Going solo

A person is a person through other persons.  –Desmond Tutu

Traveling alone is sort of a love-hate thing for me. 

For example, today I loved taking my time making decisions and going up to Table Mountain when I was ready.  I loved not having to make conversation with anyone on the drive there or discuss whether we were going to wait in the 60-minute gondola line to ride to the top or not. 

But I hated not having anyone next to me I could poke and say, “Hey!  The floor of the cable car is rotating!” or “Look!  You can see Cape Point from here!” or of course, “Take a picture of me pretending to fall off the edge of the cliff!”

Instead, I asked a couple of strangers to take a few pictures and then perched myself on top of a large rock looking out over the mountain dropping into the ocean.  I had just settled in to eat my dark chocolate seed bar (it was amazing) when two guys clambered up next to me and actually asked me in  to move so they could take have their picture taken where I was sitting.  Dude, seriously?  There are approximately one million rocks all together right here with almost exactly the same view, and you want my rock?  Can’t you see I’m sitting here far away from other people eating my lunch and having a moment?

Later, as I walked in the Company’s Gardens, a gangly man with one eye and a limp (and alcohol on his breath) pointed out the South African white house and a couple other sites to me.  I tried to shake him, but he kept walking with me and to be fair, he actually showed me some interesting things, like old apartheid benches with “non-whites only” still painted on them and the way into Desmond Tutu’s church.  But I was relieved when I finally gave him a handful of change and we said goodbye.

I spent the day warily keeping people outside my bubble, enjoying the sights but also enjoying being inside my own head.  But by the time I sat down to dinner at a restaurant called Fork, I felt a little lonely.  In Shall We Dance, one of the characters says in effect, “We have relationships in order to have someone to witness our lives.”  And when I travel alone, I acutely feel the lack of a witness.  If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear the sound, did it make a sound at all?  If I eat a fantastic asparagus and parmesan stick and no one is there to witness it, did I really eat it?  I thought of trying to replicate the meal later in my own kitchen just so that I could share with someone else how tasty it was. 

I glanced over at a window and noticed my own reflection, looking like a ghost sitting at an empty table.  And I felt like a ghost, like someone who breezed through this city today without leaving a mark, someone who was almost here – but with no one to witness it, was I really here at all?

Halfway through the meal, a new server started waiting on me.  She laughed when I told her that I almost licked the plate clean and her eyes got round as she described which desserts were “to die for.”  She brought me the strawberry and lemon curd pavlova along with tea made from fresh mint leaves.  It was divine.  I told her if I lived in Cape Town I would eat there every single day, and she laughed with real delight and said, “Yes!  I know what you mean!”  And for a moment someone witnessed my life.  I realized I didn’t want to be in a bubble, I didn’t want to be a ghost, I wanted to witness life, to participate in it, to leave a mark.

I left an overly generous tip with a note: “Thanks for the great service, and for your smile and laugh.  Best wishes.” 

What Rostov made me realize about love

I’m glad I went to Rostov.

I always said I wouldn’t go back to my mission until I was married, so I could take someone with me and introduce them to the people and places that meant so much to me – and so I could have moral support as I visited once again this country that I have such a love-hate relationship with. BUT – here I am, single, twelve years later. And despite all the comments I’ve endured the past ten days about my marital status (some nicer than others), despite the vague loneliness/awkwardness of navigating everything on my own – I’m glad I came.

Because I’ve remembered something about my mission that is blowing my mind a little bit.

I’m amazed by how much I loved people – how deeply, sincerely, urgently, completely. I’ve also been reading my mission journals on this trip. I went through a period where I felt a little embarrassed for myself as I’d read them – for my naivete, my over-the-top sugary sweetness – but now I’m kind of in awe. And the feeling I had when I saw Alla Ivanovna last week for the first time in twelve years, when she came running over and hugged me, was overpowering. I felt it in my whole body, and I couldn’t stop myself from crying. When did life teach me to stop feeling that way about people? Was I hurt? Did I not get in return what I was giving? Did I become distracted?

I wonder if I can love people that way again. While deep and sincere, those feelings were also so wrapped up in my urgent desire for them to accept something, to do something, to believe something, to become something. Now the “fervent zeal of youth” has worn off, my own ideas about faith have matured, and I no longer have the same urgency and drive to push myself towards something so ideal, so torturously unattainable. Which is a relief and feels peaceful and right – yet at the same time, I’m a little sad that I also don’t feel as deeply, as passionately about others. Maybe I can be that devoted in a different way – love that way again, be that person, but reconcile it all somehow. Take it to a new level, loving deeply but more quietly, without a secret hope for people to change, without a secret conviction that I know what they need so much.

