missing the greens
Hi all!
I’ve been here a month now exactly. People have told me there’s a formula to track one’s emotions on a long stay away from home (e.g., after one month you get a renewed sense of exhilaration at being here, after three months there tends to be a dip and you get homesick, etc.) I hesitate to buy into a theory that assumes all people react in a standard way to being abroad, so I can only speak for myself. In my experience, the month marker is a time when I start to feel a new sense of comfort in my new (if temporary) city. Things, senseless as they may be realistically speaking, have started to feel normal. I look around me and internalize Moscow as my home. The routine of riding the subway, carrying my groceries up the 3 flights of stairs to my flat, going to work and going to sleep and waking up in my Moscow bed, it’s all become just that-a routine. I’ve accepted the fact that my local market doesn’t stock peanut butter, and I’ve moved on.
And yet, at the same time as I’m feeling like being here is natural, I find myself starting to miss home in a new and different way, too. It’s no longer the sharp panic of separation. Thinking about LA now brings on this vague, dull ache. It’s pretty easy to ignore most of the time. This morning, though, when I woke up, it hurt a little. I think, more than anything, I’m starting to miss the color green, and all the shades of green associated with the flora of my hometown. When I look out my window here, all I see is white and gray. I suppose it’s a bit early to be letting it get to me. I have several more months, I’m afraid, of white and gray before green will be a part of my view again.
Again, I shouldn’t complain. I just spoke with my landlady, who stopped by to pick up the rent money. She said to me and Miriam, “the terrible frost is gone, girls. Now is the time for beautiful winter!” And she’s right. On Saturday morning, when I got up and looked outside, the whole courtyard was full of fresh snow. It must have been coming down all night. And for the first few hours of the morning after a snow like that, before the cars and the feet turn it brown, and then gray, and then almost black, Moscow is a fairyland. The snow looks so gentle and pillowy, like you could go out in your pajamas and curl up in it and sleep the best sleep in the world. Like when I was little and I’d look out the airplane window at the clouds below and I thought they looked like the softest cotton.
And the temps haven’t been too bad lately, either. After the kind of cold that stings your face and freezes your eyelashes and makes your legs ache through layers of jeans and long underwear and tights, -10 isn’t bad. Sometimes there’s even sun. On the subway, there are these public service announcements, of sorts. Mostly they’re quotes from famous thinkers, illustrated by a cheesy photograph (think: those goofy inspirational posters about PERSEVERANCE or TEAMWORK that businessmen have in their offices.) My favorite one here, though, is a photograph of pine trees covered in snow, on a background of blue sky, and the quote is from the Russian poet Pushkin: “Frost and sun: a magical day!”
Enough of this schlock.
Work’s still good. I’m enjoying one of my four-days-off blocks. On Wednesday, I teamed up with another journalist to cover the Iran nuclear situation, mostly in terms of Russia’s involvement and Israel’s response to Iran resuming small-scale uranium enrichment. We had a couple of live phone interviews with our correspondents in Jerusalem and Vienna (Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was in Vienna for security talks with the EU.) On Monday, talks will begin in Moscow between Iran and Russia about Russia’s proposition to enrich uranium on Iran’s behalf. Monday will be busy.
The residents at 33 Nikitskiy Bul’var are shifting. Lorin left Moscow for the states on Friday. His plans to teach English here fell through, as did his gig playing soccer with a Moscow team. Goodbye Lorin! Miriam leaves in a couple weeks. I will soon be a lonely expat. Filling their rooms in the flat, however, is turning out to be not that difficult. Lorin’s room will soon house Simon, a kid from northern England here teaching English, who seems quite nice. Miriam’s room is still up for grabs, though I’ve received several emails from foreigners coming to do research here who are interested in the place. It’s so centrally located, and rent is so affordable, people are really jumping at it. Still, if anyone knows someone looking for a room in Moscow...
That’s it for now, I think. Again, thanks to everyone who’s been emailing. I’m trying to keep up with replies in a timely manner, but forgive me if I haven’t been immediately responsive to any letters. I know I’ve said this, but your communications are what keep me going, and I really appreciate being thought of. To those, like my sister Jess, who have begged me to come home soon, I say: I will. Every day I have moments where I want, more than anything, to be home right now. Luckily, they’re interspersed with moments where I couldn’t be happier to be here. It’s a rollercoaster ride, living in Moscow. And I’m pretty convinced at this point that it’s an important ride for me to take to the end.
Love you, miss you,
Amanda.
