A hotel room is no fit place for a person to live. Hotel rooms are like tombs; they're waiting places, where you go after one activity ends and before another begins. They're places where you put your life on hold. But I would like to get back to my life, to the process of progression, down the river or around the wheel. Back to working (InterExchange) and Working (writing), back to laughing and loving and whatever "L" words fit in there. To be done with travelling and get back to moving.
Lena and Natela have asked me, separately and together, to move here for a while. To teach English, maybe, to learn Russian, certainly, to write my fiction here instead of there. And despite the cold that seeps into your skin and the sludge that clings to your feet and the water that'll make you sick to drink it, I'm considering it, if I don't get into graduate school (which I have already fallen through on my decision not to think about). I'm thinking about it partly for Lena and Natela (especially Lena, who I have so obviously had the biggest, stupidest crush on from the first day I met her three years ago - and what is it with me and women who are, literally, beyond my reach, anyway?), and partly because it seems interesting and fun and a challenge and something I've never done before. But mostly because Moscow is most eminently Not Here, and Here is a place that I really just want to move away from right now.
It's nice to consider, a pleasant possibility to while away the waiting hours, but in the end I very much doubt that it will happen. Surprises keep things interesting, but life needs certainties (such as they exist outside of poor, hackneyed Death and Taxes) and in Moscow I would have none. Besides, in under a week I fly back to Here, where life is waiting for me and Ideas are already fighting for time with my fingers and space on the page. And that is a very good feeling indeed.
Comments (4)
An American in Moscow? It would be tough to figure out the title of your travel novel, "Bleeding Moscow" or "Moscow Bleeding?"
It sounds like an interesting idea. You'll never learn Russian, but the ladies will like you. You're a good catch just by virtue of your citizenship. My father got together with my mother over watermelon, and you already know "Ya hachu arbus," so maybe that's all you'll need. You're getting old, or at least the women your age are getting there. Maybe you should follow your mating instincts and find someone to settle down with and then tear her away from family and friends. Think how cool it would be to live exactly equidistant from your two favorite places, England and Japan. Right now you're almost exactly equidistant between England and Seattle, but that hasn't been working out for you.
You can probably get a pretty interesting job as an American in Moscow. You can beef up that diplomat resume you've unintentionally been building. It's something worth considering. Destiny seems to be on your side. You see how all the pieces are fitting together. I'm not going any further into it here.
Posted by Vitaly | December 16, 2003 6:08 PM
Posted on December 16, 2003 18:08
According to:
http://translation2.paralink.com/
Наслаждайтесь матерью Россия
means "Enjoy mother Russia."
Posted by Erik (the roommate) | December 19, 2003 3:17 PM
Posted on December 19, 2003 15:17
Huh. Well, I guess it is, Erik. I should've at least read "Russia" properly. I wonder how accurate the phrase is, though. Vitaly? Any light to shed or should I be contacting those who read Russian on a daily basis? ^_^
And hey, that reminds me: I'll never learn Russian? Why not? I mean, c'mon, taking classes, living in the country? It doesn't sound unreasonable... Though yeah, I sometimes seem so doomed to become a diplomat...
Posted by Jason | December 22, 2003 10:49 AM
Posted on December 22, 2003 10:49
So that's what it means? Actually, I never heard that phrase, but the translation sounds accurate to me. When would a phrase like "Enjoy Mother Russia" come up anyway? I guess if you're on the Iron Curtain tourist board. But I never pictured them being so polite when detaining visitors and putting them under KGB surveillance. Perhaps they're more sarcastic than I thought.
Posted by Vitaly | December 22, 2003 7:38 PM
Posted on December 22, 2003 19:38