Snippet from a recent conversation

"You know, living together feels like you're passing all these little tests..."
"Like what? You realize that you're not a complete shithead around him?"
"It's not what I had in mind, but yeah, that too."
"So you're not a complete shithead around him?"
"I'm not. I'm actually quite sweet."
"Sweet? He thinks that or you think that?"
"He thinks that... but more importantly, I know that."
"What? You? Sweet?"
"Yeah, if you can believe that..."
"Well, then, if he has found a way to make you be sweet, then I say he's the right man for the job..."
"Which was what I meant by saying that living together feels like passing all these little tests."

He was the greatest - the kindest, the humblest, the most patient... He worked hard - he never stopped working until last year, when he was eighty three. Eighty three!

He was my favorite - the most favorite in the whole entire world. He was the world to me and I adored him. I was his favorite - he loved me like nobody else. Like nobody else he was proud of me.

The endless hours he spent with me, playing games, reading books, taking me to parks, to plays, riding the metro just for the fun of t. He fulfilled every passing whim of mine - he simply worshiped me.

It is so sad to realize that the older I grew, the further apart we drifted. For the past few years i saw him only a handful of times. I missed him, but I am sure he was the one to miss me more...

And now that he's gone... it's hard to really grasp the fact, let alone to reconcile with it. Being so far away makes it that much harder. It's hard to reconcile with the fact that I keep going on, even when this loss does not seem to have an immediate impact on my everyday reality... And yet I go on, knowing that if it weren't for school, if it weren't for the busy and rigorous life that I am in now, I would have fallen apart in million pieces, in a heartbeat. Fallen apart because of grief, because of guilt, remorse and regret.

I could have been there with him. I could have been there for him. There were so many things that I could have done for him, so many ways that I could show him just how much I loved him...

So much pain and guilt and remorse...

My grandfather passed away.

When I saw him in Yerevan a little over a month ago, he told me that it was probably the last time that he was seeing me in his life... It gave me a painful pang in the stomach, as I wiped my tears, trying to shake off the thought of him not being there one day.

I do not know how one reconciles with something like that...

Living with the boy is calm and cloudless. It’s comforting, effortless, idyllic. We do not argue, we don’t fight. We laugh. We laugh often.

…

In a very curious way I find it odd that suddenly even the most mundane and trivial everyday routine acquires such “togetherness…” Only not that long ago, these trivial things were simply something that I would do alone, on my own, in between personal and professional/academic lives. Things like laundry, groceries, cleaning… these little chores that give me so much comfort in their ordinariness, things that I love to do when I need a break, some down time or to simply clear my head. Now they seem to have acquired this sense – a sense that I cannot describe in any other way but “togetherness” even when they are not necessarily done “together.”

…

The only other time I lived with someone was when I was married and that does not evoke the best memories. Sometimes I get these flashbacks, series of flashbacks that throw me into a state of mild panic, before I realize that it is in the past, far removed in the past and just like one shakes off a bad dream, I have to push these memories away, after I have realized that they are no longer real, that they are not happening, that I am safe now, that this is a different relationship where we do not fight and I do not have a reason to slam the door and leave…

…

“So you guys are serious?” they ask me after they find out that the boy and I have moved in together. It cracks me up every time they do. Define serious. And while you’re at it, define un-serious, please. Does the fact that we are living together necessarily guarantee that this whole thing is going to end with a ring, a mortgage and a couple of kids? I do not know that… Do I wish that it indeed ended with a ring, a mortgage and a couple of kids? I do not know that either. And yet, was I any less serious before I moved in with the guy? I would not say so, just like the fact that I am living with him now doesn’t make it any more serious than it was before. I still love him the same, except that now I see him a little bit more often.

It amuses me that suddenly this little fact appears to be such a big deal just because it may be some kind of a cornerstone in some relationship book or another. See, as scary as it sounds and despite my notoriously cumbersome commitment issues, if I were to have it my way, I would be moving in with a guy only after a few weeks of knowing him, my logic being that if I like you enough to want to spend a big chunk of my time with you, I might just as well be living with you. The whole “my place/your place” gets pretty boring pretty fast…

And yet, in reality, I wasn’t to have it my way (perhaps for the better of it) and the boy and I followed each and every “step” of this unwritten relationship book, from nerve-wrecking “undefined” phase to post “i love you phase” one little step at a time…

…

And yet, living together is a big deal, in a sense that does not necessarily involve the aforementioned ring, the mortgage and the kids. It’s just what a relationship is – or what I think it should be – a man and a woman, living together.

