free to choose

Are you ever overwhelmed by the sudden, irrational fear of falling over the edge of a high place? And yet also overcome by the equally strong, lurching compulsion to throw yourself over the edge? I know I’m not the only one, and if you nodded yes, then know— it isn’t just the two of us, either. It’s a phenomenon, a quirk of human nature. 

What’s interesting is, in a way, I feel that my entire experience of Russia can be summarised by that sensation: fear mixed with compulsive fascination. I jump away from the edge of the bridge overlooking the dirty, frozen river, heart racing, and yet...I was the one who chose to get that close, nobody put me on the edge over looking the ice but myself. It’s a sickening thrill. 

Once I’ve crossed this dirty river, I hope I won’t ever have to get back on this particular bridge again. It hasn't been all bad, there have been moments of joy, and deep fulfillment--but I haven't enjoyed my time here in St. Petersburg. 

I read somewhere, or maybe somebody told me, that this fear of falling and this fascination with jumping is like a little shudder of excitement as we experience freedom. More specifically, free will. We have the power to step up to the edge of the high place, and if we choose, step off it. The closer we get, the more we feel someone is going to push us over the edge. The fact is, nothing will force us to fall, or prevent us from jumping. We are free to choose. And, as I stand with my toes gripping the stone of the bridge through the soles of my boots, legs shaking as I teeter on the edge, I feel the thrill of terror that is what it feels like to be free. 

When I begin to feel that I’m trapped here in this city of canals, I go out and find a bridge, and stand on the edge. I chose this.

As I sit here writing this entry, this is what I see. When I was away for a couple weeks, there was some flooding in my flat, and the floors were ruined. For the first week, the landlord told me to keep the windows open to help the wood continue drying, and to "be careful during the night when you walk in the kitchen" because of the sharp ridges of the warped floorboards sticking up all over the place, and gaps in the floor where some of the boards had already been removed. It began to look a bit like an abandoned building, and I would come back from my classes to find a couple more floorboards had been removed each day. Eventually, my landlord said he was concerned for my health, and decided that we should replace the floor sooner rather than later. So, here I am, sitting at my kitchen table in an old, worn out pair of Nikes to protect my feet from the exposed cement and wood splinters. In a way, if it weren't so dirty and musty-smelling, it could be rather chic...

Why must the simple things be so much more difficult here? Why do even the smallest of pleasures, like good coffee, fresh vegetables, and friendly strangers, seem so impossible to come by? The fact of the matter is, I've put up with St. Petersburg and with the conservatory for nearly four years now, and I've found a way to live with it all. But I'm tired of it, and ready for this chapter to be over. I try to put a bold face on, strive to find the bright side of things, and appreciate this journey for everything I've learned. And I do, I really do. On the other hand, I also value honesty.

I created this blog to share photos and stories from my life in Russia, knowing that I would be far from the people I loved, and knowing that, whatever the outcome, it would be an adventure I would want to share without whomever was interested in coming along for the ride. I haven't written an entry about Russia in over a year. While the reasons are many, and I would be lying if I said that laziness wasn't one of them, a big part of my silence has been for a different reason. 

I didn't want this blog to become a place where I came to complain. I wanted it to be a place where I could share and celebrate the new discoveries I would be making in this new country, and, hopefully, inspire people. I didn't want people to read my stories and come away feeling sorry for me, or sad.

If I couldn't show things in an uplifting way, if I couldn't make people smile or inspire them, then, I told myself, it simply meant I wasn't ready to write about those things yet. "If you can't say somethin' nice," Thumper the rabbit intoned, rolling his eyes, "Don't say nothin' at all..." 

The best-selling essayist and humourist, David Sedaris, once said in an interview that if you're struggling to write about something, set it aside for a while, come back to it after some time has passed. I'm paraphrasing, but he said something akin to, "You may not have enough distance from the subject yet, to be able to write about it. When you have enough distance, you'll know how to tell the story, it'll come together." 

No matter what struggle I was grappling with, I always tried to end each entry on a positive note, or find some new personal insight in the midst of the dilemma. Since the end of 2016, those positive notes been harder to hear amongst the din. I still believe what I believed in the beginning, about the purpose and tone of my blog. However, in the interest of honesty, I won't lie to you, Reader. Every day here is a struggle, and I'm tired.

Until I have put enough distance between myself and this place, I may have to settle for less-than-perfect stories with less-than-inspiring endings. I may have to settle for silence, when the story is too hard to put into words, as are the emotions that accompany it. I may have to settle for a little bit of both. I may, sometimes, have to settle for a dusty, musty, concrete floor; for classes I don't like, and didn't choose, but which I am not allowed to drop. I may have to settle for teachers that yell insults at me, and make me yell back, and in the process become a person I don't think I truly am or want to be--aggressive, cold, hard. 

Do you remember being little and getting up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and then having to face the dark corridor back to your bedroom? Standing in your pajamas on the cold tile floor, a shiver would go up your spine as you faced the inevitable, waiting for somebody to make you do what you yourself couldn't force yourself to. When the ticking clock and the fear of the creatures lurking in every shadow had finally robbed you of the last breath of warmth left in your skin, you would do what you thought you couldn't do. You would step onto the threshold, and then--bolt! A streak of blue flannel pajamas along the corridor; a wild flapping of arms as you rounded the corner at top speed; then, the flash of a bare heel disappearing into your bedroom as you slammed the door behind you, and launched yourself to safety, into the still-warm eiderdown. Huddled in the bed clothes, with only a scrap of your face bare to the cool air coming in through the open window, you'd lie there, tiny body pumping full of adrenaline at your narrow escape and full of a drunken giddiness at the magnificence of your own courage.

Of course you remember it. It is the very essence of childhood--dodging the invisible hallway Jabberwock, "the jaws that bite, the claws that catch". My question is, what gave you the nerve to make the run? Was it the reassuring, soft snores of your parents coming from the room across from yours? Was it pride, unwilling to admit that a big girl or an nearly-grown man of seven was afraid of the dark? Was it the wanting to be back in your warm bed that grew stronger even than the fear, a churlishness born of exhaustion that became a form of bravery? Or was it that, as you stood there, curling your toes over the door's wooden threshold like a diver, you knew it was the only thing to be done? There was no thought. There was no plan. There was only knowing that you were here, and you wanted to be there, and you didn't want to face the space in between. But face it you must.

When the knowing you must grew stronger than the fear you couldn't make it, that was when you gritted your teeth and hurled yourself forward, onward, onward blindly through the dark with only the softest glimmer of a nightlight in the distance to guide you back to your sanctuary.

I turn to face the last 14 months remaining of what will have been five grueling years of study here in St. Petersburg, and I wonder how I'll get through them. Then I think to myself, "You must, and so, somehow, you will." 

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the matriarch

My great-grandmother, Hilda, died last night. My mother would often share memories of her Abuelita Hilda, telling me about the time they lived under one roof in Quito, how Abuelita Hilda helped raise my mother and her siblings after their father died. 

When I saw Hilda this past August, during our trip to Ecuador, she was no longer able to recognise any of us. But I remember her before that, a little. My memories of her are limited, but I remember her always cooking up something delicious in the kitchen. I remember our family dog adored her, and gained five pounds when she came to visit, because she insisted on feeding it every little scrap as she prepared meals. I remember her wicked, and often dirty, sense of humour. During one trip to visit us in Seattle from Ecuador, Abuelita Hilda brought my aunt a pair of lacy underwear with a goat embroidered on the front of the crotch, elbowing her cheekily and winking as she gave it to her. 

She was good, she was tender, she gave everything to her family that she had to give. She faced infidelities with grace. She held herself with the solemn dignity of her ancient people. She was the matriarch of the Guerrero family—and it is no small thing to be able to call yourself “mother of the warriors”.

I don't have any pictures of her, I cannot attend her funeral, nor can I comfort my mother and grandmother as they grieve. Instead, I hope I can honour her memory in the only way I can think of: by celebrating her culture, her country, and her city--Quito--through these photos I took during a trip there this past August. 

coyle's christmas

There is a small bakeshop in Seattle, on Greenwood, that has become a favourite of ours. This past Christmas, we invited our beloved Coyle's to the holiday table.

The buche de noel (yule log).

Tender, moist vanilla sponge cake. Coffee buttercream. Rich, chocolatey glaze. Marzipan leaves and delicate meringue mushrooms. A beautiful, tiramisu-inspired take on the holiday classic. Delicious, and a show-stopping work of art.

The apple galette.

We all expected it would humbly play second fiddle to the yule log, but it was love-at-first-bite. The brightness of the sweet apples, buttery crust, and simple elegance of this unassuming, beautifully baked tart won over the whole table.

Everyone was clamoring for second helpings of both.

Thank you, Coyle's, for an absolutely divine Christmas pudding course.

christmas at home

We've celebrated Christmas together at Abuelita's and Bob's house for as long as I can remember. Every year it's special, but I think this year I felt a little relief mixed in with the Christmas cheer. It was a hard year for everyone, and to have finally made it to Christmas, to be amongst people who are so dear to my heart, felt like a victory. 

We all have our own ways of feeling gratitude, and showing it. In my family, we seem to do a bit of everything - and, I might add, at maximum volume, as anyone knows us will already be aware. 

We sing, offering our praise off-key, but with enough enthusiasm to make up for the notes that come out a little flat. We dance, in the theatre and in the kitchen, celebrating all that we have been given. 

We come together and cook, nourishing body and spirit. We laugh, sweetening the bitter tang of the year's sorrows and refreshing our hearts with a bubbly lightness.

This is my family, and I don't know how I'd live without them. They've taught me everything that's worth knowing.

Strength;

Grace;

Joy.

