Throwback Thursday Stories {2}: From Russia with Love

Me in front of St. Basil's Cathedral, Moscow, Russia, May 2002

On Tuesday, after a long run and a cool shower, I rummaged around in my drawer for something comfy, and I grabbed an old t-shirt from college. It is faded, stained here and there, and, as I discovered to my surprise on Tuesday, unraveling into its first hole. And yet despite its ragged appearance, I can't make myself part with it. On the front is a picture of the globe, with the words Missions In Action 2002, and on the back, under Team Russia, is my name.

It was my first time on an airplane, my first trip to a foreign country. We left on a Friday afternoons, and two planes and two days later, we had arrived, been to a church service, been served lunch, and took a quick walk near the Kremlin before catching the train that would take us to Ulyanovsk. I remember finding it odd that when we had arrived in Moscow, snow that looked like dippin' dots had fallen on us while we watched the changing of the guard at the Kremlin. But I didn't know it would snow in May. There was so little of Russia before I went.

I didn't know you had to pay to use the bathroom in the Moscow airport.

I didn't know we'd be identified as Americans by our loud voices and uninhibited laughter in public.

I didn't know that dark, frightening hallways opened up into flats filled with warmth and love and tea and biscuits and MTV, which our hosts put on for us so we would feel more at home.

I didn't know that halfway across the world, I would find another mama, another sister, and another granny to call my own.

I didn't know the smell of diesel would become so familiar that catching a whiff of it at home would make me nostalgic for the trams we used to get around the city.

I didn't know that our Russian friends would have little concept of baseball, but would absolutely whip us at volleyball and finger darts.

I didn't know that a songs accompanied by a single guitar and sermons given in a completely unfamiliar language would speak more to my heart than so many I had heard from the piano and pulpit at home.

I didn't know that, hidden behind the quiet, downcast eyes of the people we saw in the street, on the subway, were hearts that offered love, openness, sacrifice, and abundant hope.

I didn't even know enough to buy an English-to-Russian dictionary, which would have come in so helpful the morning that I tried to explain to Natasha's granny that breakfast had upset my stomach a bit (an unexpected consequence from discovering what I thought was marmalade was, in fact, caviar), and not given me diarrhea as she suspected.

I didn't know that, when we left Ulyanovsk, part of my heart would stay behind, that the people we had known for just over a week were so beautiful that they left indelible marks on my life.

A little over a week after we arrived, we were back in Moscow. The sun was warm, bright--no traces of the snow that had seemed so odd for May when we first arrived. We had left Ulyanovsk on an evening train, after hugs and laughs and lumps in our throats. We stretched out on the train and ate sandwiches of hard bread, cheese, and meat. Later, the constant click-click, click-click of the train on the tracks lulled us to sleep. When we woke, we were a few hours from Moscow, and when we arrived, we spent two days seeing the sites. We spent a lot of time on Red Square, where today's picture was taken.

I suppose you could say that the t-shirt I found on Tuesday is nothing more than a Been There, Done That, Got the T-shirt momento. But for me, it's more of an exchange--a t-shirt for a part of my heart. And that's why, ragged though it is, it will always have a place in my dresser drawer.