There are people in this world who I have loved, and loved deeply. And who have loved me, too. So many that it’s impossible to maintain deep and constant connections with them all. I recognize that in a way I didn’t before, and it’s stopping me in my tracks. These connections are more real and more important than anything in my life, and I find myself wanting to settle down, to build a life in a settled place with deep and lasting connections. I think that “fervent zeal of youth” is giving way to something different.

I wish it would rain down, down on me

I want to live; I crave for sadness -

Against my bliss and love, in truth;

They sank my mind in idle gladness

And made my brow very smooth.

It's high time for life's derogation

To blow away the hazy peace;

What’s a poet’s life, void of desolation?

And what are void of tempests seas?

-Mikhail Lermontov, age 18

I watched an entire rainstorm from start to finish, curled up on the ledge of an open window 5 stories above the ground. From the sudden quieting of the birds, to the first big raindrops pinging the tin windowsill, to the people running for cover from the downpour, to the sun coming back out and everyone going back about their business.

There’s something about a rainstorm when there hasn’t been one for a while. It was a relief. It lasted about ten minutes, and I was sad when it was over. It was too quick -- I didn't have time to absorb the quiet that was almost sacred, when life stopped, people and animals disappeared, and it was just the elements, just the wind and the rain – and a couple standing on the path near the pond embracing. I watched them, imagining the double sensation of a kiss and the giant drops of rain on my face. I wanted to run out into the rain, too, to feel it on my hands, my face, my skin, my clothes, to gradually become completely wet.

I want to live! wrote Lermontov. I crave for sadness -

I want to live. Russians love suffering, Alla Vasilievna insists, because it’s part of happiness – indistinguishable from happiness – it’s part of life. I get that. I won’t go so far as to say I crave sadness in Lermontov’s madly romantic way, but I want to live, and to live completely. I want to feel it all, see it all, understand it all.

Now the construction workers are banging away again. Everyone’s out making noise and tinkering with the world again. I want to hold onto the feeling of the storm – the sensation of being alive again after a long hot spell. The presence in the solitude. The relief, peace, contentment, laced with a certain tingliness and excitement about what it all could mean – something new, something different, something dangerous.

The doorway

On Monday morning I meditated for the first time. Not like deep thinking (which I have actually done before, thank you very much), but like a guided meditation. Here.

This meditation used the sound of a bell to focus the mind and open the spirit. It sounded three times, with the idea being to feel the reverberations and welcome the sound physically into the body, followed by a period of remembering the sound and feel of the bell, the echo or memory of the bell. And then a mental letting go of the bell sound and opening to other sounds, followed by another focus on the memory of the bell.

It was during one of these repetitions, one of these moments of allowing the bell sound to come into you, that I felt it. It was fleeting, but it was as though a feeling of openness penetrated into the protective shell I’ve built to protect myself from life’s disappointments – especially from spiritual experiences that I may or may not be able to trust. At the beginning of the meditation, the guide said, “Cultivate the mood of wonder, of humility. Let this be the doorway to the practice.” That resonated deeply with me, and I think that inviting those particular emotions allowed that brief feeling of pure openness and centeredness.

In some ways, it was like an old familiar friend. In other ways, it was a little terrifying. I mean, can’t it be possible to have both my protective shell and that openness at the same time? I mean, what’s so wrong about being careful with your heart, not just in a romantic sense but in a life sense? I want to be cautious and yet impulsive, protected and yet vulnerable, distant and yet intimate. Paradox? Maybe.

“Cultivate the mood of wonder, of humility. Let this be the doorway to the practice.”

And not just to the practice, but to life. A further explanation of the meditation:

“Do you have the patience to wait ‘til your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving ‘til the right action arises by itself? The master doesn’t seek fulfillment. Not seeking, not expecting, she is present and can welcome all things."

[Here’s the point where this blog post should end, both because of length and because of overshare. But I can’t resist wanting to sort out this other idea … and yes, if you read it and it makes you feel the need to share the name of a good therapist with me, please go ahead and leave it in the comments ... ]

I have deep angst about this trip (ok, about my life) that stems from wanting to do something, to be something, to make an impact, to please have some meaning for someone somewhere. And I am realizing that this desperation – born of loneliness, of cultural conditioning, of the pure desire to give to someone – is paralyzing. It makes me choke. And this seeking, this expectation, this need is intense – I am desperately in search of fulfillment, I admit it. And yet “The master doesn’t seek fulfillment. She is present and can welcome all things.”

