10 Comments
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Kelly Winsa's avatar

how beautiful.thank you for taking me there.

David Durham's avatar

Sounds like a nice celebration of life. And I think all taxi drivers should be Fellini characters!

Marco North's avatar

David - my very first time in Moscow, I had the Art Carney of taxi drivers. He had three teeth and talked to himself incessantly. He got very lost (there was no GPS back then) and was staring at the street signs with such anger - they were all betraying him. hHe was running red lights, craning his head around looking everywhere for landmarks. That was one nutty ride to the airport.

Annette Gendler's avatar

What an atmospheric snippet! Thank you!

Marco North's avatar

Thank you Annette. This is truly a "normal" night here. It is oddly taken for granted by some - and yet I know of no place else in the world where this happens so effortlessly.

Annette Gendler's avatar

Which is why, it seems to me, it's a good place for you.

Marco North's avatar

I have come to say "there is no perfect place to live" for the past few years. Every place has its positives and negatives, and they arrive from random categories. You can live in a fantastic community of oddballs and poets, but breathe air that is 10xs beyond what is safe and acceptable. You can live in a place with the freshest air and have no personal freedom. Every day, the deck shuffles and you pull a different card, no matter where you hang your hat.

Annette Gendler's avatar

Agreed! There's no perfect place to live, even for me, who has two homes. I love our country place, the woods, the quiet, but there's no Jewish community. I love our place in Chicago, where I do have a Jewish community, and I can walk along the lake and go to the theatre and museums, but I risk being either car-jacked or mugged every time I leave the house. It's all a compromise. One just has to make sure the pluses outweigh the minuses.

Dave King's avatar

Beautiful music. 🎶

Marco North's avatar

It is sooooooo painfully beautiful. The song is "sakartvelo" which is the real name of Georgia. It was first a poem by Ana Kalandadze.

Beautiful Georgia

the wind sings to you a lullaby

plane tree tells you a tale

weeping willow filled me with tender,

Me,Ill, suffering from doubts.

Where is it?

Beautiful Georgia,

Where else is another Georgia?

fields, fields of Kartli

mountain ranges -with broad shoulders

In the mountains- dusky,misty woods

in the woods- Horned deer.

where is it?

My beautiful Georgia

Where else is another Georgia?