Memories of Tbilisi

Today I was gasping for air

I come from the second largest country in the world (in terms of land mass, not population size): I’m accustomed to wide, open spaces. Well, okay, I come from the suburbs, but, more or less, I’m accustomed to large things. Tall buildings (in which I lived), large-scale appliances, wide roads. These days I find myself in a tiny country, with lots of people and almost exclusively small spaces.

When Asya would send me photos I’d always comment on how there were so many people in them; she seemed never to be alone. I envied those gatherings, the comraderie that I saw in those photos. The photos I sent her where often void of people or showed just me in front of something I thought worthy enough to have photographed. I studied the difference in our environments: in those wide, open spaces, I felt alone, isolated, surrounded by trees instead of friends. In her spaces, I saw the social environments I craved.

Now I find myself in the places in those photographs Asya sent. I am surrounded by more people than I care to know and some days, the congestion is suffocating. I yearn for wide, open spaces where I can breathe (in smoke-free environments, no less) and hear the wind whistling through the trees instead of people speaking into their cell phones.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t regret moving here. And I realize this feeling of being suffocated in small cities is not exclusive to Yerevan. It’s just today, on this unusually warm, snow-less January Monday, I felt there wasn’t enough air to breathe in...

I think a trip to Dilijan or Tsakhadzor is in order..