Four friends gathered around a table.

Four friends gathered around a table and glasses of amaretto. This is where quality begins. We don’t need the promise of new people or dancing or the streets. What we need is to talk. To be open about this world we are living in and the experiences we are having. It is Russia and it is also Thanksgiving. This is already a clash of cultures beyond the fact that we are all from different countries. And yet rather than taking the knife of division and cutting open our diversity, we embrace our commonality and that is truth. That we are more similar than we will ever know. And even the racial issues and economic issues that we discuss, which divide this world we live in, those too are the creations of our mind. The division is not reality. It is the unity that is reality. 

It has almost been a year in this country. And in that year I have come to realize that what once seemed so strange and distant can, in time, come to feel more real and “normal” than much other I have experienced. It is strange. But at the same time, not so strange. Why should it be so foreign? Again, the divisions are in my mind. If I embrace what is around me and stop trying to create a semblance of my native home, then I will soon find that which surrounds me as home.

If you look back, not to the very beginning, but to the beginning which has brought me here, it is almost impossible to imagine that this reality would be mine. Not just Russia, but these people, this moment, this conversation. How far I have come, how much I have changed, and yet my love for this place remains the same. That first image, of darkness, of mud, of desperate children. Now this, a successful job, a community, palaces around me. It is almost laughable. There is darkness and desperation certainly, but this idea that life over here is so different just isn’t true. It isn’t true at all.

I think of Dad. How he said the biggest shock was how normal it all seemed. Exactly. It is normal. Perhaps not my normal, or rather my native normal, but people are going to live. They aren’t going to muck around in another era forever. Reality isn’t static. That is the key to all of this. Reality is dynamic. The people of this country are shaping their reality. And that reality is shaping this country. So of course it is normal. Of course it is relatable. We are all human, and, essentially, we all want and need the same things. Essentially.

It is two in the morning. It is time to head home. The crisp air hits me as I walk out the door. My own breath swirls around me in a fog, drifting towards the night sky. I follow its trail and look at the stars for the first time in a long time. I live here. The empty streets seem so tranquil at this hour. The half-moon’s reflection glitters off of the lapping current of the Fontanka River. I am surrounded by palaces and facades and bridges. I catch my mind wandering between the memories of these places and the utter awe that such magnificence has somehow become normal to me. Liteyny – my old commute. The Hat – jazz and farewells to friends I will never see again. Nevsky – well Nevsky is just everything. The Radisson, where Alex played the piano all those years ago. There is too much running through my mind to hold on to all the memories. And yet, I feel myself at peace. I haven’t felt that in a long time.

This is what I have been looking for. Like Pirsig said, “Zen is the “spirit of the valley,” not the mountaintop. The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.” So all of this wrestling I have been doing. All the challenges I have given myself. All of the mountains I have climbed. They are part of this peace, but they are never the places I would find my peace. It is here. On the empty streets. At night. When I least expect it.

And you have to ask yourself, how do I hold onto this feeling? How can I stay this way forever? But perhaps that isn’t the point. Because it is these moments that allow you to reflect. And you can only reflect once you have travelled. So you must appreciate them and continue on your path. Because these moments are just part of the journey and not necessarily the destination itself. We are always wrestling. Always challenging. Always climbing the mountain of this ever changing reality called life.