…

Living with the boy is nice. It’s comforting. It’s fun. And as much as I resist the idea of matching cups and bath towels, as much as it takes some getting used to, it does not seem to require an effort at all. It makes me realize that despite my experience in the past, it does not always have to be an uphill struggle and that I never ever have to find myself trapped in a situation where the only thing left to do is to break the dishes and slam the door and leave.

Source: Virginia Department of Historic Resources

The boy and I are living in the cutest apartment in the Fan. The Fan! The old, historic and beautiful Fan - the most desired location in the whole-entire city of Richmond, if not the world itself. I am in a close proximity to the best that Richmond has to offer. I am in the Museum District. I can walk to Carytown. I can become a regular at the Racine. Run in pretty neighborhoods. Walk a few blocks over to see a friend and borrow a cup of sugar... And when I have a minute to breathe, I can live the happy and carefree life of an artsy (or should i say nerdy) hipster that I sometimes pretend to be.

I started school.
I need to blog.
I need to see a shrink.

There have been other reasons for putting off writing for so long, besides the fact that since I got back I have been incredibly busy with life, school and a million of little tasks that are not small enough to be completely ignored, but are small enough to be a source of endless frustration because they take too much of my time. My inability to write is also due to the fact I cannot figure out where to start. I simply cannot pick up right where I left off since there has been too much change in a matter of less than a month and the older I grow, the slower I become in responding to change. Yet, the older I grow, the less time I have for such things, and time at this point seems to be a true luxury that I can hardly afford. Oh joys of adulthood. If only I knew that getting older wasn’t simply the thrill of being able to wear makeup and smoke cigarettes…

I still haven’t fully digested the past few weeks that have been happening way too fast. I am still in the process of adaptation. It surprises me that this time it is taking so long. I wasn’t gone for too long, but I guess it has been long enough to make readjusting quite a process on its own. I am still getting used to my new surroundings – new living arrangements, schedule and such. And I still haven’t recovered from the past summer, which made me realize that there are a few reoccurring issues that I do not know how to reconcile with. While in the past I successfully dealt with a load of emotional crap without any outside assistance, I seem to be incapable of dealing with issues that are fundamentally existential in their nature. Hence the necessity to see someone about them. I do not know whether this as a sign of maturity or that of emotional laziness since as cynical as this may sound, I am at a point where I rather pay someone than do it on my own, especially when I no longer seem to have the patience, the energy and or the time to do so alone. Someone told me that it makes me sound extremely American…

On a brighter note – I am really having the time of my life with life, school and ahem, the new roommate situation and if I am not pancaked by the giant steamroller that is graduate level mathematical economics, updates will be coming shortly…

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...

Yerevan
Photograph courtesy of Jan-Michael Breider


Although, as mentioned in the previous post, I am unable to take any pictures of my own of the amazing imagery that I see every day, I feel very fortunate to have found the photographs of Armenia taken by Jan-Michael Breider in 2005, who kindly gave me permission to upload a few here, on my blog. His gallery contains a number of awesome pictures taken both in Armenia and elsewhere. Many thanks to the kind photographer for an opportunity to share images of my own country through his own eyes...

It’s been two and half weeks since I came to Armenia. Apologies for lack of elaborate posts – work has been consuming most of my time and inspiration. Conducting surveys in Armenia proved to be a much more strenuous task than it was in Georgia – partly due to logistical problems with our host organization, partly due to the overall character treats of my country-men. However, after a week of extensive travels, my love for Armenia proportionally increases as my liking of Yerevan gradually decreases. Unfortunately, my camera broke and I didn’t have a chance to capture the magnitude of Ararat, the sparkling beauty of the lake Sevan and the depth of the green mountains in Dilijan and Ijevan. The beauty of my country is humbling and awe inspiring. While working with people requires a lot of skills in diplomacy, I truly enjoy communicating with them, especially the folk living outside Yerevan. There is a lot to be learned from them – a lot more than any report on the state of the country would ever tell you.

