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.
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