Christmas is over, but the unexpected snow storm we got last night makes it feel like it almost could be December again, so...

We gathered together, each helping in the final preparations for Christmas dinner, laughing and chatting. I couldn't stop smiling. I ran about the house, snapping photos of everything and everyone, both with my camera and with my heart, snatching at moments, pocketing them for later. It's these precious memories that burn brightly in me and keep me warm during Novembers as cold as this past one.

We're not afraid to touch each other, or to hug, kiss, or say "I love you".

Courage;

Patience;

Fortitude;

pavlovsk park

Pavlovsk Park is one of the largest, oldest parks in the world. It is a man-made wood, a gift from Catherine the Great to her young son Paul (Paul in Russian is Павел, from whence comes the name of the park and small adjoining town - Павловск). There are hints of it having been purposefully grown, rather than simply groomed from a wild forest. The paths are far too neat, the trees grow in lines too straight to be the pure product of nature.

I walked through the tall, dark trees in below-freezing temperatures with a friend, who had offered to be my guide for the day. We chatted as we walked, took photos, watched people feeding the resident squirrels. Often, we would lapse into long silences. There is a deep hush in the heart of that wood. As it forces itself over you through the cold air, suddenly, you find you have nothing left to say.

It has been a turbulent month. The recent election left us all stunned, and I found that being in Russia, far away from it all, only increased my distress. It felt like being shut in a closet, while in the adjoining room something bad is being done. I felt as though I had fallen out of the sky into a Kafkaesque nightmare, walking through the streets of St Petersburg feeling completely disconnected from my surroundings. I was a ghost, I was a tiny man stuck in a puppet theatre, the empty, unseeing doll eyes of passersby looking right through me as they swung back and forth on their twitching strings. 

People kept coming up to me during the days following the election, asking me about the result, making snide references. Each ill-timed joke pierced me, filling me at once with pain and anger, only to be quickly stifled by a sense of guilt at my reaction. Each encounter left me confused and all the more distressed. 

It's election day morning and one of my friends has her phone open by the window-sill during the morning ballet class. She keeps going over to check it between dancing combinations, refreshing the page displaying the live-stream of election results. What infuriates me is that it's clear she doesn't understand our voting system. Trump has won the swing states, is irreversibly in the lead, and she's still checking the results, as though there's any chance of a turn-around. The innocence of her ignorance makes me seethe. Or maybe it's that her ignorance is mirrored in my last shred of undying hope that there was still some small chance that we would pull through...

An ugly, clumsy baby stabs me with a pair of scissors, grinning a gap-toothed smile, and I scream, filled with rage and a sudden urge to strike back...but how can I? They don't know any better. They don't realise what they've done, the pain they've caused me. I know I can't hit them back. So I grit my teeth, swallow the pain until it's settled deep in my gut, and retreat.

"Are you okay?", our ballet teacher asks me, noticing something is wrong. I don't remember what I said, only that I burst into tears and ran out of the studio to the bathroom. After ten minutes locked in a stall, sobbing, I composed myself, and came back to class in time for adagio at the barre. They averted their eyes. Nobody said anything more.

"Sarina!", the pianist calls to me after our ballet class, mispronouncing my name as they all do. "You no-know who president? Your president? You no-know?" She cackles at me in her broken English, which she often uses with me despite my more than competent Russian, and which I find almost more patronising and offensive than her clear delight at Trump's victory. I say nothing, staring at her blankly. Then I turn, and walk away, my heart pounding, tears starting in my eyes again. 

"Sarina!"

I keep walking, refusing to turn and give her the satisfaction.

"Sarina! You listen? You no-know who president?"

In the end, I got over it because I had to. There wasn't any time to let myself have more than one day to mourn, and I didn't have the energy to cry or pray. My exam was a week and a half after election day, and I dove into preparing with an intensity and desperation that I've never experienced before in my life.  

I've always said that, as hard as life here in Russia can be, I always meet "angels" on my path. They come at the times when I need them the most, and often they are complete strangers, saving me just in the nick of time. Other times they are people from my circle of acquaintance that stand out from the crowd in a moment of need.

True friends are not the people that you've known since childhood, the ones you have a lot in common with, or the people you match up with according to profession or age. It's not something you can print out on paper, and you can't write an algorithm to find them on social media. But when your knees buckle under the weight of your burden, they appear at your side and shoulder some of the load. When you trip and fall, your face burning from shame as people gather, laughing down at you covered in mud, that's when the true friends appear, part the crowd, and offer forth a hand to help you up.

With a week to go before our major dancing exam, my coach left to go on tour. I didn't feel remotely ready to dance in from of the jury of professors, and felt utterly abandoned. It was as though my parent had left me at the bus stop with a sock full of loose change, to pay my way, and a note pinned to my chest telling all literate bystanders my name, and where I was going. Nobody cared if I got where I was supposed to go. Good luck, be a good girl. See you next week. 

One of my friends, whom we shall call "S.", a young woman in her late twenties who is a graduate of the famous ballet academy here in St Petersburg, stepped into the role of my coach. She rehearsed me every single day, often up to three hours at a time, preparing me and supporting me in the last week leading up to the exam. We would stay in the studio together after lessons until 10:30pm, and during the day, when the ballet studio was busy, she and I would rehearse in the cold corridors, attracting the curious stares of students and professors as I jumped, pirouetted, sweat, and groaned in frustration in the hallways. 

S. would patiently insist on my repeating the same movement again, and again, and again, until I got it just right. Then we would move on to the next set of movements, and she would go on to fix every part of my body, down to the angle of my head, the direction of my gaze. She would grab my hand in hers and fix my fingers until the space between each one was what it should be. Working with S., I felt like a small child again, sitting at my easel with my mother holding my hand in hers, helping me guide a paintbrush across the white surface. I would smile, gasping as the figure of a cat appeared on the white paper, delighted by what my hand had done as it was guided by hers. She smiled, too, and praised me. "Look how beautiful! Now you do it again, this time by yourself. Go on. I'll watch."

My back ached, my legs were strapped with knotted muscles, I developed a horrible pain in my left foot from dancing up to six hours a day, many of them on the corridor floors, which are as cold and hard as cement. But I was thrilled by my progress. "Oh, if only I had thought to ask you for help from the very beginning!" I would often cry out in frustration to S., "Look at everything you've done in just a few days...Imagine what we could have done with a month." S. shrugged, and replied that everything happens in its own time, and as it should, and that she knew I would be ready for the exam, which was all that mattered now.

The day of the exam came. I was to dance a duet, a male solo (each student learns both male and female parts, as future teachers we need to know both male and female dancing technique), and three female solos. The opening number was the duet from the soviet ballet "The Fountain of Bakhchisarai", practically unknown in the west, but very dear to the Russians and a staple in the repertoire here. I danced it with a leading soloist of the Mariinsky Theatre, an intimidating hulk of a man. I've long admired him for his dancing, but this semester I have come to admire him even more for his kind, down-to-earth nature, gentleness, and humble desire to continually better himself.

I cannot remember a performance that I was more nervous about, or that I felt more privileged to dance, than that duet for the exam. It was, literally, a dream come true, to dance with this incredible partner. The pain, the months of nerves, the enormous amount of work that culminated in those few minutes were all worth it, and I let myself enjoy every moment of it, giddy with gratitude and no small amount of disbelief that I had been given such an opportunity. 

After the exam was over, our pianist came out from the office where the discussion of our final marks had been taking place. She walked over to where S. and I were standing in the hallway, waiting to hear the results. The pianist told us that all the professors on the jury had awarded me full marks, that they had been shocked by the quality of my performance, and had praised me to no end. S. seized me in a bone-crushing hug. She couldn't speak, close to tears. Thanks to S. and the countless hours she spent with me, we had somehow managed, in just a week, to turn everything around, and to astound them. We had done it.

On the election day, when I didn't know where to turn or what to think, I called a friend (we'll call her N.) and spilled my fears to her. N. told me that as far as she could remember, nothing had ever been stable in Russia, and that they had never properly gotten out of one crisis before they began to enter the next.

"Grandma used to bake bread for us. We couldn't afford to buy it." N. said. Her mother and father had been forced to go out to the fields to grow potatoes to feed themselves. "If they hadn't," she continued, "We would have starved to death." She paused for a moment, and then said, finally, "So long as those who are near and dear to you are well, and still with you, you can get through anything. You'll support each other. Don't cry. Everything will be okay. In times of crisis, you only grow closer, stronger."

With Thanksgiving not that far behind us, and entering the holiday season as we are, I would like to give thanks for those who are near and dear to me. May they remain well, and may we, in times of crisis, only grow closer, stronger. 

gasworks park at dawn

I love mornings. For those who wake before the sun, a world of silence and utter tranquility awaits. It's our reward for stumbling, bleary-eyed, out of the den before the rest of the forest wakes. Dew wets the grass, the air is crisp, and I never fail to be startled by how much more beautiful and new everything around me looks as those first rays of sun emerge.

Mornings are my favourite time to reflect. I think about the coming day, what I have planned. I also think about things that trouble me, picking them apart like tangled yarn as I sip my coffee. 

I am often faced by the same dilemma - different scenes, different characters, but with the same overarching theme, so to speak. 

When I see people struggling, I find that I can often see a way that I might be able to help. It's difficult, when you're the one struggling, to see a way out of your predicament. If it were easy, you wouldn't be struggling with it, but would have long since solved the problem, eased your pain, and moved on. So when those around me are struggling, I find that as an observer and devoted friend, I can see the escape routes clearer than they can. Because of this, I tend to feel a sense of duty, a calling to help.

