Here on the shores of Patriarch’s Ponds . . .

Patriarch's Ponds on a summer evening.

This was always my favorite place in Moscow.  Even though it is just a block off the Garden Ring and three streets away from Tverskaya, the ponds engender a center of their own.  This area possesses a quiet aura of separation, a special energy unlike any other place in the city, or any other place I’ve ever been.  Even today there is a special glimmer as the last rays of day linger, reflecting off the water’s surface, illuminating the light of the evening strollers who pass by.

I am not the first to feel this energy.  Many writers who have come before me have come as I do tonight, to breathe in the cool summer air, watch the leaves rustle in the wind, to gently grasp the cool metal hand railing that circles the pond.  To take in this city, breathe in its life, to surrender to the mystery of what will come of it all.

Tonight I have not much time for these questions.  I have to catch a train to Domodedovo Airport, and a plane to go home.  Yet I could not leave without coming here to say goodbye.  I don’t know when I will ever be back at this site, but I am so grateful for all the moments I spent here, and everywhere, in Russia for a year.  I am ready to go, I am ready for the next adventures that take place.  But for a moment I pause, in awareness, in awe, in appreciation, of all that has been, and all that always will be, in this city of mine.

Namaste, Moscow.

And that is how the traveler came home again.