I’ve been here a month now exactly. People have told me there’s a formula to track one’s emotions on a long stay away from home (e.g., after one month you get a renewed sense of exhilaration at being here, after three months there tends to be a dip and you get homesick, etc.) I hesitate to buy into a theory that assumes all people react in a standard way to being abroad, so I can only speak for myself. In my experience, the month marker is a time when I start to feel a new sense of comfort in my new (if temporary) city. Things, senseless as they may be realistically speaking, have started to feel normal. I look around me and internalize Moscow as my home. The routine of riding the subway, carrying my groceries up the 3 flights of stairs to my flat, going to work and going to sleep and waking up in my Moscow bed, it’s all become just that-a routine. I’ve accepted the fact that my local market doesn’t stock peanut butter, and I’ve moved on.
And yet, at the same time as I’m feeling like being here is natural, I find myself starting to miss home in a new and different way, too. It’s no longer the sharp panic of separation. Thinking about LA now brings on this vague, dull ache. It’s pretty easy to ignore most of the time. This morning, though, when I woke up, it hurt a little. I think, more than anything, I’m starting to miss the color green, and all the shades of green associated with the flora of my hometown. When I look out my window here, all I see is white and gray. I suppose it’s a bit early to be letting it get to me. I have several more months, I’m afraid, of white and gray before green will be a part of my view again.
Again, I shouldn’t complain. I just spoke with my landlady, who stopped by to pick up the rent money. She said to me and Miriam, “the terrible frost is gone, girls. Now is the time for beautiful winter!” And she’s right. On Saturday morning, when I got up and looked outside, the whole courtyard was full of fresh snow. It must have been coming down all night. And for the first few hours of the morning after a snow like that, before the cars and the feet turn it brown, and then gray, and then almost black, Moscow is a fairyland. The snow looks so gentle and pillowy, like you could go out in your pajamas and curl up in it and sleep the best sleep in the world. Like when I was little and I’d look out the airplane window at the clouds below and I thought they looked like the softest cotton.
And the temps haven’t been too bad lately, either. After the kind of cold that stings your face and freezes your eyelashes and makes your legs ache through layers of jeans and long underwear and tights, -10 isn’t bad. Sometimes there’s even sun. On the subway, there are these public service announcements, of sorts. Mostly they’re quotes from famous thinkers, illustrated by a cheesy photograph (think: those goofy inspirational posters about PERSEVERANCE or TEAMWORK that businessmen have in their offices.) My favorite one here, though, is a photograph of pine trees covered in snow, on a background of blue sky, and the quote is from the Russian poet Pushkin: “Frost and sun: a magical day!”
Enough of this schlock.
Work’s still good. I’m enjoying one of my four-days-off blocks. On Wednesday, I teamed up with another journalist to cover the Iran nuclear situation, mostly in terms of Russia’s involvement and Israel’s response to Iran resuming small-scale uranium enrichment. We had a couple of live phone interviews with our correspondents in Jerusalem and Vienna (Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was in Vienna for security talks with the EU.) On Monday, talks will begin in Moscow between Iran and Russia about Russia’s proposition to enrich uranium on Iran’s behalf. Monday will be busy.
The residents at 33 Nikitskiy Bul’var are shifting. Lorin left Moscow for the states on Friday. His plans to teach English here fell through, as did his gig playing soccer with a Moscow team. Goodbye Lorin! Miriam leaves in a couple weeks. I will soon be a lonely expat. Filling their rooms in the flat, however, is turning out to be not that difficult. Lorin’s room will soon house Simon, a kid from northern England here teaching English, who seems quite nice. Miriam’s room is still up for grabs, though I’ve received several emails from foreigners coming to do research here who are interested in the place. It’s so centrally located, and rent is so affordable, people are really jumping at it. Still, if anyone knows someone looking for a room in Moscow...
That’s it for now, I think. Again, thanks to everyone who’s been emailing. I’m trying to keep up with replies in a timely manner, but forgive me if I haven’t been immediately responsive to any letters. I know I’ve said this, but your communications are what keep me going, and I really appreciate being thought of. To those, like my sister Jess, who have begged me to come home soon, I say: I will. Every day I have moments where I want, more than anything, to be home right now. Luckily, they’re interspersed with moments where I couldn’t be happier to be here. It’s a rollercoaster ride, living in Moscow. And I’m pretty convinced at this point that it’s an important ride for me to take to the end.
Love you, miss you,
Amanda.