Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Rootedness and rootlessness


The original plan was to graduate, spend the summer traveling in the US, spend about a month in Moscow, a few more months in other parts of Russia and then move on south into Central Asia, eventually making it to Japan or Thailand. I graduated alright, but that's about as far as I stuck to the plan. My US trip ended up being several months spent between New York City and Mystic (of the Julia Roberts Mystic Pizza fame). They were both good enough in their own ways, but this was not what I had originally (i.e. about a month before graduation) planned. In Russia, I also started out well, going down to the Black Sea for a month after spending about as much time in Moscow. But then I came back to Moscow and have been here ever since- haven't even made it to SPb yet! And now I seem to have agreed with myself to stick around for about a year. I've started teaching classes and while I have no formal contracts, I get paid for some classes a month in advance. So I'm tied down by commitment for at least a month. And I still have to break it to my parents that I don't intend to go back to University next year either...

Today, thinking more economically than, in retrospect, I would have liked to, I bought a 3-month metro pass. Small things, but these little ribbons of rootedness feel slightly too tight for comfort. I'm not sure if I'm more worried about having to stay in one place for a while or about constantly making elaborate plans and then only sticking to the lowest common denominator, but I guess it was a terrible idea to name me after a river. Apt, but (insert a healthy dollop of melodrama a la Bollywood) terrible.

2 comments:

KingK said...

A river is a good metaphor to use, btw. Rivers change courses on their own too! And if they don't do it on their own, people build dams to do it.

Which basically means, the following dams may work:
1. Get married and change ur course
2. Stop looking for a career in teaching english
3. Etc Etc

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/597060/Tista-River

Tista said...

But even when I hate rootlessness, I can't live rooted. So 1. might get me or the poor guy killed, 2. is too enjoyable to let go of and 3...well we'll see