a sidenote...

The summer’s over, although I still haven't put my summer clothes away, the summer’s over, even if I still do not want to say my goodbyes, and yet I know that just like I will be neatly folding away the bright colored clothes, I will have to pack the memories away, wrap them up, seal them with wax and put them away, on the top shelf in the back of my mind, where they will be safe and free of dust— yet another summer of kaleidoscopic events, of heat and sun, watered streets of Yerevan smelling of freshly cut grass, blue unclouded skies, and me [...] delirious, a butterfly on the sidewalk with rainbow colored wings, crazed and dazed with the sun [...].

The summer is gone and yet I have to wonder how long it will take until I have finally outlived it, accepted it and moved on... the summer that seems to be nowhere close to acceptance.

I believe this is what they call nostalgia

Я прошу: хоть ненадолго,                    
Бoль моя, ты покинь меня,                 
Облаком, сизым облаком                      
Ты полети к родному дому,                   
Отсюда к родному дому.                       

Берег мой, покажись вдали,                  
Краешком, тонкой линией,                    
Берег мой, берег ласковый,                  
Ах до тебя, родной, доплыть бы,             
Доплыть бы хотя б когда-нибудь.             

Где-то далеко, где-то далеко                
Идут грибные дожди.                         
Прямо у реки в маленьком саду               
Созрели вишни, наклонясь до земли.          
Где-то далеко в памяти моей                 
Сейчас, как в детстве тепло,                
Хоть память укрыта такими большими снегами.

Ты гроза, напои меня,                       
Допьяна, да не досмерти.                    
Вот опять, как в последний раз,             
Я все гляжу куда-то в небо,                
Как будто ищу ответа...                     

Я прошу: хоть ненадолго,                    
Грусть моя, ты покинь меня,                 
Облаком, сизым облаком                      
Ты полети к родному дому,                   
Отсюда к родному дому.

Где-то далеко
Music: Mikael Tariverdiev
Lyrics: Robert Rozhdestvenskiy
1977

And it doesn't seem to stop...

Of course Georgia's "venture" into South Ossetia was "foolish" and "ill-judged," and of course "pleas for military backing from the West in any confrontation with Russia are unlikely to be heeded." And it doesn't take much to realize that "[t]his conflict is about more than the two separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, or displacing Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s hot-headed president." Of course Russia tries to reassert itself in the Caucausus, but then think about what would have happened back in the day if, say, Mexico decided to turn communist...

Here are a couple of the more intelligent articles on the topic found nowhere else but in the Economist:
Russia Insurgent

The Americans Arrive

I am back in Richmond and besides trying to contain my overbearing excitement I have less than five days to deal with the fact that:

• I moved in with the boy
• School starts on Thursday and
• The summer is over (at least in my head)

I am almost sick of the symbolism of August - August and everything after...

“Welcome back to the United States, Miss…”

I am in DC now, having arrived late last night, after a long, nerve-wrecking flight. It’s 7am and I am sitting at a Starbucks across the street from the World Bank, having left the boy asleep at the nearby Hotel Lombardy. Even at this early hour there are people in the street and they smile to me as they walk by. I find it very comforting. It feels good to be back, it feels very good indeed.

An eternity seems to have passed during the last twelve weeks. It seems that I have stepped back in from a different world, a world that appeared to have an extra dimension to it, making the reality there that much more thicker and harder to comprehend. And now I am back at exactly where I was before I left and there is nothing more distinctly different than DC compared to where I have been in the last 12 weeks. Being here right now makes me realize how long and strenuous this summer has been. Being here makes me realize how much I have changed in the matter of a couple of months and I find this fact slightly disturbing…

Leaving Yerevan was not easy... I realize now that it never fully “registered” in my mind that I was back in Yerevan to begin with and likewise it was hard to fully comprehend that I was leaving…

The last couple of weeks before my departure were so strange, so surreal. I was alarmed and on guard because of the events happening right next door, exhausted and tired of the city, torn to pieces and scattered all over the place in an attempt to juggle work, social obligations and too many last minute tasks, while frantically trying to stay on top of the news as I watched hoards of evacuees from Georgia swarming the streets of Yerevan. It felt like I was in some kind of a script – a Doris Lessing script – I felt like I was somehow experiencing certain passages of the Golden Notebook… and that was making my being in Yerevan all that much more surreal.

Leaving Yerevan was not easy…

Yet, there is nothing more comforting than being back. It truly is. And I couldn't be more grateful.

"...the most serious challenge to the post-Cold War balance of power since the collapse of the Soviet Union"

Yep, this does not smell good at all...