A Little Late?

As I read through the countless articles posted on the Moscow Metro bombing, I couldn't help but wonder why such conclusions about the culture hadn't been established since the beginning of time. As a foreigner/American, these observations are what make the city so harsh at first. Why is it just now news that Russians are reliant on their broken government for nearly everything? Why is it only after a bombing that Muscovites are suspicious of one another [it's not]? These ARE Moscow.

John Steinbeck recalls the difficulty of photographing the city in his account A Russian Journal. He also quotes an Adam Olearius when he said of Moscow - in 1634, "The Russians of Moscow are highly suspicious of foreigners, who are watched constantly by the secret police... Because of this general coldness and suspicion, foreigners visiting in Moscow are forced to associate with each other exclusively."

Some quotes from the NY Times:

“The mood of the city is evident on people’s faces,” said Maria Anzhaurova, 21, a student, at the Lubyanka station, the site of the first attack on Monday. “People are watching each other closely. It is clear that people are afraid, very afraid.”

"Very little amateur footage in fact has been posted and in fact most of it is very much state-controlled, even more than Iran, oddly enough."

[In response: I mean, heck - a lady threatened me when I videotaped CAKES in a grocery store. What can anyone videotape in this city without fear if you can't videotape CAKE? I suppose now it's okay to videotape carnage? Right... In fact, a reporter from the Russia Today network was unknowingly caught in the middle of the crisis and videotaped crowds on her cell phone until scolded to put it away.]

"Social media coverage of the terrorist bombing at two stations of the Moscow metro in the early hours of Monday morning — on Twitter, Live Journal, and Youtube — starkly revealed the fallacy of the social media advantage, and laid bare the dependency of the Russian people on their state-controlled media."

Customs

I was on a flight from Paris to Detroit. I sat on the aisle with four other people on my left, the one closest to me a female passenger presumably the same age. I didn't engage in usual conversation with her until we received our entrance slips and were about thirty minutes from reaching our destination. I couldn't understand her situation fully - she was from Mexico, was returning from a trip to Italy, and attends college in Wisconsin... or something like that. As is typical with transatlantic flights, we never exchanged names or gave our life stories, but we talked. We talked about our recent travels, the movies we watched on the flight, where we were going when we got back to the States, and about the fact that the sun had followed us for the entire 9 hours - one of those under-appreciated phenomenons when you fly west.


When we reached customs, we stayed in line together and continued the conversation, which probably would have ended at baggage claim with well-wishes and safe-travels. But a TSA agent opened a new queue and motioned for me to follow through the new, weaving river of people from who-knows-where. I assumed I'd see her there behind me. They cut her off. I was in mid-sentence - about Russia, or the food I was craving, or something stupid - when I walked away. I'll never see her again in my life, and I ended in mid-sentence.

Finding the Music

I trekked to Target today in hopes of finding that personal little haven we all have with certain stores. I first picked up one of those "Learn Spanish" CD sets on a whim and continued to the electronics. I always like to find new albums on sale or nice headphones that seem cheap.

What I soon found was that music was no longer a sound; it was tangible. It was boobs and glitter and sunglasses; mannequins with names and people who used to look like us; it was twenty black guys in a row with their heads cocked at identical angles - like terriers with a sudden piqued interest in a familiar word - accompanied by "price cut" displayed just below their misspelled, gold-embossed names.

I gave up on finding a steal and decided to check out the headphones. Most disappointing was the title given to the earbuds on the top row: "FASHION EARBUDS." And in 8-sized font just below: "PERFECT FOR MUSIC LISTENING." It would have seemed they were perfect for looking good and their description was simply a disclaimer.

Doesn't music earn merit for itself anymore? Why does it need to appeal to your groin or match your purse to be marketable? Are we so bankrupt of appeal that we must utilize tricks for people to buy us? That leads to a more dangerous question: If we do that with our music and our money, do we do that with our relationships? Do we compromise our selves to attract fans - err - friends? Simply... can we distinguish what's real anymore?

The Things We Believe

It wouldn't disappoint me to find that the Milky Way wasn't stars at all but little puffs of condensation from all the people who look up at the night sky and say "aaahh."

The Often Hurried Hello

While driving under a blue sky with the windows open today I couldn't help but feel the spring of spring. In one of those moments not unlike when you're in the midst of dropping a valuable (or a bowl of macaroni for that matter) and you can only hope it lands unscathed and upright, I had about twenty sentences whiz through my head before any of the words made any sense along my drive. I thought: I wonder what kind of places have weather like this all the time. I wonder if those places naturally have winters and extreme heat sometimes. California's pretty nice all the time. Arizona's pretty nice all the time. Northern California is better than Southern California because of the trees. San Diego is nice, though. I wonder if there's a place where it's only fall and spring all the time. I wonder if you can tell the difference when it's fall and when it's spring in those places. I like the fleece I'm wearing. There's a hair on this fleece. It's nice outside today...

So I began to think about fall - that distant utopia of weather. But then again, spring is relatively the same temperature and has quite a good feeling associated with it too. So what's the difference?

Perhaps, like reaching the twilight of your life, the growing shadows and falling temps of autumn have a resolution to them - a peace. There is a settling. It's the earth lazily resting its eyes before sleep. There's cold coming. But until then it means soup, and hoodies, and sitting in bleachers, and cider, and tasting the chilled orange sunlight. Fall is the nightly ritual before a peaceful sleep and it is the slowing of time, the milking of every second before it leaves.
It is a long goodbye.

And unlike fall, spring is the awakening of delayed possibilities and forgotten hope. Spring knows there is more to come, that there is no time to waste; it must be enjoyed now. And although the days are longer, the time is shorter, and every good memory is just out of reach. Spring is smelling a refreshing garden hose in midday rain. It is the realization you've under-appreciated the sun your entire life. It's waking up to sunlight and feeling as though if you've missed its arrival you've missed the entire day. There's no time to waste.
It is a hurried hello.