I myself have a great deal of difficulty in asking for help, and so when I see the chance to anticipate a friend's need, I take it, and try to help them avoid the awkwardness of pleading for assistance. But in the process of reaching out to them and offering help in that way, I often over-stretch myself, bending over backwards, even losing sleep over how best to be of help. Sometimes, in the process, I lose either their respect for me, or my respect for myself - often, both. 

My reasoning has often been, "Well, so long as they get the help they need, then I don't mind what I have to do, and all's well that end's well." But is that really the right attitude to have?

I've recently stepped back a little. My fear has always been that if I step back, stop being the "great friend", that my friendships will vanish. Better, I always thought, to have a one-sided friendship, than none at all. Now I think I'm willing to risk it. I'm tired of waiting, so to speak, for a train that will never come. I look at my watch, feel a stab of shame that I was silly enough to have waited this long on the platform, and turn to leave. But then I stop, unsure I've made the right choice, after all. 

Is it my pride that keeps me waiting, wanting to be the hero that saves the day? Or is it pride that makes me want to give up on people and walk away, offended at their lack of appreciation?

How much should you give without getting anything in return? How long should you wait with no sign of anyone coming around the corner? Such questions probably take a lifetime to answer for oneself. In the meantime, I'm waiting at the station, and oftentimes it feels like waiting for nobody, for nothing.

So do I stay?

Or do I walk away?

For those who have not yet seen it, here is a video I shot and edited on the day these photos were taken at Gasworks Park, in Seattle, Washington. It was a glorious morning.

dungeness - camping on the olympic peninsula

Camping, like baseball, and apple pie, is among one of the great American traditions. Why is it that we are so inexorably drawn to the outdoors? Why do we strike out into hills to live amongst the pines for a week each year? Why do we insist on falling into the warm summer earth, what is this pleasure we get from sleeping in the rocky bosom of the mountains? I couldn't say. But then, I couldn't tell you why baseball makes me smile, either. What do the crack of a bat, a flying white ball, popcorn, hotdogs, and a roaring crowd have to do with happiness, anyway? How can I explain why warm apples swimming in sugar gravy nestled in a rich, buttery crust is, for us, the very definition of comfort and tranquility? But back to camping.

What was that quote? “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately..."

This is our third year camping near the Dungeness Spit on the Olympic Peninsula. The waves lull us to sleep each night. The sea birds wake us every morning. Family is all around, children running around the campground, racing about on their bicycles. The camp stove is always cooking something to keep us warm, usually tea, or "egg, soss, and a fried slice" (we do allow this one British tradition to invade the Blue-blooded-America-Land-of-the-Free-Home-of-the-Brave aura of our four day camping trip).

It's a heavenly long weekend of deep rest. Missing out on the yearly camping trip, for me, is not an option. It's one of the great American past times: it's about family, laughter, and the great American outdoors. 

I wouldn't go a single year without it.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,

"To front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, 

"And not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

"I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear;

"Nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary.

"I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life,

 

"To live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, 

"To cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms...”

ferry to another world

When my family moved from the east coast to Seattle, Washington, it took us a long time to settle in. We didn't feel at home in the pacific northwest, rather as though we'd been clumsily transplanted and couldn't take root in this wet, weak new soil. Where was the granite of New Hampshire? Where had the red brick and shake roofs of old New England gone? Where were the quiet barns on the green hillsides, the long winding country lanes bordered by oaks and maples? 

Everything felt cold, distant, unfriendly in Seattle. The people were unsociable, introverted, quiet. We joked about the city feeling like one giant Scandinavian fishing village, all its inhabitants quietly going about their business without making eye contact or stopping to chat, huddled in wool to hide from the constant drizzle and oppressive grey.

We complained about the excessive politeness, which to East Coasters comes across as insincere and passive-aggressive. We rolled our eyes at the lack of loyalty we often saw amongst our circles of acquaintance, everyday little betrayals we experienced at school or work that sent all of us into seething tempers. "If that fazool pulled a stunt like that in the North End, not the "North West", they'd-a been--" followed by a swift, significant motion of the hand indicating either a slit jugular or complete excommunication from all decent society.

But after ten years of living in the rainy city, and after a decade of kvetching about disloyalty, cowardice, passive-aggression, we've somehow come to love it for what it is. 

I love Seattle, and I love Washington state. One of the things I love most about the place is how easy it is to leave the city and find yourself in a completely different world: green, lush, quiet, peaceful. 

By far our favourite way to escape city life is by ferry.

On the ferry, you can reach the many islands that float off the coast of Washington state. On this particular trip, we took the ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island, and then drove from there for the Olympic Peninsula for a family camping trip. 

It was dark by the time we reached the shore. Sunset blazed behind the trees, and though we were all tired, we took heart upon seeing such simple, but radiant beauty. The roads were quiet, and we followed the sunset further and further west, watching as it turned from orange, to pink, to the softest of violets. 

I love this last photo. It's not a great photo, nor even one of my better ones. But the sight of the city in the distance, with the trees behind us reflected in the car's sideview mirror...Something about that strikes me. It captures the feeling I have when I'm on the ferry, crossing between worlds with a foot in the city, a foot in nature. I've never felt anything else quite like it.

nantasket

What says summer more than the beach?

It's October now, and what once seemed like only a far-off dream is now finally and irreversibly upon us. Each year, I never fail to be surprised that summer really does fade, blending slowly into fall, trading in its youthful palette of greens, pinks, and blues for the tawny gold dappled leaves and burnt umbre of an earth tired from the harvest.

I like each season in its own way, and so I'm not sad to see summer go, to be replaced by a more solemn character. Autumn may be more difficult to provoke a laugh from, and have a few anger lines that we fear to bring out in her, but there is such beauty to her face and garb, that one can't help but gaze in awe at this well-mannered, industrious woman. 

The past three days this week have been hard. I've been waking up every day at 7am, been at the conservatory to warmup for the morning ballet class by 9am, then had several lecture classes. When I'm finally so exhausted, hungry, and battered that I feel I can't go on, it's time for my most important class.

From 6:30pm until the time that our professor feels the lesson is over (usually 8:30-9pm, but often not until 9:30pm) we learn solos (called "variations") and duets from ballets. We meticulously study the style and analyse every position of the body, head, use of the arms, every musical accent, every single angle must be just so. While the word "study" may bring to mind sitting with a notepad and pen, the way we study as dancers couldn't be further from that image. We learn on our feet, dancing through the combinations, using our limbs and spine to feel our way through the ciphers and equations of the movement and music. And we, or at least I, pour with sweat and push until my bones creak and groan. I've been going nonstop from 9am until 9pm the past few days, and when I come back to eat a late, light dinner, and finally sleep, I find myself staying up until well past midnight, unable to rest, my body unwilling to settle into sleep, instead craving to be again in motion.

During these stressful times, I think back to summer, and wonder whether it was ever real. Summer is effortless. Summer is pure joy. I can appreciate the irony of this statement when placed in contrast with these two photos of my brother who, as I like to say, has HAD. IT. Ah, the poetic richness of the English language. Had what? What has he had, and who, pray tell, has given it to him? None can say, but one glance at his face, shielded from the vicious intrusion of Sister With Annoying Camera, tells us distinctly, and without a glimmer of a doubt, that he has, in fact...HAD IT. 

We burned beautifully on this day at Nantasket. I joked that each one of us was our own shade of burnt, like different chocolate bars for sale. 44%, 60%, 72%, 80% cacao. Well, none of us got quite that dark, not even mum, but we had fun trying to find different analogies to describe the various "burn to tan" ratios we were all sporting. 

Grandma and Grandpa had the right idea, claiming the prime piece of real estate under the umbrella. Sipping garlicky gazpacho, crunching parmesan twists, planning world domination, cackling wickedly while watching us get murdered by the waves. The usual.

It was a grand old time. 

It's currently 8am in St Petersburg, and I couldn't be farther away from all that. It's overcast and drizzly, and the day promises to be just as busy as the rest of the week. I have two dancing classes with an hour break in between them in which to run to the other side of the city to pick up some documents, and then run them to a different office to drop them off. More bureaucratic nonsense on the part of the Russian government and their tiresome suspicion and dislike of foreigners in general - a feel like a character from a Gogol story. 

At around 5:30pm after my last lecture, I'll have time for lunch. Or will it be dinner, by that point? Such things don't really seem worth the time of figuring them out.

I remember taking this last photo. We all lay in bed, freshly showered, with a good book in hand, feeling exhausted after hours of being battered by salty waves and body surfing our bellies raw. I snuck into the boys' room next door and saw the feet, and the book, and smiled. What perfect summer bliss. 

the lake house

The summer passed me by so quickly. Around the end of July, I felt it draw up level with me. I stared it in the eye briefly, this fleet-footed season of sticky peaches and sand in socks, and felt a flurry of equal parts exhilaration and panic in my gut. I reached out a hand through the cloud of dust its heels had kicked up, and grabbed a handful of summer's warm, sunny garment. I willed it to stay a month longer. I was not so afraid of losing the race as of the race itself coming to the end, reaching the finish line, pulling up short, and...then what? Then, autumn. Leaving home. Returning to studies. Facing the bureaucracy. Tolerating the frowns. Relearning how to ignore all the rules. Sighing at the ever shortening arctic-winter days.

When I pulled my hand back from grabbing at summer's tail, even as it whisked away from me and around the corner, I found I'd managed to snatch a handful of its golden coat. I tucked the scrap away in my pocket, where it sits to this day. Its color has since faded a bit. But all memory is a little sad, so I don't mind the melancholy now staining my perfect, golden scrap of summer memories.

While it's not in keeping with the general theme of this blog, I wanted to share some of these summer memories in a series of posts.

First, the lake house.