It sounds so beautiful. Simply to be present and welcome all things, all people, all experiences. To be open with the mood of wonder, of humility, like a child. Not to find or accomplish something specific or to return with something grand or impressive. But to be alive, and to find meaning and connection in being open to the world.

But this is a difficult state of mind to sustain. Already in the 35 seconds since I typed that last line, my mind has started off down the road of justifying my desire to achieve something visible, something tangible, by tying it to the lofty desire to love and be loved, to give, to impact. But is it really for others I want this, or for myself? I feel afraid that by letting go of trying to do something impactful, I will sink into oblivion, into meaninglessness and loneliness. It’s like a struggle between the will to power and nirvana. The desire and ambition grip me, paralyze me. The letting go, the mediation is lighter, more open and yet now in it’s aftermath I seem to fear it more. I fear losing control, losing everything. Abandoning myself to the higher power and then simply disappearing. Alone.

And all of this -- all of it -- exists only inside of me, only in my mind, yet it affects everything. That's sort of weird, right?

“Cultivate the mood of wonder, of humility. Let this be the doorway.”

(June 2010, Peterhoff, Russia)

So You Think You Can Dance ... Moscow?

I took a stroll down Arbat Street this weekend and discovered why the SYTYCD franchise has yet to branch out into Russia ...

(Highlight is at about 2:00 when one pretends to shoot the other, who is then miraculously resuscitated)

And yes, you heard right, they did mention Michael Jackson's name ... more than once. And yes, the music piping out of their tiny little speakers is directly from Super Mario Brothers.

You gotta give it to these guys for getting out there, though. Living the dream. I respect that.

Also, I feel kind of like the tall guy when I dance. Sort of all over the place.

Sister Pond

There’s something about speaking a language you don’t know well that makes life seem simpler, more straightforward, less complex. Suddenly, talking about everyday things like where you live and how many people are in your family is SO interesting. A simple conversation becomes a cultural exchange, a linguistic challenge. And as the Russian language slowly comes back to me, I feel so satisfied with myself for my little victories in small-talk, of all things.

I wonder if, for me, part of it is that speaking Russian takes me back to a previous time in my life when things really were more simple and life really did seem black and white.

Last night I went to the English club that the missionaries hold each week. I chatted with people in Russian afterwards for a long time, and found myself falling back into patterns of conversation and even of thinking from my missionary days. All my complex questions about life and God and the universe seemed so far away, and for a moment, the world was black and white again. It was so easy to invite people I just met to come to church and to sincerely hope they would. And the whole experience felt like a relief, like a return to childhood of some kind.

But that’s just it – it’s a part of my spiritual childhood, a part of my history, not of my present. My mission was a foundation, a jumping-off point for my adult life, and just like my childhood, it inculcated many good things that I’m grateful for, but it also sowed the seeds of misconceptions that have caused me pain as I’ve tried to sort them all out. There will always be fond memories, nostalgia, and the longing for lost innocence, but I don’t know if you can ever truly go back. And I'm making peace with that.

Not to completely switch tone, but since we’re talking about nostalgia, here’s a video I stumbled across of a Russian singer singing “Where does childhood go?” It’s truly horrible. I should probably be embarrassed for posting it. But it's fully on topic -- and fully Russian.

Freedom

All we have to do now
Is take these lies
And make them true somehow
--George Michael

Alla Vasilievna wears the same white shirt with the same beaded necklace every day. She has short, dyed blond hair that she pulls while she's talking. She's at once a cosmopolitan world traveler and a deeply nationalistic Russian (unconscious racist overtones and all). And she's a terrific Russian teacher.

Yesterday's topic of discussion was freedom.

Alla Vasilievna asked us all what freedom means to us. Lena, a Cornell student and daughter of Russian immigrants to the US, said freedom is the opportunity to make of your career and your life whatever you want to. Tamara, a history professor from Germany, pointed out that poor people aren’t free because they don’t have the same choices rich people have. Terry, a native of Trinidad-Tobago now living in Washington, DC, said that he has very little, but that he is freer than people who are in slavery to material items. And Pavel, a lawyer from the Czech Republic, said that he doesn’t feel free in Russia because he always has to carry papers with him and because someone refused to sell him beer when a policeman was nearby.

And then, animatedly pulling at her hair, Alla Vasilievna explained that to the Russian psyche, freedom is not an obviously and inherently good construct in the same way that it is to people from some other countries. There is a fear, she said, of unchecked freedom, of anarchy. The idea of the “will” is an ancient one in Russian culture, but the word for “freedom” entered the language more recently and is not understood to have a necessarily positive connotation.

