Cathedral of Transfiguration, St. Petersburg

The first day in St. Petersburg I am finally able to open the golden door of self-knowledge.

It happens suddenly, so that there's no time to think about it, to say yes or no.

Ruthlessly, but with exquisite old world compassion, I am forced to accept my nature and the nature of all those around me, the beautiful and the dammed, the living and the dead.

From morning to night I'm comfortable walking aimlessly around the city, past the canals and up and down Nevsky Prospekt, free from a prior obsession of having to identify exactly where I am and what it is I'm seeing, content to finally be in a place where so much has happened is able to co -exist peacefully with how little I know.