Visiting Bubby Natalie's house by Lake Sunapee was something I always looked forward to as a little girl. For me, it was nothing short of magical. I remember spending countless hours swimming around the sunny dock, squealing in terror and delight with my cousins as the family dog dove in after us. I remember he used to chase the splashes that only grew bigger as we desperately swam away from the ginger retriever. We would finally scramble onto the dock, our noses raw and throats ragged from choking on crystal clear lake water and playful shouting. 

It was our job, we were told, to help protect the trout eggs from being pillaged by villainous rockfish. We dutifully, and with great pride, whipped out fishing rods and stood for hours, attempting to tempt the rockfish with bits of bread dangling off tiny red hooks. We were blissfully unaware that our looming shadows warned off even the stupidest fish. When we did manage to catch a few, in the bucket they went, and we named them, and stared fondly down at them. Uncle Danny would take the bucket away from time to time, and it came back empty. We, truly, never thought much of it, trusting that he was taking them off to some "other place", it didn't matter where. In actual fact, which I learned from another relative's late night joking, the fish were bashed on a rock (oh the irony of the poor rockfish's demise) in the woods and thrown to the dog.

After that, I carried on my fishing, but, ever the pacifist (or "pescifist"?), insisted superciliously on having the nearest adult remove the hook from each fish I caught, so that it might be thrown back in, having learned its lesson. Or something like that.

Going back to the lake house this August, I found a new dimension to my love for it. It has a beauty which is tasteful, exquisite, and ruthlessly well-ordered, yet it remains miraculously in harmony with the nature around it. The screened patio looks out at the lake from just the right vantage point, the windows let in just the right amount of light for every time of the day, the chairs are inviting, the narrow staircases hug at you in a friendly sort of way. The wallpaper, art, and photos decorating the walls bring smiles with their gaiety and subtle humor just as often as they coax out sighs with their beauty. Something about all these details make it so that the house feels alive. It looks after all its inhabitants, and is ever glad of guests. 

But, you know, a house is only as beautiful, welcoming, and alive as its owner. And so a few words about Bubby Nat.

Bubby Natalie is, without a doubt, the matriarch of my father's side of the family. She was always a small woman, and now that she's well into her nineties she barely reaches my shoulder. But let her height be the only thing about her that is ever describe as "small". 

I shan't try to capture her wit, or paint you a picture of her elegance, or sing of the magnificent "zest" with which she seems to do everything - if I did, I'm sure I would fail, unable in my clumsiness to do her justice. I say "zest" in quotation marks because as I wrote it, it didn't seem like quite the right word to describe Bubby. I imagined her reading that description, and I was suddenly worried she might find it either vulgar or else trite. "It sounds like an old brand of dish soap.", she might say, with a sardonic smile. But I must admit an unapologetic love for the word. It's short, it's playful, and whenever I say it, it has a way of forcing my mouth to smile. Zest. "It's fun!", she might say instead, half-scolding us for being so stuffy about a silly little word. I'll risk keeping it in there.

For my fifth birthday party, I told my mother I wanted to be Princess Aurora - the Sleeping Beauty. My royal court would be in the living room, and it was only appropriate that it be a costume party. So she bought me a strawberries and cream birthday cake, a little navy blue velvet dress with tulle skirt, and satin slippers. She also dutifully printed on the invitations something to the effect of: "Princess Sarena cordially requests that her guests arrive wearing costumes."

Some dressed up, most didn't. But I'll never forget the first sight I caught of Bubby Natalie walking into the kitchen of our old Victorian house in Malden, Massachusetts. I was supervising the placing of the candles on my beautiful white cake when I looked up at the sound of a voice, and saw the Fairy of the North Star herself standing in the doorway. Wearing a dazzling costume, complete with a many-pointed silver crown, she was both breathtaking and formidable. I was awed by the white coat, intimidated by the spikes, but thoroughly entranced by the general effect of this august personage holding an invitation to my party.

That's the sort of thing she does, fulfilling that request (which had been directed at the younger party guests) with such playfulness and panache. She's an artist, a poet, a chef, a comedian, and manages to do it all with the best of taste. 

If it wasn't already clear enough, I'll say it here. I love her dearly. We all do.

I'll never forget the lake house, the wild blueberries, the challah toast, the countless Passovers celebrated with her, the art, the flowers, the sinful chocolate-zucchini bread. But above all, I'll never forget our dear Bubby. 

june in st petersburg

June. The dancing season is over, my lectures here are all wrapping up, and I have one exam left in a couple days. Then, less than 24 hours after the last exam, I'll be on my way home. 

I look at the city around me and can't believe it's the same place as it was in November. I think back to the winter days, and recall waking up in darkness, walking to class before the sun had risen, coming home to an afternoon already dimming to dusk. 

Now the days seem hardly ever to end, stretching on and on into an arctic sunset at 10:30pm. It never gets properly dark. Rather, clouds gather moodily over the cityscape to form a smoky frown lingering over the horizon line, a small window of light sky eternally glowing between earth and clouds.

When I was younger, some of my favourite books were those in C.S. Lewis's Narnia series (to this day they are still dear to me). In one of the books, the Pevensie children find themselves on a quest to the "edge of the world". The world of Narnia is described as being not a round planet, but a flat land with the oceans cascading off either side - as the earth was thought to be in old folk tales. On their journey aboard the great ship "The Dawn Treader", the children approach nearer and nearer to the utter east and the rising sun. As I sit at my desk studying well into the night with no need for a lamp, my books and notes well lit by the light coming in from my windows, there is a quote from that book that keeps coming to mind:

"...they began to feel that they had already sailed beyond the world. All was different. For one thing they all found that they were needing less sleep. One did not want to go to bed nor to eat much, nor even to talk except in low voices. Another thing was the light. There was too much of it. The sun when it came up each morning looked twice, if not three times, its usual size...

"...the sun too large (though not too hot), the sea too bright, the air too shining. Now, the light grew no less – if anything, it increased – but they could bear it. They could look straight up at the sun without blinking. They could see more light than they had ever seen before. And the deck and the sail and their own faces and bodies became brighter and brighter and every rope shone."

The transformation that St Petersburg undergoes each and every year, from winter to this summer, is rivaled in intensity only by the extremity of the lifestyle that all dancers here seem to lead. 

I count myself one of the lucky ones. I don't have to work, and consequently I can enjoy the luxury of focusing all my energy on my studies at the conservatory. But most of the others here, namely the Russians, do not have that privilege.

They must balance their studying with exhausting, endless rehearsals and draining daily commutes from the edges of the city where cheaper housing is available. They have to arrange to take their exams earlier or later than the scheduled date in order to accommodate their tour schedule, frequently flying with their troupes to perform in China, Scandinavia, Germany, the US.

There is one woman in my year who has a small daughter. On her single day off from the theatre this week, this woman only got to spend a handful of hours with her little girl and husband at their dacha. And all because our senile professor stretched our final exam on that day into a four hour long torture. The mother smiled in resignation. Apparently, they often call her in on her day off, so, as she said, at least this time she got a few hours with her child.

One of my closer friends at the conservatory often goes nonstop from waking at 6:30am until collapsing at 11pm - studying, dancing, working as a coach at a local ballet company. "I forgot to change, yesterday, I just fell on the bed and slept in my clothes. Then I woke up at 2am because I'd forgotten to eat, so I was starving, and I didn't know who I was or what was going on!" She told me once, laughing sheepishly. I tried to force out a chuckle, masking my horror.

Just yesterday, another friend of mine told me that she'd gone to the doctor for a hip pain that had been bothering her for some time. The results of the MRI revealed a series of hip problems that may require surgery to properly heal. But there is no time for her to rest, she simply can't afford to give up 6 months or a year. For us, in our profession, no money could tempt us to part with a year of our fleeting youth.

I was deeply affected by the news, feeling almost as much grief as though it were I, not her, that had received the diagnosis. Recovery from such a surgery not only means a lack of income, but it could mark the end of a career just blossoming into its prime. A sudden frost in late spring is enough to kill a rosy bud. We can only hold out hope for a sudden ray of sun to fall upon it, bringing a swift, but gentle, thaw.

I feel a horrible guilt, a sense of responsibility brought on by the burden of knowing that I am the fortunate one. "It isn't fair!", cries the little girl in me. But what can I do? I can't solve all their problems. I can't give back stolen hours, or ease the yoke of endless work. I can't pass a healing hand over a wound and cause it to heal.

I know that we are each given challenges in life, which are ours to bear and try to overcome. I honour that. I respect that there are things that are beyond my control. But I cannot fight off this gnawing anxiety. I cannot stifle the feeling that I have no right to be so at ease in my life when they suffer - albeit quietly, and with such dignity.

I can offer comforting words during a difficult time. And humour, especially, helps. I don't mind acting the fool, if it comes to it, to bring forth a few laughs and lighten the mood.

I've cooked meals and put them in containers for a friend who didn't have any time to eat, let alone cook for herself. I've been jester, cook, translator, coach, physical therapist; all falling under the mantle of "friend", an all-encompassing term.

I don't know if a deed can be considered altruistic if it gives me some relief in doing it. If it brings me joy, if it eases some of the burden of my self-imposed guilt, then can it be truly considered a "selfless" act?

But I suppose what matters most is to have done it, and not to think much more about it. If the deed itself helped someone, and was well-meant, then I like to think it was a good one. And yet it still doesn't feel like it's enough.

the russian dacha

Russians are private people. I remember not long after I had first moved to St Petersburg, I asked my Russian language teacher why it was that Russians had acquired that most-famous-of-stereotypes: "They never smile, and always look grumpy". She laughed, and replied that Russians have a certain way of behaving when in public which may seem cold and stand-offish to foreigners. She then went on to explain that within the comfort of their homes, Russians let down their guard. They cross the threshold of their private dwelling, shuck the shoes off their tired feet, slip on their тапочки ('tapochki', slippers), and shed their prickly hides, leaving them at the door to dry. Home. Comfort. Safety. A sigh of relief. A smile.

