The Glass Mystery - Chapter 37: The Moscow Diary

Chapter 37

There are souls lost within themselves and so they wander the world, hoping to find their home, something outside themselves that will provide an answer to what they cannot find inside. Yet as they wander into these other cultures, they live outside their temporary home, laws unto themselves. They delve and dip at random and sometimes with purpose or intent. This is the world that I inhabit. I am wanderer, pursuer, and navigator of a ship without a course.

Every morning I take my coffee onto the balcony with my cigarettes. I sit there as long as I can bear the cold and I smoke and think about the meaning of life. I especially hate waking up when it’s still dark out. But if I have to be somewhere at a prescribed hour of the morning, then I will at least have this bit of freedom to myself beforehand. Why I choose to contemplate the meaning of life when I am in such a black mood is obviously not healthy. Though oddly, it starts my morning off on a better footing if I get the bleak view out of the way first thing. Generally this morning ritual takes the form of a conversation with God. I sit, staring at the sky, looking at the blackness, peering toward the horizon where the first foments of color will begin and I lay out my complaints and questions. What is the meaning of this daily routine, the march of weeks and then years, I ask. I fill my days with work and my nights with social outings with friends. We have the same conversations and I am aware that when I leave this country, those I leave behind will continue these same conversations with others. The content is the same. So perhaps it doesn’t matter who is the recipient, only that they are willing to participate.

We all drink too much. And smoke too much. Or if we don’t drink or smoke, we do other things in excess. Gossip. Work. Sleep with others who are not our partners. Shop for things we think will be important mementos of our time here, but won’t be. It might be argued that we would do the same in our home countries. But it’s more condensed here. It’s as if the rules of holiday travel apply though ostensibly this isn’t a holiday but our real lives.

That’s the question that keeps coming back to me on these mornings. Does it matter that we are here and not somewhere else? Like home? Are we running from something out here? Are we hiding from family relationships that have become so complicated and painful that the only solution seems to be complete removal geographically as well as emotionally? Or do we picture ourselves as adventuresome. Somehow more daring, more interesting than those who have the good sense to stay put where they were born. There are some that have come to a country and because of a failed marriage or a failed job, chosen to remain in the country many years after their expected departure. And you wonder if they’ve gone native. If they have become so comfortable living the life of the privileged expat that the thought of going back to their own country is now a terrifying impossibility. I’ve met some of those here and I hope that I will have the good sense to get out before it happens to me.

Then you have the serial roamers. They are the ones that wander from one country to another. Like holiday trippers on one really cruise, hitting the port until it’s time to disembark for the next destination. The one that they’re sure will be even more fun then this one was. On the surface it all looks well and good. Serving the country. Helping those less fortunate. The better salary to be had taking an overseas assignment for a corporation. The fun of living in a foreign land. But I wonder. What’s the point? Where does this fit into the larger question of what our lives mean. What does it mean to live one life? In these moments I wish I believed in reincarnation and had more than one life to live so that I could try out different possibilities and see which one was the right. But that’s not possible as far as a I know. So that leaves me with these innumerable and unending conversations in the dark with God. And He’s not talking right now. At least He hasn’t so far.

Some mornings I sit and imagine the other life I might have had: The house in the suburbs. Celebrating the holidays with family and neighbors that I had known for years and would hope to know for the rest of my life. Counting the year by the rhythm of the holidays and birthdays and the new season of shows on TV. Here there is no such regularity. An endless march of friends: You’ll know no one for more than two or three years. You’ll celebrate holidays here, your own holidays, but you will celebrate them among a handful of fellows who actually understand the significance of the day. Those are the trade-offs. Adventure for constancy. But what does nostalgia matter unless it has significance?