the comb of the wind (part 1)

The wind is coming down hard on Kutuzovsky. Dirt whips into my eyes as the empty bag on my arm snaps around like a scarecrow. Sometimes I think there is just a finite amount of grit that circulates throughout the city, transformed to mud, to grime, to dust, never leaving just taking laps around the third ring on an eternal race with no finish line. This is the same dirt that flew into Genghis Khan's eyes, that plastered Napoleon's boots. This dirt has no name.

The city looms empty. 

I pass the same stores, the same windows that hold no interest. Here are the same children's mannequins, the same overpriced liquor store, the same coffee shops with their sour tasting cappuccinos. It is a barren place, where nothing grows, just the throaty scream of traffic, the pickled faces of people hunched down against the wind, the stray trash flipping around the curb. There is no smell here, nothing sweet, nothing alive. 

It is exhausting to walk on Kutuzovsky one more time. 

It was two years ago, that I brought you to Spain for a few days to escape the end of Moscow winter. That was my official excuse, when we stepped off of the tiny plane onto the tarmac in San Sebastien where there was no luggage carousel, just a neat row of suitcases lined up on the asphalt. By nightfall I was sipping txakoli and we were taking a walk along the beach. There was the low moan of the ocean, the smell of cherry blossoms, the salty wet air on our cheeks. 

I carried the ring with me, tucked into the bottom of my camera bag. I was waiting for the right moment, the right light, the right stones to sit on. But that is a story for another day. Right now I think of how it has been two years, and how you are too tired to remember this anniversary because you sleep in tiny stolen moments. You talk to our child with such grace, such gentle confidence. I wish you could see yourself, or see what I see. Two years ago, me mumbling metaphors next to a roaring ocean, waves slapping hard against the rocks in the darkness, you maybe not even hearing everything but hand out, the ring sliding on, the moment passing, a sense of relief, a door opening onto a corridor that lead us to here and this home, this kitchen table, this quiet moment when you are nursing in the other room and I write.