Прощай, Москва, прощай!
It’s a strange feeling – having to leave a place and not being sure when you’ll return. I guess I’ve had to do it a lot in my life, but for some reason it’s never had so much an impact on me as right now.
Study abroad has a very unique time element to it. It’s definite and short; you know exactly when you’re going to leave, and that date is almost always on the horizon (even though sometimes it doesn’t feel like that). If you hate it, this can be a good thing – you can count down the days, think “Only 44 more until I can eat peanut butter again,” and get by on these thoughts. If you love it, this can be a bad thing – you always know when you’re going to have to go back home, and there’s very little chance of extending it any longer. But when you’re somewhere in between, it gives you yet another reason to feel pulled between your home country and your new one.
A few weeks ago, I decided to make the trip home for break. I have about 2 weeks between the time I end here in Russia and the time I start in France. I was planning for a while to take a train adventure across Europe, stopping in various cities to explore, and therefore the decision to go home was a very hard one. In the end, though, it’s probably the right one, for my own mental sanity. This semester has been a very trying one – not bad, but trying – and I need some real time to relax and recharge before I go to France. I was worried that otherwise, it would affect my experience in France and all of next semester I would just be waiting until the time that I got to go home.
So now, with about a week left until I leave Moscow, I’m having mixed feelings of overwhelming excitement and sadness. I want to go home; I need to go home. There are people who I can’t explain how badly I want to see. And there is, of course, a feeling of comfort that I’m pretty sure I’ve been itching for since about mid-September. However, all I can think about is the fact that I don’t know when I’ll be back in Moscow. This life, the good and the bad of it, has been my life for the past 4 months. Everyday, I’ve gotten on the metro at Филёвский Парк, changed at Киевская, and gotten off at Новослободская and walked to the university. Almost every afternoon, I’ve walked into CafeMax near school to go online and keep up with all of you. I’ve practically memorized the metro map, and I know where the good cafés are and where to go when you need to buy pencils, shampoo, or a phone card to the states. After I leave, I have no idea when the next time is that I’ll eat in a Му-Му, or glance at scarves in the переход or say to someone “I’ll meet you on the platform at the Лубянка station”. It’s the stupid things that you get used to – the things you see everyday that don’t really matter, but are just there, surrounding you, and therefore become your life. And it’s these things that have snuck up on me recently, when I’ve realized that in about a week, I won’t be seeing them anymore. It’s the same thing with the people on the Middlebury program. We had a group of 8 amazing kids, and for the past 4 months we’ve essentially only had each other to rely on, and soon, we’re all going to be gone to our respective schools, or countries, living the lives we left behind when we started this one.
Sometimes I almost find myself wishing I were coming back to Moscow after the break. Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s pretty much nothing that can stop me from going to France and living out the life I’ve been dreaming about basically since sixth grade. However, it’s always scary to start in a new place, no matter how badly you want to go, and Moscow is no longer new. There’s a (dare I say it?) comfort in this city because I have been living and surviving here for the past 4 months. There are plenty of things I’m not going to miss about Russia, but there’s a lot more I am going to miss than I had for a while thought I would.
The laughter in your voices
This is not my story, but I felt it had to be told anyway...
The other day, Kathy and Evan were walking down the street, talking and laughing. As they turned a corner, they didn't happen to say anything, but were still laughing about the last comment made. An old Russian woman, who therefore heard them say nothing (in Russian or English), came up to them, and said:
"When I heard the laughter in your voices, I knew that you could not be Russian."
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the best sum-up of Russia that I could ever give.
The best part of my day
Every day, when I come home, it's dinnertime. It doesn't matter if I get home at 6:00 or 10:00, Irina Ivanovna always greets me at the door and asks "Do you want to eat?" and of course, I always say yes. Actually, I've tried to say no a few times, either because I've already eaten or I'm not hungry or something, but then she just decides that I need to eat a "little bit" which basically means the same thing as a normal meal, except maybe no bread. The thing about my meals at home, though, is that Irina Ivanovna never eats with me. The only time I've ever sat down for a meal, any meal, with Irina Ivanovna was the very first night I arrived, and when my family was here and she invited them for dinner. I'm actually not entirely sure when she eats at all. She's not exactly a little lady, so she must eat sometime, but I have yet to actually witness it.
So she lays out my plate of food, some fruit, some bread, and pours me my tea, and then she sits on the couch next to the table, and just starts talking. As I know I've mentioned many times before, Irina Ivanovna loves to talk. It doesn't matter how many times she's said something before, to me or to anyone else; she just keeps on talking. In the half-hour or hour that I sit down to have dinner, she moves in and out of the dining room, leaving whenever she runs out of things to say (believe it or not) and returning again with more to say, without fail, about 5 minutes later. Most of my responses are head nods, a "Da" here and there, and a more substantial comment when I feel like I have something to add. But I'm pretty sure she'd much rather just listen to herself talk than to me.
My listening and comprehension skills have improved immensely during my time here, and I'm sure a lot of that is thanks to Irina Ivanovna. A friend of hers was over at the apartment a few weeks ago, and this friend said to Irina Ivanovna, "Why do you talk so fast? There's no way she can understand you." To which Irina Ivanovna responded, "Well, I don't know why I talk so fast. I've always talked this fast. Everyone's always said that to me, but I don't know, it's just how I talk. But Becky understands me. And we understand each other. And it's good practice for her anyway. Because people on the street talk fast too. I don't know, I just always talk fast. But Becky and I do just fine..." And it's true. She's never slowed down for me, but in the long run, I think it's helped me. And besides, I don't think she could slow down even if she tried.
When I sit down to dinner, and Irina Ivanovna comes waltzing in and out of the room, all I can do is smile. She's absolutely crazy, and I love her that way. Dinner with Irina Ivanovna is always the best part of my day, and I'm truly going to miss it, and her, when I leave.
