Yesterday it happened again.
I was walking across the Potomac on the Key Bridge, crossing from Georgetown into Rosslyn, when I looked up and saw the Hotel Ukraina. And I was instead walking across the Moscow River on Novyarbatsky Most, crossing from Krasnopresnenskaya Naberezhnaya onto Kutuzovsky Prospekt. I saw the building over by Smolenskaya where my friend lived and those two hotels, and MID. I didn't have to turn around to know that behind me was my daughters' preschool and our second Moscow apartment, which looked into the windows of the Dom Pravitelstva, more popularly known as the Russian White House. I closed my eyes in Washington, DC and woke up somewhere in Moscow.
My five years in Moscow were certainly not a lifetime and I have little claim to call it home, but my time there defined the beginning of my adult life. I got my first job in Moscow. I first experienced life with children there. It was the place that showed me what I was made of.
In contrast, Washington, DC seems to be intent on showing me what I am not. I am not interested in the minutiae of local politics in the way that all DC-based journalists should be. I do not want to volunteer in the art room, as parents in the liberal enclave of NW all seem to find time to do. I do not want to return to the mundanity of a life that cannot be described on a daily basis as difficult.
But you can't live in a dream world. This blog is about my waking up.
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