POCCNЯ

I missed nighttime when I was in Russia. Rather, I realize how much I like when the sun goes down, now that I'm back in the UK.
It's 10.40pm and it looks like the sun will be gone within an hour. In St Petersburg, the darkest point in the night was about 2.30am and it really looked like about 9pm in an Ontario summer. It was....it was cool in one sense because there was always natural light, which is handy when you're trying to do things after hours. It was unsettling in another sense because I rely on a dark sky to tell me when it's sleeping time and, more important, the return of the sun after the dark to tell me it's a new day.

I COMPLETELY take for granted that I have only ever lived in English-speaking countries all my life. To bump into someone in the street and not feel terrible butchering the word for excuse me which I don't even know how to spell phoenetically, to get your passport handed back to you and not have to say "spyciba" in an incredibly North-American accent...to be able to walk into any eatery and be able to figure out what you want, either by looking, reading or asking...it's just marvellous. It's all feeling like a luxury right now. BOY, was I ever made timid by living in Russia. Public timidity like, "I shouldn't be here" / "sorry to inconvenience you" kind of thing, etc. etc.

Yeah. I wanna see Transformers, the newb one.

I bought comic books today, for the first time in my life. This is a weird experience but I fully approve.

"If it weren't for Jesus, I ...."

What a great line, delivered with true sincerity and something like far-off distaste. We were sat in the lobby of a four-star hotel in Moskva. He said it and I asked after the ellipsis. "If it weren't for Jesus, you what?" His words had trailed away in volume but he also sounded like he didn't want to finish the sentence aloud. "A lot of things," he says, with finality. I complete the sentence in my head, to let it ring a bit. "If it weren't for Jesus, a lot of things." Yes, this is a true statement. And the person with the bigger debt will love their master more because more grace was extended to them. His tone had implied that I knew exactly what he was referring to and didn't need to ask after specifics. He was right.

We were there around midnight and 1 am and there were a few women around who were working as escorts or prostitutes. We were talking about the reality we were sitting in, reality of the sex business world, mass media portayals/distortions, corruption of man, motivations and where WE were - him and I - in relation to all of this. He said, "If I wasn't a Christian, my friends and I...." he shakes his head and makes that I'm-ashamed-that-this-would-be-me face that we all recognize. I'm waiting because I want to hear it work out because these are the kind of statements that bring us to the "what next" stage. He continues, "...we would be having a competition. Not to see who ..... not to, you know but to see how many offers we could get." I forget his exact words on the end but it made sense to me.

I wonder where else I could go with that sentence. I think it's a good one. "If it weren't for Jesus, I..."

[EST]