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somewhere over the rainbow (and other stories)

  Exactly two years ago I found myself flying through a corner of a rainbow, and landed in Oaxaca, Mexico. It was the last film festival I traveled to, a brutal and sweet experience in the harshest of realities, trying to wrap my arms around the slipperiest industry and failing magnificently. Surrounded by fresh faces and eager eyes I ran from the rooms and into the street time and again, wandering off with the camera in my bag as a companion. I took pictures of a blind man that sang on the same corner every day, of wedding parades, of an old woman waiting to see the dentist.  Literally somewhere over the rainbow, I met the ugliest answers to questions I had been dragging my feet towards for years. Cramming the most delicious food into my mouth, joking at the nightly rooftop cocktail parties, grinning like the Cheshire Cat it was all coming to an end. Actually, it had ended before it even started though - and on the plane back to New York and finally Moscow the bone-crunching undertow

Time

There is nothing like buying a fabulous pair of shoes in New York, wearing them right out of the store and tearing up the sidewalk. Taking in the faces, weaving through clumps of tourists, chomping on an egg sandwich or maybe a steamed pork bun - it's exhilarating. Somehow your worries and troubles and obstacles seem to melt away - fading far in the distance. Maybe it starts to rain, maybe it starts to snow. These shoes are already yours, wrinkling in the right places, creasing your name into the new scratches on the toes.

I had a perfect coffee and cupcake at an old favorite - the Cupcake Cafe. An actress was talking in a loud voice to her director about very personal things. A student kept looking up from her laptop, as if we were all spying on her. This is one of those places that has survived, although it was across the street for a zillion years. I have had to stop feeling sorry about the places that are gone now. So many to remember that it makes my head swim. I decided it would be better to celebrate the ones that are still around, if only at a new address.

I ate lunch at Katz's the next day. An old couple chatted me up - turns out it was their first time.

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Back in Moscow, my office is freezing cold. Got to get them to turn the heat on. Jetlagged and fighting a cold, I walk the streets in those same new shoes. They already have miles on them.

Time to make chicken soup. Time to make E a new hat. Time to find an apartment.

Comments

The Expatresse said…
There's nothing like a fabulous pair of shoes.

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