There have been moments when I have been speaking with Russians that I have felt that they let their guard down with me. In the past semester I've become friends with a teacher of mine at the conservatory who is in her twenties. Over time, she began to confide in me more and more. I began to teach her English, and she in turn helped me a lot with my dancing and pushed me to improve my technique. We went to the theatre to watch a ballet together, and we switched from the formal to the informal pronoun and mode of speech (equivalent to "tu" in Spanish or French, with all verbs declining according to the pronoun).

Each of these details were, to me, small victories. They were signs that I was somehow getting closer to meeting the real person underneath her wary, guarded exterior. Recently, she was confiding something in me, and then suddenly she paused and looked at me again, as though seeing me properly for the first time. She shook her head, a cloud passing over her pale, thin face, and her brow wrinkled as she said, "You know, sometimes I forget you're not Russian..."

A "dacha" is a summer house, but not in the American or European sense of the word. It is not an ordinary house in the country, or a quaint little seaside cottage.

Each dacha is unique, generally built by the family that owns it. Often, they have no indoor toilet, but rather a small outhouse. Most do not have a shower. Apart from the rudimentary plumbing, the electricity is, traditionally, a work in progress. The patchy, bare-bones insulation renders the little shack uninhabitable except for a few months in the late spring and summer. But the point of a dacha is not to sit indoors all day, for as they say, "That's what we do all winter!"

The joke among Russians is that the dacha is always a work in progress. Something always wants mending or improving upon. If it weren't that way, well, then it wouldn't be any fun. It wouldn't be a proper dacha.

The dacha is not just a place for rest, but a place for the very special brand of activity known as "dacha work". This generally refers to the constant fixing of the house - painting, nailing in uneven floorboards, adding a door here or there, cutting new curtains, adding a greenhouse or bigger tool shed, repairing whatever damage a hard winter has brought on .

Apart from repairs, dacha work consists, first and foremost, of gardening. There is the near-religious cultivation of cucumbers, to be eaten fresh and pickled for the winter. Then there are the rows of radishes, cabbages, tomatoes, peppers, and melons, with the occasional crab apple tree providing fruit for jams and pies.

In addition, there is the great Russian summer tradition of шашлык ('shashlyk', pork kebabs cooked on a charcoal grill). 

As with everything else typical of dacha life, the tradition of shashlyk is not just about eating the meat. It's about the entire process, from start to finish, which is what makes the experience one of the most beloved summer activities among Russian families. 

The mother or father goes to the local butcher, selects the cut of meat carefully, then comes home and proceeds to slice it into cubes, which are all the same size to ensure they all cook evenly. Then there is the marinading of the meat for half the day in onions, spices, water, and a touch of vinegar. 

One of my hosts assured me, with a grin, that he would trust no form of measurement other than that which his own tongue told him to be right, when it came to gauging the ratio of vinegar to water for marinading the meat.

"I like to season the meat piece by piece, so I'm sure each one is properly covered in the spices.", he told me. "It takes longer," he conceded, "But I think you can tell the difference in the taste, and that's what's most important." He smiled and laughed a little at himself, then we lapsed back into silence as he carried on seasoning the meat. I watched, entranced by the attention to detail, the care with which he handled each cube, rubbing it between his fingers and then placing it back in the pile.

We sat out in the garden, sipping квас ('kvass', a traditional Russian fermented drink made from rye bread that tastes like the love child of kombucha and beer), waiting for the coals to heat up in the grill. The smoky smell of the charcoal intermingled with the tantalising odour of the shashlyk in the air around us, and we waited impatiently, staring like a pack of ravenous wolves at the sizzling meat.

It was excellent.

It was such a relief to crawl out of our underground dens and blink in the light of spring, filling our lungs with fresh air and our eyes with all the surrounding green. With the summer sun setting at around 10pm, we stayed up late chatting, drinking cup after cup of tea, the kitchen table scattered with biscuits and sugar cubes.

There was a simplicity to everything about the dacha and the life we led there for those couple days. A deep sense of peace came over me, which was sorely needed after a year of hard dancing, stressful studying, and after months of being cooped up in a grey, dark city.

After so much time of living alone, I was very grateful to find myself in the company of such warm, welcoming, generous people, and to have been welcomed into their home like one of the family. I feel as though I've been given a long-awaited nod of approval. It's as though they said, "She's not one of us, not our kind. But she can be trusted. She is welcome in our home."

novgorod the great

Великий Новгород - Novgorod the Great. Located halfway between St Petersburg and Moscow, and recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, Novgorod is one of the oldest cities in Russia, and one of the most important in the country's history. At the beginning of May, I was invited by some friends to visit it for three days. The timing was significant - we arrived the day after Orthodox Easter Sunday. Given that Novgorod and the surrounding areas have some of the most beautiful, historic churches and monasteries in all of Russia, we couldn't have picked a better time to enjoy this breathtaking, holy city and its countryside.

I'm often told by Russians that St Petersburg is not "real Russia". What this means, exactly, no one seems to be able to tell me.

Some mention the architecture. The Petrine Baroque style, which Peter the Great insisted his city be built in, emulated the Dutch and Scandinavian styles of the time. Later, Catherine the Great invited the Italian architects Rastrelli and Rossi to decorate her city in extravagant layers of blue and gold. Her supreme power as the "enlightened tyrant" of Russia was communicated to all city-dwellers through the grand palaces, while her culture and refinement represented by an abundance of crisp curlicues.

Others simply cite a "feeling", that St Petersburg is the closest of all large Russian cities to Europe, has a history of more flexible borders with the neighboring countries, and consequently it lacks the Russian-ness of many other cities. 

Having all this in the back of my mind, I was delighted when some friends invited me to stay with them at their classic Soviet-era style flat in the heart of Novgorod. Here, finally, was the chance I had been waiting for to explore to so-called "real Russia".

The beauty of the monasteries, and stateliness of the churches; the hallowed interiors encrusted in mosaics, the ringing of the choir's chanting during Orthodox Easter service; all this coupled together made an impression on me I'll not soon forget. I felt myself to be an outsider, but not an intruder. An American Jew standing in the midst of a Russian Orthodox congregation, I somehow felt completely a part of the community as we stood there in silence, listening to the prayers. 

It's important to note that in Russian Orthodox services, the congregation does not sit or kneel. There are no pews. There are no cushioned kneelers. The people stand proudly, reverently before G-d, facing the golden icons of the saints and apostles, and listen.

As I walked through the holy places we visited during my stay, the same feeling persisted. I was a curious bystander, peering into a different world. A guest, I was allowed to wander freely in this strange land - though I couldn't help but feel that I was being watched by the very buildings themselves, crouched like great white beasts on the green slopes of late spring.

There is a fierce dignity to the cathedrals. Some of them are in disrepair from many harsh winters and lack of funds to keep them up. But, to me, their crumbling exterior only add to their stern beauty, their stoicism. The cracked paint makes me think of the weathered face of an old mariner, marked by countless winds, blistered by years beyond reckoning of defiantly staring into the sun.

For all the quiet glory of the churches, the countryside was equally as majestic in its own right - but wild, untamed, sprawling.

I saw a fairy tale landscape: a lake that stretched forever off into the horizon, collections of ancient log cottages grouped along the banks of a river delta; dark forests blanketing the lands, broken up only by patches of marsh and wetland.

The more I see of this country, the more I am entranced and astounded by it. After visiting Novgorod, rather than being able to better explain to myself what "real Russia" is, I am more mystified and intrigued than ever as to what makes this massive country so distinctively neither Europe, nor Asia, but truly the only one of its kind.

There is a Russian proverb that goes, "St Petersburg is our head, and Moscow our heart." What then, I wonder, is Novgorod the Great?

closure

I spent the week preceding Easter (17th - 25th March) in London, England. I had applied to a school there, and was subsequently invited to audition in person in front of the jury in London. This is the second of two schools that I have auditioned for and visited this season, as part of my ongoing search to find a university that is the right fit. The week in London was the second trip I have taken this school year in order to broaden my options in the event that I decide not to continue my studies in St Petersburg.

I've heard people talk about their youth with a curious mixture of emotions. Wistfulness for the bygone days of giddy, effervescent idealism. Embarrassment at some of the choices they made, at the company they kept, or simply at their naïveté, which, even after all this time, still provokes a grimace. While each has a unique story behind their missteps, and a lesson they took away from it, almost every one of the adults in my life has told me something along these lines: "I don't regret doing it, even if in retrospect it might not have been the best choice. It made me who I am. We all need to try things, even if they're not always right. That's how we learn what we like, what we don't, wrong from right, and how we fit into the grand scheme of things." Which brings me to the title of this latest installment of this 'public diary' of sorts: closure.

What matters is not so much when things end, but when we decide to walk away from them. Haven't you ever switched off the television before a movie is over, and not finished it, and yet not been plagued by the need to follow it through to the end? On the other hand, haven't you ever read a book cover to cover, and upon coming to the end, found that there is a hole inside you? Ever spent days waiting for something to fall into place and make you feel whole again? I've been the girl that leaves the party hours before everyone else, and yet not felt that I was missing out on anything at all. I've also been the last one there, helping to do the dishes long after the other dinner guests have gone, chatting quietly with the host over a last cup of tea before bidding her goodnight and slipping home through the soft night. It's not about when they end. It's about when you decide that they are truly over. They can send you to bed, put the light out, close the door; but every child enjoys the special pleasure of knowing that only they themselves can decide when they will roll over, shut their eyes, and dream.

