What Happened When I Returned To Moscow With A New Passport

Domodedovo Airport, Moscow, The Russian Federation— I got off my seat and dragged my weary body outside of the plane where I sat for almost five hours of peaceful flight from Dubai. I paced myself and walked straight to the long tube that led to the long queues that led to the immigration officers that will stamp my PILIPINAS passport that will give me access to enter this bolshoi nation, sometimes I fondly call this, Mother Russia.

Moscow that evening had a welcoming temperature of -3 centigrade and I thought that it was not so bad coming from a +27 centigrade back home in Manila. As I stood there acclimatizing myself with the weather, I realized that the temperature inside the airport was actually rather toasty, as always. I stared at the people's expressionless, perfectly contoured faces and I tried to mentally rehearse what to do next when my turn comes. First, I will remove my eyeglasses; second, I will approach the immigration officer forward and then give her a polite but expressionless dobre dien (good evening) to establish an impression that it was not my first time in Russia. I've been through this many times over the course of almost five years but I have not gotten used to this so-called expressionless Russian courtesy and hospitality. If you're a first-timer from sunny Southeast Asia, you'll be surprised that they won't smile back at you at all. But you have to take it with a teaspoonful of sugar. In their heart, they are sincere and kind once they warm up to you. I had to rehearse this thought in my mind over and over until it sank in. Because to be honest, the flat affect still terrifies me even if I always traveled with proper documentation. I should be fine.

As I stood there, I knew so well that getting through that glass partition was at the mercy of the prekrasnyy immigration officer waiting for me to hand in my passport. She examined it like a scientist observing a specimen under her magnifying glass. She mumbled something. My heart beat raced. What could go wrong? "Sorrry, nyet (no) Paruskiy, only English, pajalsta (please)?" She immediately reframed her words, "is this your first time here?" "No madam. I've been here many times already." I was tempted to add, 'we have an apartment here,' but I was quick to hold back another English word because one word could lead to more questioning. "Did you come here to work?" "Nyet, madam. I'm here for a vacation. My husband works here. If you want I can show you my old passport. Here, I have it with me. And I also have my return-ticket if you want to see it." I thought I tried to smile ear-to-ear at that point.

I was too familiar with this kind of feeling. I will be asked a few more questions to verify the legality of my trip here. Definitely. The immigration officer was just doing her job.  Maybe for my nose, my eyes, the color of my skin. I'm sure, most, if not all Filipino women go through the same feat with immigration in Europe. I have to stay relaxed and composed. She leafed through the pages of my old passport; she counted every single page forward, backward, repeat, perhaps looking for a ripped page; she mumbled yet again as she paused on one page, "ah, US tourist visa". That moment I wanted to say, "yes ma'am, never been used since I got it six years ago", but I kept it to myself. She never asked why I have it. She half-smiled and that look on her face gave me a sigh of relief. She then handed me my passport and proceeded with furnishing me with a migration card—a very important puny little slip of paper that I have to guard with my life if I don't want to get in trouble with the authorities during my stay here. Like my passport, I have to bring it with me anywhere I go and return it to the immigration officer upon my departure. I'm thankful that it is small enough to be inserted in my passport jacket.

The moment the immigration officer pushed the button to let me pass through the automatic swinging glass door, all of my fears dissipated. I can never get used to this. This is Moscow, the city I love next to Manila, but I have issues with the people's expressionless faces. As the escalator gradually descended to the arrival lobby, I started looking for a man with a full-head, jet black colored hair, wearing a collared polo shirt, and a pair of washed blue denim jeans. It wasn't hard for me to do that. I immediately saw my husband who's craning his neck looking for his 5-foot-tall wife in the sea of towering, white people. Our gaze met. What transpired earlier at the immigration was automatically thrown over to my short-term memory. Aaaaah, we're back in each other's arms again. We kissed, naturally, just like in the movies. Then he gave me a bunch of sweet-smelling, dark, velvety red roses which he purposely hid on his black backpack. And we lived happily ever after.

"There's no place like home" goes the famous saying. But where really is home? Manila? Moscow? Batangas? Mindoro—Calapan City or Puerto Galera? Sometimes, too much traveling messes up one's brain. But I don't mean it in a complaining way. For one thing, when you're traveling, you're body is subject to a speedy motion and if you're not a hard-shell, you will be scattered, leaving a bit of yourself along the way. That is why it is valuable for somebody like me to have the understanding that as a traveler, I am not a settler, I am a pilgrim. What C.S. Lewis said resonates this thought, "If I find myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." I set this in stone: I was made for another world, traveling as a way of life come about only for a season. I'm just passing through. My real citizenship is in heaven, my final destination.

In a perfect world, my travel narrative would have been the same for the month of March or April or May. These months are the best season to travel because the snow has thawed, the ducks with their teal-colored wings waddled into the pond and zippered on the chilly water; the overcast skies moved out as upstaged by the cerulian blue skies; flowers are in bloom with their majestic colors; it's springtime. But real-life situations do occur regardless of the season. This COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdowns were enforced. People are on quarantine. It's not business as usual. My sweet reunion with my husband was put on hold. My little happiness bubble disappeared into thin air. Reality kicked in. I don't think that traveling will be the same even if lockdowns all over the world were lifted. It will take awhile before the dusts settle and until then, I would have to take it one day at a time.

