Coming to America
September the 8th will be 6 years since I have landed in JFK . I have not left the United States of America since. It has been very rocky road. It still is and if not for my closest friend, I would never even try to take this step. I feel that 6 years is more significant than 5 year anniversary because I am fully realizing now that there is a long road ahead of me and much depends on my decisions.Before , I felt that someone else was always holding my life here in US in their hands. No longer now. A little terrifying but at the same time very significant.
9.5 Hours
I hear only the monotonous noise of the plane engines. Outside of the window there is the Atlantic Ocean as far as an eye can see. My mind is exhausted. From my discounted seat in the Delta Airplane, where I have been for the last nine and a half hours, I have already seen a deeply red colored sun coming down and then, in five long hours, raising up again. “Where else can I experience such a short night?” the strange thought is sneaking in my in my head without invitation. With each minute, which drips out of the clock of this ten hour flight from Moscow to NYC, I am coming closer and closer to changing the course of history, the history of my family, friends, and my own history. My life is about to take a sharp turn. I hear the announcement about American customs. It is time now when I have to fill out a declaration of my possessions. “I hope they will let me keep the Russian bread, Sofia wanted me to bring some.” I have two loafs of bread with me, my back pack, and six hundred dollars, there is nothing more to declare. It is not a lot, but then, I heard America is the “Land of Opportunities.” All of a sudden I glance down through the window and see the Statue of Liberty. I AM ALMOST THERE.
I hear loud music streaming out of the speakers, and I realize what the words to the song are saying: “On the boats and on the planes they're coming to America…” Does the flight crew have a tradition to make people cry on the plane? “Never looking back again, they're coming to America…” But if they do have that tradition, they definitely reached their goal, because I am crying already. “Got a dream to take them there, they're coming to America, got a dream they've come to share, they're coming to America.” Neil Diamond, you got me. Tears are streaming down my cheeks burning me with gratitude and relief. I am almost there, in America, where I have always dreamed to be.
We are landing softly. Hundreds of Russian hands clapping and thanking the pilot and the crew for the successful flight across the Atlantic. God, watch over me here, bless me and carry me through. I want to make it here. I hear thousands of voices in a variety of languages and hundreds of announcements. JFK airport is alive like a humongous ant house. As I approach the customs desk I see the officer who looks at me very seriously and then smiles so radiantly, “Welcome to America, do you speak English?”