I went to London with the highest of hopes, and an equally high level of nerves. What if it didn't work out? I wasn't so much worried that they would reject me, they had every right to do that. No, that's not the worry that was at the foremost of my mind as I sat in the tiny toy plane that flew us from St Petersburg to Helsinki, nor did it figure as I waited in line to board the plane to London Heathrow airport. What distressed me above all, was that my experience in England would be a negative one. For those of you that have known me for a long time, you'll no doubt remember my girlhood love of Great Britain - everything from the culture to the history, and especially the beautiful natural landscapes and the literature so dear to my heart. So it was with deep apprehension that I prepared to meet that which I had so long dreamed about, concerned that the ideal would far exceed the reality.

The week that followed was, without doubt, one of the happiest of my life. Everything went wonderfully. The audition was an incredibly positive experience, and the British people were kind, ever so helpful, intelligent, and so wonderfully cheerful, open, and light-hearted compared to the Russians. It will remain in my mind a glowing memory of a near perfect week in a country that I fell in love with immediately, and long even now to go back to. 

So why, then, did I decide almost at once that even if I were accepted, I would not go to study there? Why did I feel like it wasn't the right place? The same reason we might go on a lovely date with a polite, kind-hearted stranger, and yet know deep down that something was missing. 

I went to England, and I came back to St Petersburg. But somewhere in the interim, something inside changed. I began to feel differently about Russia, about the conservatory, about the people here. Maybe it's simply the idea of the frog being softly boiled to death in gradually hotter and hotter water. When first arriving in Russia after holidays in Seattle, I scald myself upon landing and spend a month in a funk or a state of semi-panic, and that, no doubt, has played some part in my fighting this past year to find a way "out" of St Petersburg. So perhaps it's simply that now that it's April, I've been in the bath long enough to not feel the heat so intensely. But, honestly, I don't think it's that.

I'm glad I went to England. And I'm glad I was able to let it go. Now I can stop running away, catch my breath, and slowly turn to face what's been following me this whole time.

I love dance. I love ballet. I love the Mariinsky Theatre. I love my pedagogue, a principal dancer with the Mariinsky and one of the most brilliant artists I've ever known. I love the Russian language, with its treacherous grammar and the breathtaking poetry it evokes in even the most common every day speech. And yes, I have even come to love this city. Moody, derelict, gloomy, stoic, but also profound, elegant, alive, and full of hope for a better tomorrow. Its indomitable spirit, oppressed and stifled for so long, has somehow kept its beauty and it's resilience. If that isn't the truest sign of Peter's humanity and goodness, I don't know what is.

Yes, it's hard living here and accepting things the way they are. Sometimes it feels impossible. But that's the way it is with everything that we love, and with everything that is important and worth fighting for. And so I ask myself: where else but here in St Petersburg would I truly wish to be?

And I answer myself.

someday i'll find you

We all need to believe that there's a better place somewhere out there for us, where someone is waiting for us to come home. Whether it's a person or a place, I think we're waiting to find that feeling that we belong. We look around every corner, explore the winding avenues, peer down each and every lane.

In the end, maybe the time we spend looking for that place is just life, and us living it the best we can. We know things won't ever be just right, and so it befalls us to enjoy the time that we've been given, wherever we find ourselves. But I can't seem to push away the hope that someday I'll find that place. I think if I ever did find it, it would feel familiar, as though I'd been there before, maybe when I was too young to remember it now properly. I can't stifle my wistful, painful longing to find it. For me, the last, quiet notes of that song never fade entirely. 

"When one is lonely the days are long; 
You seem so near
But never appear. 
Each night I sing you a lover's song; 
Please try to hear, 
My dear, my dear...

Someday I'll find you, 
Moonlight behind you, 
True to the dream I am dreaming. 
As I draw near you
You'll smile a little smile;

For a little while
We shall stand
Hand in hand.

I'll leave you never, 
Love you for ever, 
All our past sorrow redeeming: 

Make it all come true,
Make me love you too,
Someday I'll find you...
 

Someday I'll find you again."

amsterdam

I arrived in Amsterdam two weeks ago, for a 3 week choreography intensive course. I was given the opportunity to participate in this course not just for the master classes, but also in order get an impression of the programme at the university, and have it as a potential long-term transfer option for next September. Given the mixed experiences I have had in Russia, I knew it would be wise to begin exploring other options, in case it becomes clear to me in the second semester that another 3 years of study in St Petersburg is not what is best for me.

At first, I was reminded of "my city" - of Peter, with his canals, and long rows of houses running on either side, an archipelago of a city, little islands connected by countless bridges.

But upon closer inspection, the similarities begin to melt away. Colour and light are the two elements that come to mind first, when analysing the things I found here that we don't have in St Petersburg. In Amsterdam, there's something of a Scandinavian village at Christmas time, that would probably offend the St Petersburg-ers, and cause suspicion with it's jolliness if imitated there in Russia.

I am joking, of course. But there is a light-heartedness about Amsterdam, a pleasant smile reflected off the canals, passing from face to face like a cheerful virus, a twinkle passing from eye to eye to window to street lamp. For me, it has nothing to do with the relaxed culture and attitude towards drugs, sex, and alcohol. It's a confidence, a self-assuredness, a sense of safety and contentment. It resonates in the very air. It's lighter than the bubbling excitement spilling from the night clubs, sweeter than the heavy grey smoke drifting out of the "coffee shops". I think most people miss out on hearing this clear, subtle song the city sings. It's like the sound of the bell in Westerkerk, which was once said to be heard throughout the entire Amsterdam neighbourhood of Jordaan whenever it chimed. Now noise pollution has robbed it of its influence, just as the rowdy tunes of the night have silenced this city's quieter humming.

Westerkerk (Western Church), 1631

An experience I had in my first week here in Amsterdam was for me the most powerful, thus far. I attended a candlelit concert at the historic Portuguese Synagogue in the famed Jewish Quarter. Two pianists played a selection of pieces written for four hands by "lost" Jewish composers who were imprisoned or died in the concentration camps.

It was cold in the synagogue. There were no electric lights, the interior illuminated only by the light of the candles hanging from enormous, glowing chandeliers. We sat in the rows of pews around the grand piano, and waited quietly together for the concert to begin. In that moment, there was an acute sense of community, without speech, without eye contact, we all felt in contact with one another. We had all come to this special place, to this concert of rare music, and looking around quietly, we felt we were truly together.

Two women in their mid-sixties came and sat down next to me, and I began to chat with the one sitting nearer to me. We talked about Russia, Amsterdam, dance, art, and music. I was taken aback, yet again, by the astonishing level of culture that I encounter time and again in the most ordinary Dutch people - not artists themselves, but appreciators, allowing their lives to be enriched by the arts. 

This woman was curious how I had come to know about the concert. I told her that I read about it on the Synagogue's website, as I was planning my week's excursions, found the subject of the lost composers interesting, and felt strongly that I had to go. She told me that her girlfriend, the woman she had come with, was a pianist herself, often played piano for four hands, and that they both had made something of a personal, individual study of these lost Jewish composers, so this for them was a real treat. 

Would that we in the United States had such an accepting culture, that such a conversation between these two women and I could happen at any concert, and the topic of their sexual orientation would never even come up; that it would be unremarkable in the purest sense of the word, because of the normalcy of such equality.

There are so many things I've learned here, from this programme, and many lovely people I've met. Ironically, a lot of my time here has been spent speaking not in English, but in Russian, with a girl from Moscow who is also participating in the same course. It's such a varied, international group here, which has been so refreshing after months and months of being the only one that feels foreign and out of place.

In general, however, I find myself craving the structure, the beauty, the purity of my conservatory. I miss the daily ballet class at 9.30, the intense rehearsals that sometimes ran until 10pm, the fact that everyone is much too busy and exhausted to go out and party at the weekend. People are, in a strange way, much more innocent in St Petersburg, than they are here. Perhaps less worldly, but also less sullied by the dirt on the road. The Russians are unembarrassed to like things that are true rather than "interesting", good rather than "new", and beautiful rather than "provocative". And I like that about them.

I don't regret coming here, I've already gotten so much out of these first two weeks...But this isn't what I hoped it would be. The moment of realisation that I feel more at home in Russia, for all it's grey severity and harshness, than I do here at this school in friendly, open-minded Amsterdam, has produced mixed feelings in me. Frustration was one. It seems that coming here might not be the bright new possibility or answer that I thought it would be. Loneliness was another. Yet again, I feel that I don't belong. Neither here, nor there, but stuck somewhere in the middle (...'somewhat elevated', a reference for any dancers who happen to be reading).

I'm on the bridge, looking out over the water, down the canal. I turn to face one shore, I see St Petersburg. Ballet, classicism, rigidity, beauty. And on the other island, Amsterdam. Dance theatre, contemporary art, acceptance, grotesque.

Torn, I stand on the bridge looking one way, then turning to face the other.

under the same sky

Back in the Motherland - and what a rough landing it was.

I've had the interesting conversation about the term "Motherland" (Родина) with several people, Russian and non-Russian alike. What I always say about it, is that I am not Russian, and I have no motherland. The home of the brave, land of the free - she's not our mother. She is not old, mighty, wise. She does not embrace us in her wide, white bosom, enveloping us in the warmth of her hearth, the smell of freshly baked rye bread, and the scent of Siberian pine in her black hair.

No, America is not our mother. She is a girl - free, young, fiercely independent. Often foolish, certainly naive. She has a love of high, hard-to-reach places in the mountains; of wide, barren plains where the wind blows through your clothes; of forests painted entirely in shades of wild. Friend to all, lover of no one man, Lady Liberty knows her own mind and won't be led by the nose. 