Finding Your Greatest Reward In Waiting

I think that I will never be the same once this pandemic is over. Businesses where closed, millions of jobs were lost. Then, suddenly, we find every student homeschooling and most workers are home — working. Words like social-distancing, quarantine, hoarding, panic-buying, flattening the bell curve, and lockdown have become just a few of the operative words that the media would use to describe the daily news updates. This crisis is unprecedented in history. It has put everything to a halt. All of us are confined to our own homes now and I'm assuming that most days, people are watching from outside of their windows. 'When will this all end?' 

My sister who works as a nurse in the Middle East earlier shared a poem to my siblings' social media group chat. I was amazed at how simple yet timelessly written it was. Originally written in 1869 by an unknown writer, it was reprinted during the 1919 Pandemic that recorded 50,000,000 deaths all over the world and lasted until December 1920. It was estimated to be a third of the population during that time period. Below, I'm sharing over a century-old poem that fittingly describes how the world grinds at this present day and age. Have you spotted the similarities? And wouldn't you agree? 

I quote:

The people stayed at home

And read books

And listened

And they rested

And did exercises

And made art and played

And learned new ways of being

And stopped and listened

More deeply

Someone meditated, someone prayed

Someone met their shadow

And people began to think differently

And people healed

And in the absence of people who

Lived in ignorant ways

Dangerous, meaningless, and heartless,

The earth also began to heal

And when the danger ended and

People found themselves

They grieved for the dead

And made new choices

And dreamed of new visions 

And created new ways of living

And completely healed the earth

Just as they were healed.

End of quote.

As for me, I’m taking this lockdown one.day.at.a.time. I'll keep moving forward everyday as I keep my daily routine. It's time to take a break from planning on a bigger, grander scale as my family and I were accustomed to doing on normal circumstances. Our normal would be that we were never on the same place for a long time. Hence, Manila ・Moscow ・Batangas ・Mindoro ・Repeat. That's how we rolled as OFWs through the years.  The quarterly to yearly planning have always been a big part of our routine as our schedules are set around my hubby's 28-day work and 28-day rest. Got the picture? But for now, we all get off that winding racetrack and try to make sense of this enforced relaxation. Deep inside, a big part of me rejoiced for the possibility of re-learning to stay put, to be on one place for an extended period of time. All the possibilities played in my mind. I can finally declutter our skeletons piling up in the closets and drawers; pull out the weeds growing in the garden, make inventory of expired canned goods in the pantry. We are never in one place. This happens! So, I turn to the 'now'. I am making the most of what I can do today. Not tomorrow, not next week, but today. I have today. I will let tomorrow worry about itself.

 "Worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength— carrying two days at once.
 It is moving to tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength." 

Corrie ten Boom— Author of "The Hiding Place"

"Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; 
for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." 

1 Thessalonians 5:16-17

For a start, I will mindfully count my blessings so that I will have plenty of reasons to rejoice…that is the antidote to this crazy pandemic. I look around me; in my kitchen, everything is magnified, everything is significant, every ingredient; onions, garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil, tomatoes, eggplants, the grain of rice, the neighbor’s dog barking from the background, the chicken pecking at my window, and believe me that even lizards are bowing to God at a certain time of the evening! I count my gifts from the Lord, yes, even the mundane things, He ought to receive my highest gratitude. There are no big or small gifts from Him, everything is grand when I receive them from the posture of gratitude. And perhaps, along the same line of thought, I'll take a look again at the expired goods in my pantry and reconsider which ones to really throw away. Somebody said that it's like the wartime these days. This crisis has turned me into a lot of things.😄 

On my recent blog posts, I briefly shared about my learnings on the seasons of togetherness and separateness. It's a process, an on-going journey that I embrace whole-heartedly as underscored by what's going on in the world now. Every country is on a preventive COVID-19 Lockdown. It is important to mention that as I labor pounce on the keyboard, my hubby, my children, and I, are on three geographic locations such as  Moscow・Batangas ・Mindoro. What a way to illustrate 'separateness' and 'growth' when you are actually living it!

I do miss them. It's been 32 days since the lockdown, but who's counting? I surrender everything to God and trust His ways, for His ways are perfect. He alone knows when we will be together again. And to answer the question 'up to how long' will this waiting period last? It's really up to the Sovereign God. Even so, I pray for them, I thank the Lord for them, that while being separate, everyone is drawn closer to God like never before. Our eyes are fixed on Jesus knowing that He is near and would not be 'separated' from us. What a blessing this lockdown has brought about, the blessing of intimacy with God. Isn’t that what really matters the most, for each of us, to find God while waiting in our separateness, or should I say God is the One WHO FIRST FOUND US. He is our great reward in waiting!

In the meantime, while this prevailing crisis changes the way I think, something magnificent is transpiring underneath the dirt. Beneath the baking heat and rains, seeds are  breaking and sprouting from the hearts of my children. Seeds that are long-lasting and enduring; patience, gratefulness, kindness, hard-work, discipline, independence... Hopefully.