I have always thought the idea of an overnight train ride was romantic; a cozy sleeper car, sipping cocoa while watching the gorgeous landscape fly by through the chamber window, like some sort of throwback to Some Like It Hot. The reality of an evening on the eight hour Moscow to St. Petersburg passenger train was more like a cross between A Murder on the Orient Express and The Twilight Zone. I got on the train already hyped up from the mad dash to the station and when I got into the twin bed size compartment for four, I started to panic. There was no place to move, there was no window and the heavy metal door slammed shut to create the image of a tiny metal casket in my mind. The wine we had while packing was not helping the situation and I started to feel very ill. There was so much noise, so many people swirling around me in the narrow velvet corridor that the world began to spin. I have been claustrophobic for a very long time and have gotten to the point here in Russia that I know that at times it will be unavoidable, like when the metro stopped for twenty minutes underground on my way home from a show, but last night when the train started to leave the station I honestly thought there was no way I was going to be able to make it. One of the guys in my cell pulled me aside and gave me a little pill to calm me down. I think it was an anti-anxiety drug but whatever it was, it worked and I started to calm down and could breathe again. The train ride was pretty rocky and no one got any sleep so by the time we finally arrived in St. Petersburg we were all very irritable and desperate for a nap. Unfortunately the hostile wasn’t expecting us and there were no rooms ready. We dropped off our luggage and walked to St. Isaac’s Cathedral, which we were told had the most amazing views of the city but when we got there all that waited for us was an empty glass kiosk with the word INFO written in English. It was so emblematic of our life here that almost everyone stopped to take a picture. 
We all split up to wait for our rooms to be ready and by that point all I wanted was a little solitude and some rest. We are together CONSTANTLY – thirty five people moving as a giant herd, bumping into one another, stepping on each others toes and just generally grunting with discontent. After a month of togetherness and ensemble work, and being ushered in groups from one place to another I am starting to forget what quiet feels like. Sometime while waiting for my room in the rain, it hit me – in two months I will have to leave this place and these people and return to an empty apartment that no longer feels like home and a life that is currently without direction and start over. I looked around at all of these kids, a term I use not out of disrespect but jealousy, who are busy planning their next semester of courses, who have no bitterness, no jaded disposition about the harsh reality of the business that awaits them and I felt so very alone. I took this trip to find myself or re-find myself and each day it seems I am moving further and further away from who I was when I left. So much of that is wonderful. I feel happier, more centered, more alive but at the same time I am terrified that in going back I will move backwards. I see now how very off things have been particularly in the last year, how far I have gotten from everything that makes me good, makes me whole. And I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to think about it, to dwell on it and waste the precious time that I have in this place but I also don’t want, to quote someone I used to know, stick my head in the sand and be completely lost when I get back. I feel at this moment like a woman without a country, without a place. Stephanie says nearly everyday that the longer we are here and the more we learn, the more America feels like some acid trip dream. The days here all blend into one another and the outside world seems to freeze around us. I know that when I return people will have moved on, places will have changed and I might no longer fit into a life that used to be mine. Having no ties or obligations is an exceptional feeling but a paralyzing one as well. How do I take this amazing gift I have received and transform it into something that continues to grow regardless of my zip code? How do I not get stuck?
We all split up to wait for our rooms to be ready and by that point all I wanted was a little solitude and some rest. We are together CONSTANTLY – thirty five people moving as a giant herd, bumping into one another, stepping on each others toes and just generally grunting with discontent. After a month of togetherness and ensemble work, and being ushered in groups from one place to another I am starting to forget what quiet feels like. Sometime while waiting for my room in the rain, it hit me – in two months I will have to leave this place and these people and return to an empty apartment that no longer feels like home and a life that is currently without direction and start over. I looked around at all of these kids, a term I use not out of disrespect but jealousy, who are busy planning their next semester of courses, who have no bitterness, no jaded disposition about the harsh reality of the business that awaits them and I felt so very alone. I took this trip to find myself or re-find myself and each day it seems I am moving further and further away from who I was when I left. So much of that is wonderful. I feel happier, more centered, more alive but at the same time I am terrified that in going back I will move backwards. I see now how very off things have been particularly in the last year, how far I have gotten from everything that makes me good, makes me whole. And I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to think about it, to dwell on it and waste the precious time that I have in this place but I also don’t want, to quote someone I used to know, stick my head in the sand and be completely lost when I get back. I feel at this moment like a woman without a country, without a place. Stephanie says nearly everyday that the longer we are here and the more we learn, the more America feels like some acid trip dream. The days here all blend into one another and the outside world seems to freeze around us. I know that when I return people will have moved on, places will have changed and I might no longer fit into a life that used to be mine. Having no ties or obligations is an exceptional feeling but a paralyzing one as well. How do I take this amazing gift I have received and transform it into something that continues to grow regardless of my zip code? How do I not get stuck?