Adventuring Again

Trains are in so many ways like some slow nostalgic rapture. I could stare for hours on end out the windows, locked in some zen-like battle for concentration and coherence, and never quite come out on top. It's Tuesday night and I'm fighting my way through some bittersweet comings and goings, and doing my best to work through and compartmentalize a long week of hello's and goodbyes and internal reminisces. As always, my work is to understand instead of mourn.

I'm closing in on Tomah, Wisconsin on day five of this epic adventure. I can't quite shake the notion that my story, the one that again places me on a path greater than schooling, begins again here.

Seeing Rachel again made me feel incessantly old and Russia so very long ago. Friends like that where you can pick up after two years of limited contact, and talk for two days on end about nothing and everything at all, well, they're pretty much amazing. We talked as we did that long fall day in the one Western coffee shop in all of St. Petersburg, almost without pausing for breath. I can never quite find the right words to explain the wonder I feel at being around people with whom you share more than just a mutual understanding of life and ethics and passions and priorities. It was nice. I'm so proud of the work that she's doing, and only kind of secretely jelous of getting to go back and face the mysterious darkness of the Russian bureocracy...Only kind of.

It was so good to see Chad again, and so unexpected. The Chernov clan I can take or leave, but Chad I will truely miss. I tried all summer long to figure out what made working for him such a pretty awesome experience, and never quite completely defined it. It was a treat to work for someone so wise. He taught me so much over the source of the summer, and saw so much good in me and the work that I do. It was so nice to talk about my plans and ideas for the future, and my mythical thesis project in a completely objective manner, with someone with the experience to know what I'm talking about. I appreciate so much the encouragement and support and belief that I am doing the right things and fully capable of all the bigger and better and crazier things I am dreaming of. I admire and respect him alot, and a little bittersweet to leave.

I've been so struck by the strangeness of doors that are closing behind me as I pass further west. It was downright bizarre and a little disconcerting to leave home for undoubtedly not the last time, but for the last time buit-in, expected, and counted on. It's sort of the same effect of leaving Czech, heartbreaking because you don't know the next time you'll be back that way again. Being there is so strenuous that I have a hard time parsing the difficulties of leaving. Its a completely different feeling then usual, when I know I'll be back for a visit in four to six months time. I probably will, but when the money gets cut off it'll be on my own terms and on my dime, and I can't help but feel a little bit marooned.

I saw Fradkin briefly, and really shouldn't have worried to tell him of my abandonment of Russian. He actually mentioned it, more like suggested it really, before I could. We were talking about grad schools, and he said something like how he thought my skills would be better used in something environmental rather than Russian. I was amazed that he could read me so intuitively. I am so deeply and profoundly blessed to have and have experienced so many guiding figures such as these in my life. I am continously realizing what a large impact all of these mentor folks have on me, and I can't express how thankful I am.

Minnesota Line and time for a nap...