Alla Vasilievna also drew a distinction between personal freedom and political freedom. Personal freedom, she said, is the freedom to choose what you do, where you go, who you marry, etc. Political freedom includes things like freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, etc. According to Alla Vasilievna, personal freedom is important to Russians, but political freedom is "not as interesting." When I pressed her, saying the line is not very clear and using freedom of speech as an example, she even went so far as to say that as a Russian, she felt just as free under Communism as she does now, because she still had personal choices about her career, her family, and the rest of her personal life, and government is another realm altogether.

Now, I'm not a Russian, and I get that I can probably never completely overcome my own cultural upbringing and fully grasp another culture. But is this a bit of a stretch in defense of the Russian people? Alla Vasilievna added that Russians feel free because their country is so large and they have myriad options for travel or living within their own country, unlike smaller countries with close boundaries. And then she capped off her defense by asking each of us what we do when the sign says "don't walk" but there are no cars in sight? Apparently Russians tend to walk, but people from other European countries wait for the light to change. "Who is more free," she asked?

Today we talked about religion (that's a topic for another post ... or hundred posts). Alla Vasilievna mentioned that she is Russian Orthodox, and I asked her about practicing under Communism. She said that she went to church secretly because she knew that if she was caught, she could lose her job at the university or compromise opportunities for advancement. Which sounds to me, with my American predispositions about freedom of religion, like an infringement of personal freedom.

And yet, I believe Alla Vasilievna. I don't know to what extent she represents the rest of her country, but I believe that she secretly attended church and felt somehow personally free at the same time. And I'm fascinated by the idea that in this country, the lines between church and state, between personal and political freedom may not necessarily be drawn more thinly or thickly than in a place like America, but rather on another plane altogether.

Where am I, you ask?

I'm in Moscow.

Why am I here? Great question.

A few years ago, at the recommendation of several friends, I started reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. She writes about her travels to Italy, India and Indonesia on the heels of a wrenching divorce in an attempt to rediscover meaning in life. But I found myself resenting Gilbert and all her exotic wisdom so much that I had to stop reading after the first few chapters.

Nice for you, I thought, that you can just pack up and travel the world to mend your broken heart. Nice that you have the means and the time and everything to do whatever you want. If I had that luxury, I could also write full-time about the purpose of life, have more spiritual epiphanies and sort through all my personal psychoses.

But I don’t have that luxury. I’m stuck here in what feels like a dead end life with crushing student loans, an hour-long commute to an unfulfilling job, a crisis of faith, disappointment upon disappointment in my personal life and no idea what to do next. And all I’m getting from reading your "inspirational" book is that if I want to find purpose and meaning and healing I need to have a ton of money so I can travel the world. What about the rest of us? What about people who have to find a way to sort things out on a budget, while still juggling life's responsibilities?

And yet, here I am. I’ve arranged for 16 weeks of leave from my job to work on an important-sounding writing project. I've put all my earthly belongings into a 5' by 8' wooden crate. I’ve scraped together enough money to get to Russia and (hopefully) survive there for ten of those weeks. Maybe I bought into it after all. Maybe a part of me really believes that leaving my life behind, even temporarily, and living a foreign life in a foreign country while writing about foreign people is the path to life's answers. Maybe I resented Elizabeth Gilbert because I wanted to be her. Or maybe I just bought exactly what she was selling, without even realizing it.

A few weeks ago, I said to M., Maybe after three months in Russia I’ll know exactly what I want to do with my life. I’ll have direction and answers.

Probably not, he said.

Wow, I thought. That's a little mean.

But he was right, and that's when I realized how hard I was trying to be Elizabeth Gilbert. Life's answers aren't just out there for the taking, growing on mango trees in Thailand or currant bushes in Russia. It's not like there's an on-demand channel for them. I'm just as likely to come back and be right where I started as I am to find answers to any of life’s questions, solve my crisis of faith and have clear direction for my career and my love life.

And you know what? It's a relief to think that maybe I won’t figure it all out this summer. Or ever, for that matter. And so in the end, the answer to why I'm here is that I want to be here. Sure, maybe I'm trying a little too hard to find meaning. Welcome to my world. And yeah, maybe I'm just running away. So what? (Thanks, Dad, for helping me come to terms with that one.) It comes down to the fact that I just want to be here, and I can. And so I am.

It's like this guy said, after quitting his fancy New York City engineering job (what is it with our generation?) to walk across America. (Yep, just walk. He loves walking, apparently. And he’s meeting people and seeing the country and getting to walk.) He said:

"I didn't want to be too ambitious about what I would figure out on this walk. I didn't want to tell myself that when I was done, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. But maybe in the back of my head somewhere, I'm kind of hoping that."

Amen, brother.