2010-02-13

Memories of Repino

I've put Einaudi's "The Snow Prelude" to play in the background (a much appreciated gift from Dr. De Guzman).

Today I got accepted into Duke. Phil thinks that a year from now I'll find myself in L.A. traffic thinking of what could have been. He's right, to some extent, though had I not said "yes" to USC, I'd then find myself in Durham traffic a year from now thinking of what I could have done at USC. I've always known that USC is the place for me, and I am happy with my ultimate decision.

It's been cold and gray here. Most evenings I've been sitting back with a glass of Cabernet (because I've been drinking more wine lately) and reading Lauren Belfer's City of Light. I think of Rochester's decaying downtown as I read.

De Guzman sent me a moving e-mail with Postsecret confessions (reading Postsecret became a hobby of mine and my former room mate) with a child in a field. The young woman confessed that once, in second grade and having nothing to do, she took a walk through a field behind her school. It was captivating and ever since, she's spent her entire life trying to re-live that moment.

If I could re-live any moment, I'd go back to my first dusk in the Russian forest, in Repino. I was wearing my London Fog trench, sleepily making my way through the towering trees, jumping over moss-covered logs and mud puddles. I stepped over rocks, my pant-legs soaked from the water gliding and splashing off the leaves. There were mounds to climb up on, brilliantly verdant, and just on the other side the black soil turned into dark sand--I had arrived at the shore that looked directly into the Gulf of Finland.

I can return to Russia one hundred times more, and yet the impression wouldn't be the same.

aeka at 6:21 p.m.