I miss her.

The story of my flight from Seattle to Paris, Paris to St Petersburg, is a great tale. Too long to tell it here and now, if I wished to do it justice. Suffice it to say for now that on the last leg of the flight, I was mistaken for a "spy" working for the CIA, that I met another American on the plane who was in fact employed by the CIA, and sat next to a woman from Los Angeles who is finishing her studies in St Petersburg and was herself looking to join the CIA in the future. What a flight. 

I arrived at the St Petersburg airport, exhausted after almost 30 hours without sleeping, and rattled by the sudden plunge from bright, ethnically diverse Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, to grey, uniform Pulkovo. I met my taxi driver, and messaged my parents using the airport's wifi that I had done so and was heading home.

"One moment," the driver said, grinning at me sheepishly. His eyes pointed in opposite directions, I wasn't sure where to look, so I fixed upon his unibrow and said, "Yes? Is there a problem?" in my most sterile, trans-atlantic English, attempting to mask a ripple of fear. The last thing I needed was a complication. "Er, no, but please, you wait here one moment. I must visit the closet. Okay?". Blushing, he waddled off flat-footedly, perspiring slightly, as I stared after him in wonderment. Someone needs to tell the Russians here that nobody in real, English speaking countries calls the toilet a "water closet".

When I finally got to my building in the centre of the city, I tumbled out, and dragged my heavy bags up to my flat. The wi-fi was not working. The balance on my Russian SIM card was in negative figures, meaning no phone calls, no texts, no internet until I found an ATM that would take my debit card and top up the balance. I spent about an hour mindlessly unplugging and replugging all the cables connected to the router - nothing doing.

Panic would perhaps have come over me had I had the energy. Instead, I sat on my small, stained yellow sofa, and I cried. I cried for my parents, my two best friends that I was going to spend months without; for my brother, growing into a young man without me there; for the beautiful nature and lush forests of my beloved evergreen Washington that I'd abandoned; for the journey I had just embarked upon, and that for the first time I was unsure about. I felt that I was, for the first time, utterly alone. There was such a deep silence there, for that hour on the sofa.

Delirious with exhaustion, I angrily pulled myself together. Now was not the time to be a little girl, for shame! I made a quick stop at the local grocery store to get milk, eggs, and a jug of clean still water, then came home, showered, and went to bed.

The next day, I set out to put money on my phone. When I had finally succeeded, after four ATMs refusing my card, I began to get calls. My parents, it turns out, had been frantically attempting to get ahold of me for several hours. They had been on the point of calling the embassy, when they had finally reached me. I was on Nevsky Prospect, the largest avenue in St Petersburg, when their call came in, and I ducked into a side street hurriedly as we spoke. I felt a sense of paranoia, speaking English in public. I had been told not to, and while I never understood exactly why I shouldn't, I do notice I get open stares on the rare occasions I do. I stumbled into a side alley, and I began to explain what had happened and why I had been cut off from them.

The last they had heard, I had gotten into a car with the taxi driver, and gone off to G-d knows where. They had contacted the taxi company, and had been told that I had signed a form that said that I was picked up at the agreed upon location of the airport, but that that was all they knew, and they couldn't reach the driver to confirm anything else yet.

The more we spoke, the more tears came. All inhibition gone, I wept openly there in public, speaking English, not minding the stares of passersby, or the fact that their pace noticeably slowed when they reached me as they attempted to eavesdrop, casting surreptitious glances at me as they inched by, and then not-so-subtly speeding up when I caught their eye.

For those of you that know me personally, you know how I feel about tears in public. It doesn't happen.

I don't cry at weddings, funerals, or sad movies in theatres. I didn't cry when the family dog was euthanized, though I saw her death as the metaphorical final nail in the coffin of my childhood. I didn't cry this past August, saying goodbye to my uncle and his two children, after a wonderful dinner, during which I could sense the financial strain they were hiding behind their laughter out of a wish to assure I had a good time. I cry at home, after, in bed, when the lights are off, and everyone has gone to bed. Pain and mourning are private matters, and I have always felt I need to be strong by keeping them as such.

But there on the street, I sobbed that I missed home and wanted to leave, that I couldn't bear it another minute here, that this was all a mistake, and that it was all my fault for wanting to come in the first place. Because I fought to get here. Nobody thought I could make it, but I fought tooth and nail, and I worked with this goal in mind for two years, and I made it. I was, consequently, the only one to blame. 

The last of the blue skies watched over me as I made my way to the conservatory each morning for the 9.30am ballet class. I found myself looking up at it through the clouds often.

In an odd way, I never feel so close to something as when I'm far away from it - my family, my country, all the familiar things. I think we're all like that.

A piece of what I longed for seemed to have lodged itself in my throat, creating a lump there that wouldn't be swallowed. But the sky helped, in a way, that persistent steely blue that I knew would never go away. Even when it's covered by clouds, it's still there, and none of us ever lose hope that we'll see it peeking out again sometime soon.

It comforts me to think that somewhere out there, the people I care for are living, breathing, going about their daily lives, under the very same sky. There's a sense of peace, of connection, that I feel when I think about it that way, when I remember that I'm not alone, that we have this few things in common. Same sky, same moon, same stars.

I go about my day, exploring this city of beauty and dreams, riddled by ruin and with little nightmares lurking in the dark corners. Each day, one foot in front of the other, class following class, rehearsal after rehearsal.

And just so, I'm learning to keep my balance. 

Site of the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin's final duel, which led to his death

transitions

I started assembling the collage of photos for this post on March 30th, and then abandoned it.

The title, which I decided upon before writing anything, was meant to allude to the commencement of the переезд ('moving') from the old, historic conservatory building to the new one a block away, also to my turning twenty and officially leaving the teens behind. Perhaps, also to the feeling I experienced at that time of finally "settling" into the new semester. 

Subconsciously, I was likely also thinking of the transition from my illusion of what it was that I would find at the conservatory, and what was waiting for me when I eventually opened my eyes.

In a way, the moving from the old building to the new aptly fits this feeling I began to experience at that time. The beauty of the historic building stripped away, I began to notice the shallow, prejudiced, closed-minded attitudes prevalent not only in the lectures I was attending, but in the general culture of my art in the city.

I noticed the professors bleat political propaganda. I overheard anti-semitic "jokes" between students, one of which quickly lapsed into uncomfortable silence when a member of their conservation dryly mentioned that they had a Jewish grandfather. I learned that a certain abhorrent racial slur is in common use in Russia, and though I was assured it was not used maliciously, I was still shocked. I also discovered that I, who have always been considered Caucasian (read: white) in the US, am in Russia often confused for being Caucasian - as in, from Georgia, Armenia, or Azerbaijan, the countries through which lie the Caucasus Mountains. I avoided writing any more on this blog, I think, because the heaviness that settled on my shoulders did not seem to lend itself much to inspirational wanderings and musings on this city and its culture. "If you can't say nothin' nice, don't say nothin' at all..." I thought wryly to myself . Then I got very quiet for a very long time. 

I no longer felt the desire to take a Sunday and a new patch of Petersburg and explore it with my camera. There was no energy left for moments of spontaneity and new discoveries. Even trips to the Hermitage, or my beloved Mariinsky became (I hate to say it) practically a chore - a dose of culture I took weekly, grimacing, wondering if I could live with the guilt of rushing through the Raphaels or skipping the third act of Swan Lake to get home, shower, and forget about things for a while.

When I try to think of what it was exactly that seemed to have defeated me, I think of an event that occurred in the week leading up to our final exams.

Ninel Alexandrovna Petrova (my teacher in specialty classes) came in one morning, and asked which one of us spoke English. Everyone looked to me. Oh boy. 

Ninel Alexandrovna had with her a copy of Ann Hutchinson Guest’s text and Laban notation (notation of dance movements, like music notes) of the ballet we had been intensively studying that semester . Ninel Alexandrovna wanted someone to read what Hutchinson-Guest had written, and explain to her the difference between the version staged with Hutchinson-Guest’s research, and the slightly later version which is in the repertoire of most other ballet companies (including the Mariinsky Theatre's) currently.

I immediately consented, barely containing my excitement. Finally! Here was my chance to prove myself, to show them how diligently I had studied Russian. I am not a seasoned ex-soloist with a famous ballet company, like some of the others in my class, but this project was one that required different skills, and it was a way I could show that I was smart and could be a valuable member of the class in my own way.

Ninel said, “But I’m afraid you can’t take the book with you. The author’s autograph is in it, made out to my late husband, and I don’t want…”, she looked up at me almost suspiciously as she clutched the book convulsively to her chest, as though protecting the autograph from the oil of my prying fingers. “It’ll be in the concert-meister’s safe, with the music notes for class, so you can translate it while you’re at the conservatory. Just ask the pianist when you want it, and she’ll get it out for you.” I looked to Lena, our pianist, and she leered sourly at me, apparently scandalised at the idea that she would be ordered to open the safe by this 'unmusical, dull-witted American girl', as she calls me. She’s such ray of sunshine, Lena is. 

Panic began to set in. The image of myself working by candle light bent over the book, dictionary in my trembling hand, Lena breathing down my neck waiting for me to finish, burned in my mind. Just then, I had the thought to take photos of the relevant pages, and work on my assignment at home. Wow, kiddo, thought of that one all by yourself, did you? Умница...

I remember how painstakingly I double and triple checked all my translations, and spent several hours fretting over the grammar and complicated case-endings. I colour coded, denoted crucial stressed syllables (in Russian, a word stressed on the wrong syllable alters its meaning completely), and practised reciting the translation under my breath while grocery shopping, and in the shower. When my moment came, I was determined that it seem as natural as possible.

