Purple Tulips

It is sunny. The snow and ice are melting, there are purple tulips in a vase on my windowsill, and I have just bought myself a pomegranate and a mango. Looking out of my window on the seventh floor of a big old Stalinist skyscraper, the world seems happy and perfect and positive and beautiful. It hasn't always been, and it won't always be. Sometimes the world is bleak and sad and miserable and you feel like giving up. Some people feel like giving up more often than other people do - for some people, the world is simply a harder place to live in. That doesn't make them weak, not in my opinion. In my opinion, that makes them so so very strong. 

This isn't going to be a long post, because I don't actually have that much to say. I haven't written a post in ages, not because I haven't been busy - I've been very busy hoovering up the final few Moscow tourist attractions which I've promised myself I need to see before I leave, and even venturing outside of the capital (gasp!) to see a couple of beautiful cities on the Golden Ring. I've been spending a lot of time with friends old and new, and, I'm delighted to report, I have been laughing a great deal. I love to laugh. I truly believe that in those few moments, when I'm fully, properly laughing, I am fully myself. No inhibitions, no agenda, no worries, nothing extra, nothing big or bold or serious or scary. Just me. Laughing...No, the reason for the lack of blog posts isn't that I have nothing to report, it's simply that I haven't felt like writing them. I haven't been much in the mood for prose recently, if truth be told. I haven't been in the mood to wrap my mind around in circles while discussing the meaning of life or Russian bureaucracy (two equally frightening, upsetting and confusing topics). Maybe I've been enjoying life too much to reflect on it. Maybe I'm just more in the mood to write plays at the moment. 

However (and this one's important), I did promise a very good friend of mine that I would write another blog post before leaving Moscow. This probably isn't what she was expecting, and it might count as cheating. At any rate, at least I can feel like I've kept my promise. 

This has definitely turned out longer than expected. Oh dear. It's not even good. How about, as an ending, you all go back and re-read the first few sentences? I would really love to leave you thinking of sun and purple tulips and a big brick building drenched in sunlight. It's a beautiful sight, I promise.