And October already!

From a letter to someone dear:


I've been here for 6 weeks already, and the stories are piling up. I'm stifled under them and in one part of my heart I wish I could give them all to you now, but the clock's ticking down to morning and they're already too backed up, and even in two languages I haven't enough words or the right ones to tell you everything. Another piece of me doesn't want to waste them in empty cyber-space Helvetica: isn't it better to save them up for that illusive SomeDay when I'll call you up and time will graciously stop so we can share everything that we've been missing in each other's lives.

Sunday I went to the opera on one of our many "Cultural Excursions"--or, more aptly put our "Tourist Free-Time". We had third-balcony seats in the Mikhailovsky Theatre to see Iolanta, a Tchaikovsky opera about a king who hides from his blind daughter the fact that she's blind. I think I would have enjoyed it more if they didn't have a clock above the stage for me to glance at every ten minutes or so, if my thoughts didn't keep drifting away from the incomprehensible sung dialogue (incomprehensible because no word, in any language, can be understood when sung on a high C) to the coat check, where my violin was waiting on a bottom shelf. Before the last strains of applause had died away (granted, we applauded for around 10 minutes) I dashed out with the peremptory goodbyes, caught a late bus to Театральная Площадь, "Theatre Square", and walked a few blocks to catch the end of a jam session that had started an hour before. This weekend there was an experimental music festival at the Манэж Gallery/performance space and they were closing Sunday night with an open jam. I wandered in with some friends (Jason and Ben, and I'd love to tell you about them, but this is not the paragraph for introductions) on Saturday, listened to the concert, and afterward talked to a boy who'd been setting up the sound. "We only have 8 channels on the mixer, but anyone is welcome." We communicated only in 2nd languages, my broken Russian perhaps equaling the English he insisted on speaking.

I made it in time for a few jams, some electro-acoustic noise that, frankly, was a little disappointing. What we needed most was a beat to center ourselves around, too many melodic instruments vying for attention--violin (mine, and I tried to take it easy), trumpet, sax, guitar--not enough structure. A few older guys on hand-drums, but when they didn't succeed in establishing a pulse after several tries, they packed up their drums and went backstage to smoke cigarettes and sullenly kick at the ground. The horn man improvised wildly without any sense of rhythm, the guitarist strummed half-assedly with too much distortion. Devin would have set them straight with a nice groove. Still, jam is better than no jam, and I gave that same blond boy my email address and asked him to let me know if they get together again to make some noise. The guitarist, speaking very jaggedly but clearly wanting to say something to me, managed "Next time it will be better," in English as I packed away my violin, and I walked to a nearby bus stop with a smile on my face despite the wind and my feet aching in my opera heels. But the bus didn't come, so I flagged down a gypsy cab, that is to say a random car, and haggled a ride to the metro station for 50 roubles, or $1.50, or more simply a price that a foreigner never gets. I felt Russian. ^_^

You see what it takes just to write down the story of one night? And every day I'm doing things I want to write down. Every day I'm wishing I had the time to tell you everything. For example: yesterday I went to a poetry reading, again with Jason and Ben, and sat in the corner of the room drinking in the words and my jasmine green tea (which I spilled in my lap), listening more for rhythm, taste, and texture than lexical meaning. I saw Пётр Швецов there--one of my printmaking instructors. He and I have bumped into each other twice times now in this big city, once at a gallery opening and again last night. He's an interesting fellow, he looks like Pushkin, with giant sideburns and violently curly hair and a grave, piercing expression, always carrying his bicycle seat under one arm to keep it dry (or un-stolen). We didn't speak last time we met, just inclined our heads at each other in the ubiquitous gesture of Russian politeness--but in a city of 5 million you can't ignore it when someone keeps turning up, so we said a few words before parting ways. I hope he does keep turning up; I'd love to have someone in the art scene to whom I say more than hello and goodbye.


So much has happened! I've got to get on top of my game and get these stories out before they disappear like the dreams I don't remember.