Piter is grey and unforgiving this time of year. Every pavement is awash with slush and black ice and neither is preferable to the other. It is certainly a time when moody self-reflection triumphs and recurring dreams of sprawling across a green lawn under the hot summer sun in Sussex torment.
The other day I went to the far-western side of Vasilevskii Island to the Gulf of Finland. The view was one of hostile wintry whiteness, a harsh and frosty landscape looking out into the frozen nothingness between Russia and Finland. This certainly offered some respite from worries and heartache for your mind becomes as blank as the scenery.
It is hard to remain positive and cheerful when the weather is so brutally set against you. Crippling Wanderlust turns the inner monologue of even the most determined Year Abroad student into a tornado of negative emotions and guilt. “You should be enjoying yourself”, “How many other people get such a wonderful opportunity?”
However, thinking this way will get me nowhere. June will come quickly and then I’ll want to stay in Piter, such is the schizophrenic nature of my Wanderlust.
So, I suppose I must take comfort in the fact that the sun will again rise over Piter and this ‘skyka’, ‘toska’ or whatever the appropriate Russian word for this type of unhappiness is (for there are many..) will be short-lived.
Either that, or I’ll just obsess about this coming Summer when the only ice around me will be that floating in my glass of Pimms.
No comments:
Post a Comment