me. My self-esteem tanked and I felt some of the most profound disillusionment have felt in my life. Now I have to take those necessary baby steps (ugh, those words are repulsive) to feel more with it, more in charge of myself, even if its just driving to the store or organizing necessary directions or making minor decisions. Breathe in, breathe out. Choose a restaurant. My time in Moscow was filled with dancing and laughter and so, so much good food, but this was also part of it. The lonely, helpless times.

It's funny, because a good friend of Jason's little brother went to St. Petersburg about the same time we were in Moscow and had a completely different trip. But he spoke no Russian and went in kamikaze-style, trying to suck all the marrow out of Russian life. Jason and I went in trying to live, and succeeded, however imperfectly, in building a true home and work life. Different approaches, indeed. Our acquaintance came home from an adventure, full of wild stories. I came home from a home, banged up real good but affectionately proud and stronger yet. Which is better? I don't know. Once the glitz of novelty wore off, there were days where I felt Moscow to be angrily unapproachable, almost cruel. But I met warm and honest people, I made routines, and gained the ability to converse with strangers. By our last few weeks, I caught myself waking towards Baravitskaya Metro station, looking around at the Arbat, soaking it in and thinking, "Make it stick...make this memory stick." In the end, it was at least a little bit my Moscow. My Metro station. My prodookty. My apologetically crappy Russian.

And now? After our tour abouts the Midwest, visiting family and friend in Ilinois, Ohio and Iowa, it's off to Boulder, and then to Seattle. We both need to find jobs, a place to live, friends to have, a church to belong to, interests to cling to, and a life to build. Somedays I get sad about the lives I tear down to build somewhere else, the friends I leave behind, the cities and their pecularities I forget. But then again, I usually bring along the good ones.

One night in fall 2000 when I was freshly rejected from the University of Illinois, unemployed and living with my parents, I used to run around with some coffee-drinking pseudo-philosopher types with dogmatic tastes in music and movies. And this guy whose name I can't remember and I climb to the top of Monk's Mound (the largest Native American-built mound) in Collinsville at about 4 in the morning. I'm sure we were jazzed on coffee from the Grind in the Central West End, and were sitting around talking. It was chilly for early fall, and I remember shivering. I'm sure we talked about very deep and soul-searching things that people do when they want to make out with each other, but the part I remember was watching the highway from the top as the sun came up...the cars that were travelling along I-55/70 went from being moving lights, to ghostly and shadowy blocks, to 3-D bodies moving fluidly with lushious and surprisingly reverent pink tints. It was amazing...that black and cold world waking up, and suddenly, something entirely different. And I felt like everything had changed...as I watched from above. And then the moment was gone, and I was back with the world. Cars going by, boy talking, time passing.

There's really something about watching the world happen around you, being on the outside, and the moment you let yourself in. From Russia, I'll bring that along.