The depressing aspect of my work is that I do not completely agree with what the organization that I represent does for the people. FINCA mission aside, it is obvious that microfinance in the region does not defer much from any given commercial bank – it is perceived as such, it operates as such. Interest rates are high, poverty outreach is minimal and repayment schedule is so rigid that at times I wonder why anyone would want to borrow on such terms. But then I realize that there is no other alternative and it makes me even more depressed. I think about the “untapped” market that FINCA executives constantly talk about, then I think of the rural folk who are the part of this “untapped” market… I wonder what it is like in other places of the world – I wonder whether microfinance is really what it is presented to be while it is still hot and “sexy.”

I have five more days of field work left. As of right now I am completely clueless what our analysis is going to reveal. While I know the obvious, I am somewhat reluctant to see the results, knowing equally well that there is no way that it would reflect the stories of the simple folk that I have heard so far…

This is how I know that the Universie really loves me...

Nothing is left to chance, Nika. The choreography of players and circumstances is plotted with mind-numbing precision. Gigantic forces of attraction are activated and engaged. The odds of your inevitable success begin skyrocketing. And every second of every day is calibrated and recalibrated… whenever you remember to visualize.

Who loves you, baby?

The Universe

I’m in Yerevan now…

Despite all the excitement, it feels very strange and even slightly disturbing to be back here… There is something almost surreal in the way I see the city that I once knew like the back of my hand. I could walk its streets with my eyes closed. I knew its every building like it was a piece of furniture in my old room. I felt at home in every corner of every street at any time of day – morning or night. I would walk the streets for hours at a time, unable to get enough of it, greedily taking in the sights and smells and noise and the night lights… I was still so young, so much in love… and now…

Yerevan has changed. It no longer feels like the city I was in love with. It has become faceless, heartless, has lost its charm. There is so much noise here, so much glitter. The new buildings that have mushroomed here and there in the past two years seem hostile and out of place. The endless stream of traffic –there is so much traffic that the air smells of nothing but exhaust. And then there is dust – a cloud of yellow dust ominously hanging over the city. Yerevan, what has become of you…

All the construction that is happening in every major street indicates that there will be a lot more change. It gives me a feeling of doubt and uncertainty. I no longer know what this change will bring – I already hate it, resent it with all might. It may be good for the economy, but it’s so hard on the eye…

It feels strange to be back here. I feel strange and out of place. I am filled with nostaligia and longing for the old and familiar. I feel the kind of pain that one feels when encountering a loss. I feel like I lost something important and dear. I no longer know my city and I feel strangely out of place.

Interlude

Slowly the sun rises to announce the start of a new day. Under the gray sky is the gloomy city. The sun is ill, her thin rays hardly escaping the thick ivory clouds. With great efforts I make myself get up. I am in the hands of a terrible headache, every cell of mine captive to pain - a constant reminder of everything that I wish to escape...

Yesterday… Where was I yesterday? Don’t remember it well, all the events are vague and in fog. I close my eyes and see rain, a different sky, cars, unfamiliar faces. Charlottesville, I guess I was in Charlottesville yesterday.

Next week I’m supposed to be in New York - another ten-hour trip, airports, delayed flights… and finally the one who has come to meet me. That’s next week, if there is every such a thing...

I stare at the ceiling and the only thing I’m aware of is that I’m exhausted. My imagination seems to have expired itself - and where am I today?

Yerevan, this is Yerevan, with its naked indifference, unconcealed ugliness. There is nothing more Armenian than the view from my window, and it’s depressing. Two women arguing in the corner, kids running home from school, an old man carrying a loaf of bread. Buildings all around - tall ugly giants that seem to be observing everything with their window-eyes. Their look at me is full of accusation and I feel guilt. Nothing seems to have changed, the same view, the same indifference, Yerevan….

The sky is too dark to let me leave. Still too early for New York. Today it's the reality. In a few hours it will completely take over and I know that there won't be a way out - my tired imagination won’t save me today, this pain has left no room for escape. Paralyzed with cold and pain, I will sit motionless on the floor, smoking cigarettes one after another, watching hours pass. I must wait patiently for sleep - a temporary relief to my insanity. I’m ill and suffering from inadequacy and it is more vivid here, in Yerevan.
The Tale of the Cities December, 2000.

