November 28 – Day 72

I can’t believe there are only two and a half weeks left here. Everything is moving much too fast. I want to put the world on pause and go for a nice long walk in the Dostoyevskian snow. When I was in St. Petersburg I bought a photo from a street artist that seemed to capture my idea of the Russian soul. It is the view of a boulevard like those in Moscow covered by the grey of Russia winter. In the foreground you can see the back of a young woman clad in a heavy down parka, traipsing across the street, the solitary figure in the barren landscape. It has a melancholy heartache that was apropos for my feelings at the time but now with the end so near I see that this trip has had a lot more brightness than grief. Katiya and I had a date the other night to catch up on the quality conversation we miss in our hectic schedule. We seem to be on parallel journeys of self-discovery and laughed about the absurdity that is traveling to a Soviet relic to find happiness. It turns out my Russian soul isn’t broken or suffering. It is resilient. It is strong. With so little time left I wonder what more will change and what I will remember when I go. In the end it will probably be the silliness like Russian mullets or babushka hit-women, or the thrill of learning the splits and how to travel Metro on my own. It will be the rush of watching Riken in Lear or the ridiculousness of being only Americans at the Mama Mia disco. My memories will be about growing up and letting go and in the end it will all have been about finding the beauty of the greyest wet winter day.