A few days later, at the next lesson, Ninel hobbled in the room and squawked, “Sonya!”, (she’s called me Sonya from the beginning, it’s still a mystery to me as to why) "Did you translate it? Will you tell me what Hutchinson-Guest said, now? Read it to me, my eyes are bad.”

I carefully read the translation I had written.

“Well, yes, good, it’s clear, we all understand the difference, I think. Although, it’s a pity there’s a lot of words she didn’t know, we didn’t get the full meaning, a pity…” She said, after I had finished explaining. It would have done no good to remind her I had only studied Russian for six months - four months, if you consider that I returned home for most of December and all of January. But I still rather childishly wish that someone had tried. 

I hasten to add, that I am truly fond of her. Such is the usual attitude here towards the foreigners (although, I suppose I should only speak for myself), that at this point I do little more than sigh, smile a little, and convince myself that thank-you’s are overrated anyway. 

During our exam, a week after the translation was read, one of the professors on the examination panel asked about the ways a ballet like the one we had been rehearsing could be revived, if after many years of being forgotten only notation and sketches of it remain. My closest friend here, Katya, quickly answered the question. She used the exact words I had, when I had half-translated and half-explained the passage from that book for Ninel a week previously. “Very interesting, good for you, Katya.” 

She glanced at me, then quickly looked away, and thanked the teacher. I expect there is some logic behind that uncomfortable moment, such as “well, you’re foreign, so you can’t get any credit in the exams anyway - so what’s the harm in me taking it instead, after all?”. At any rate, I convinced myself afterwards that it's good to know they were all listening as the American bumbled her way through the translation, "missing so much of the original meaning”, eh?

It was not the event that took the spirit out of me, but for me that anecdote captures the essence of what happened in some way or another on a daily basis. A thousand drops of acid rain sizzling on my skin. A thousand steely scabs that grew over the tender spots as they healed. 

I was, as they said, not своя ('one's own') but чужая ('strange, alien, foreign, belonging to another'). Свой/своя is also used colloquially to denote affectionate familiarity and fondness. Whereas, чужой/чужая can have a negative connotation, denoting something not of the place that brings confusion, unfamiliarity, and strife.

It was, then, with a heavy heart and a head full of troubles that I left St Petersburg. 

I hope that with the time away that this summer at home offers me I will be able to rekindle the light that went out, rally the scattered troops, and discover a way to be my own kind of чужая that can live happily and quietly beside the others without needing or wanting to ever be entirely theirs. Perhaps, I shall find that I enjoy being the only one of my own species...maybe even dragging behind me a little of the happy mayhem and unfamiliarity that they seem so sure I'll bring.

But, impossible, cold, and infuriating as they often are, I never seem to be able to stay angry at them for long.

no man is an island - vasilievsky ostrov

" No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine 
own were; any man's death diminishes me, 
because I am involved in mankind. 
And therefore never send to know for whom 
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. "

JOHN DONNE

For the longest time, I associated the famous quote from that verse by John Donne only with a panel of the comic 'The Far Side' which, as I recall, depicted one large man floating in some water and several tiny men disembarking from their miniature craft onto him. 

With age, comes a deeper understanding of the poem. In addition to that, lately I find myself living without a real sense of community for the first time in my life, which lends the words even more significance for me.

In keeping with the island theme, a week ago I finally made the time to visit Vasilievsky Ostrov - the largest of the many islands which St Petersburg was built on, and the island which Peter the Great intended to be the centre of his new capital city. 

Church of the Annunciation - Vasilievsky Ostrov, St Petersburg

Much of the architecture here is quite old, and unique, displaying a medley of different materials and eras, design elements and styles varying every other block - often, every other building. I was struck, more than anything, by the different feeling of this part of the city, in comparison to the feeling in the centre of the Admiralteysky Rayon where I live.

It was quieter on the island. There was something rather like loneliness in the air. Empty windows stared out across the wide streets, half expectantly, half in resignation, like a dog awaiting a master's long overdue homecoming. It felt to me like the island sensed its time of splendor was over, eclipsed as it had been sometime in history by the migration of the centre from Vasilievsky to the more geographically central areas of the city surrounding Nevsky Prospekt.

As I jogged over the cracked streets, weaving through the puddles our recent thaw has produced, I felt some of the island's melancholy seep into me. It was as though the sadness, the longing for something unknown, were splashing up through my trainers from the puddles, dampening my feet, weighing me down a little more with each step.

Perhaps, it had something to do with the thoughts and worries weighing on my mind lately. This semester, I began attending the lectures with the first year students of the dance programme at the conservatory. These lectures, which cover topics like Russian History, Analysis of the Structure of Ballet, The Foundations of Choreographic Dramaturgy, and History of Western Art, are all given in university-level Russian. To my surprise, I understand much more than I expected to, but it's hugely frustrating to me to hear such fascinating subjects being discussed and being unable to participate or understand fully.

As of yet, I am not considered a "student" of the conservatory, but only a "trainee" - becoming fluent in Russian and preparing for my entry into the full programme as a proper student. This, in actual fact, is a mere technicality, and I study no differently than any other student...except that I take my studies rather more seriously than most of the others (to their amusement, I might add).

The other students seem to feel the need to remind me constantly, "you're not a first year yet, you don't need to do these things yet", "just go home, don't take this class, you're not first course yet", or "you're foreign, so you don't need to take Russian History". I go to the lectures only because I want to, because I want to listen to more of Russian language. I want to sit and take notes on new words I hear repeated frequently to look them up later and build my vocabulary, I want to sit and absorb everything the old professors have to give. I've explained this, but it's still hard for the others to grasp. I know they mean well, that they mean to set my mind at rest, by saying these things to me.

But the only effect these pronouncements have, is to deepen the sensation growing in me that I am separate, not "one of them". I am, as it were, a different species and therefore different things are expected of me. Always less is expected of me, than of Them. Go home, you're not one of Us. It's okay, don't worry, you don't need to do what We do. 

"If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less..."

Community, for me, is the feeling of being an integral part of a greater whole. No one person is greater or lesser than any other, and the absence of even one member of the community is felt by all. I miss the feeling of being a part of that kind of "hive", of sharing myself with others, of asking them to give of themselves to me. I miss that feeling of someone caring whether or not I show up for the lecture, of knowing someone will call if I miss a rehearsal and tell me off for making extra work for the rest.

In the past couple weeks, I've felt a sudden urge to reach out to the Jewish community here in St Petersburg. I have long considered myself more Christian than a practicing Jew - I wouldn't have a bat-mitzvah, I haven't been to temple in years, and, worse even than eating meat in a cream sauce, I believe in Jesus. Just now, there was a sudden shuddering somewhere in Massachusetts, as several generations of Fishmans rolled in their graves.

Tomorrow, at sundown, begins Purim, which has always been my favourite Jewish holiday. Not just because the story of Esther impressed me so much as a child, and not only because of the Hamentaschen, but because there was this wonderful feeling of giving. Giving gifts of food to friends, giving to the needy, offering thanks to G-d for the beauty and strength of our Jewish congregation and community. I miss that.

Though I may not be the most kosher Jew, I have always felt a very strong connection with the sense of community that the synagogue engenders. Some of my fondest memories from childhood, are of Saturday mornings at Temple Beth Israel in Malden, MA. Listening to the prayers, wishing I could wear a yarmulka like the Rabbi's sons, running around the shul with them after the service, eating gefilte fish and horseradish (which I have loved as long as I can remember, consuming copious amounts of the spicy paste on the fish dumplings, even as a four year old). The congregation was an extended family who cared for me, and whom I cared about. They took us in when we needed help, they fed us when we were hungry, they offered us solace in times of trouble.

Where do I turn, now, in my need? Of whom may I ask for help, when the help I need is a warm hand on my shoulder? 

Where do I go, to find a sense of belonging?

It's not homesickness that I feel, so much as displacement. I wander these streets, looking in the windows, searching for my place. Where do I belong? Here, in this strange, cold, foreign land? If not here, then where is my home? Under the roof of my parents' home no longer feels the same way it used to, I can no longer retreat there to live as I did before. Going back isn't an option. But where is "forward"? 

What am I? Jew, or Christian? American, or Latina? Artist, or Academic? Dancer, or Choreographer? Thinker, or Do-er? Student, or merely a girl that wanders the corridors looking for the right class to sit in the back of, to listen to the lecture without understanding?

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind..."

There is no culture in the world, to my mind, that embodies melancholy and appreciates suffering so well as the Jewish culture. Precisely why, is the topic for another, longer discussion. But that it is so, is for me unquestionable. I feel this ever present bittersweet Jewish melancholy in every part of our culture. I feel it in the mournful minor-chord music and the chanting, in the longing for the promised land, in the ever present pain of being separate from our fellow Jews, our sorrow of being so scattered. 

But, despite our ever present sorrow, we hold out hope. G-d has not forsaken us. One day, we will live in the promised land. Maybe not today, tomorrow, or in this life. Nothing is easy - this we know, and this we love to complain about, with shrugs of resignations, throwing up of the hands, grimaces, and exclamations of "oy, you're telling me...". We have each other, we form our communities. We hold fast, we weather the storm.

I know I am strong. But the road is long, the trees grow closer and darker the further I journey on, and I don't know if I can make it alone. I'm not sure I want to make it alone.

I hope I can find a connection with a congregation here. If not, then perhaps I will simply create my own community over the coming years here in St Petersburg, with whomever wants to join me in creating a little warmth, a little light, a little kindness that we can offer each other as we wander on. 

"Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee..."