Yerevan

Because It Is Summer, I'm Bringing Them All Back Yet Again

Eight summers back I was in Charlottesville, having just moved to a tiny studio in a rundown building off of 29th. Having just escaped almost slave-like conditions that a five-star hotel has for its employees, this ghetto seemed nothing but heaven to me. I will always remember the experience of Charlottesville with bitterness; the misery, hostility and exhaustion of that entire summer will always be there to haunt me, and yet, out of the dark and strenuous experience The Tale of the Cities was born, a story that I wrote and rewrote and shaped and reshaped and cried and bled on paper without knowing that I would be living out that story one day. And despite every single hardship that I went through that summer, I will always be grateful for having found two of my most dearest people – the Bosnian girl who generously let me share her shoe box apartment, and the one who is the main reason why I am here in Richmond today.

Seven summers back I was unhappy, depressed, torn by longing and overwhelmed with regret, feeling helpless and trapped in a city cursed by the sun, the city that only years later I was going to love and accept as home. I remember that long and hot summer of hell, living on ice-cream and tomato sandwiches day in day out, staying up night after night, dreaming, writing, writing the Tale, and when the pain of helplessness was too much to bear, I would cry myself to sleep, dreading the awakening the next morning, knowing that the new day would not bring any possible change. At the end of the summer, when the heat started to break, exhausted and jaded and dry after all the tears I'd shed, I sold my soul to the “devil” and got a full time job and fell in love, hard and fast, against all odds and every reason of rationality, the way you fall in love only when you’re twenty one, still young and stubborn, ignoring and trying to defy the reality with all might. Looking at it now, I realize that it was nothing but desperation – desperation that was to determine the next two years and everything that had to come afterwards.

Six summers back I graduated. And got my first apartment in downtown Yerevan. With five months’ rent I bought all the freedom and solitude I could ever ask for, realizing, for the first time, that I could live like that, alone, hidden in the heart of the downtown, happy in my solitude – a woman, alone, in a big city. And yet, before the summer came to end, I gave up the freedom and was married, without fully aware of any repercussions, waiting for a new life to start under a different sky.

Five summers back I was in Florida. Biding my time in timeless indolence. Hopeful, still in love, waiting for that long expected happiness to dawn, and thinking to myself that there must be something more to this thing that they call marriage.

Four summers back I was still in Florida. Surrounded by bliss of domesticity, slowly embracing what was coming to shape as complacent middleclassness, and desperately trying to grasp the finality of marriage. And yet, I’d often long for the woman I had left behind, the woman alone, in a big city… At the end of that summer Another Life was born, which, with its main theme of adultery, was nothing but the longing for all the other lives that I could have had, had I not made that one particular choice that I was slowly coming to regret.

Three summers back I was in Yerevan. Dazed and crazed by the heat and the sun, the cloudless skies, watered streets and freshly cut grass, happy, delirious, a butterfly on the sidewalk, intoxicated with my own freedom, testing its limits and daring it every way I could. Restless. Sleepless. In love – but this time it was the city I had fallen in love with, fast and hard. For the first time I felt that I was at home, finally at home in a place that I had so long hated and tried to defy. At the end of the summer I moved into my second apartment downtown and with another six months rent I bought the dream that I had so often longed for – the dream of a woman, alone, in a big city.

Two summers back I was in Richmond – to come here, of all the places in the world, a decision so sudden and unexpected and yet looking back at it now – the only possible choice that I could have made wondering “whether this was a choice or an inevitable consequence of the past years that brought me here...”, realizing that I’m living out the end of the story that I once wrote and dreamed about night after night before I'd cry myself to sleep out of helplessness and desperation.

This summer I am traveling all over Georgia and Armenia. I am in Yerevan now - the most beloved city in the world - the city that I will always call home, but the city that no longer feels like home. At the end of this summer I'll be back in Richmond again. If you ask me what’s the best that I have had so far, I’ll you that it’s Richmond – [living] in Richmond. Looking back at it now I realize that of all places that's I've been to and all places that I have lived in, Richmond is the place where I have been the happiest. It is the place that I will keep going back to, a place that I call home now - my home of choice. It's where my life is, temporarily on hold, waiting for me. Last summer I asked for nothing more but to have yet another chance to be back in Richmond, living a life without an expiration date, or any urgency to leave. That's what I will be going back to - to all the bliss and promises that any future could ever hold for me...