Being a professional gypsy has its challenges. Every two or three years, we unplug all the various aspects of our lives, carefully wrap them up in boxes and haul them to the next country where my husband is assigned. While sometimes this is not terribly different from what other people experience moving to another major city to facilitate a job change, moving to another country and to another culture can be quite jarring. It is especially so if the move also includes a language barrier.
We arrived in India at the end of August, just as the monsoon rains were beginning to abate. Over the next several weeks our belongings began to trickle in, and with the arrival of each box, our apartment began to take on a recognizable shape as home. But simultaneous to this, another shift was occurring. I was losing my almost constant companion of 16.5 years...my dog. I didn't anticipate her passing to loosen my moorings so significantly that I literally found myself adrift. Worse yet, I was anxious. I floated in and out of days accomplishing what was necessary but certainly not seeking ways to re-engage in the world around me. My detachment was further complicated by the vitriol, the hate, the palpable xenophobia spewing from every conceivable media as a result of the elections at home that caused the world to seem too large and forbidding to tolerate the casual traveler, the gypsy. I developed a significant case of angst and I lost my ability to experience wonder in the world around me. My pervasive curiosity and drive to explore completely abandoned me. I vividly remember having it shortly before we headed to our next post when two ducks made an unexpected visit to our 6th floor apartment in Switzerland. But where did I put it after that? Perhaps I had not even arrived in India with it. Had I forgotten to even pack into the crates and suitcases filled to the brim with all of the other elements of our life?
It was not until I was seated in the aisle seat of a plane headed to Austria, which my husband graciously arranged for me, that little fragments of memories creeped into my consciousness to really remind me of what I had misplaced. Sitting there on the plane, I remembered my very first overseas flight, the trepidation of flying into the unknown to a country and a continent where I had never been. That remembered version of myself puzzled over my ability to master another currency on the fly and the challenges of using decade's old language skills that had long since fallen into disrepair. But also present was that sense of wonder, the amazement that in a few short hours I would be standing with a dear friend, thousands of miles away, seeing things I had always wanted to see. As the plane lifted off I was curious as to where that novice but intrepid world traveler had gone.
The layover in Dubai, coupled with the our eventual arrival in Vienna provided me the first inklings of a world I more readily recognized. The effusive greetings of family and friends welcoming travelers exiting the customs gate bolstered my lifted feeling and as I too received the embrace of a dear friend glad of my own arrival and even more anxiety fell away from me.
My friend Catherine welcomed me "home" and with effortless grace inserted me into the daily routine of her life. Once my husband arrived and we continued our travels to Bern, Switzerland, our dear friend Doris and her wonderful daughters welcomed us with open arms, making us feel like long-lost family. Those days and weeks were a much needed balm restoring the lost me.
Wandering the streets of a city I truly love - Vienna and continuing my travels to Bern, Switzerland - a place I've called home, served as a welcome reminder of the traveler I became so very many years ago. Here in these bustling metropolises Austrians and Swiss wandered markets and stores intermingled with both tourists and settlers from faraway lands going about the business of their lives - clearly oblivious that someone may not look like them or dress like them. And I began to think that perhaps it is only the politicians should be afraid - they are so convinced of their continued success sowing fear of strangers, of foreigners, of anything that can be castigated with the label of "other" as the only viable way to protect their dominion, their power, that they have missed the point entirely. The world is becoming smaller, entire cultures are being uprooted and transplanted to continents half a world away. Transplants, natives, and tourists go about their day - the share a meal, they buy groceries, they pickup children from school, they take out the trash, they sleep and get up the next morning and start all over again. People are basically just people and each day this awareness is becoming more readily apparent and accepted as the realization this fear-mongering and sensationalism is manufactured and more often than not, an illusion that they are refusing to accept and no longer allow to gain purchase in their world. I ordered a coffee in a cafe with outdoor seating and the bells began to peel the hour, I felt the last of myself return and again wonder settled over me.
We arrived in India at the end of August, just as the monsoon rains were beginning to abate. Over the next several weeks our belongings began to trickle in, and with the arrival of each box, our apartment began to take on a recognizable shape as home. But simultaneous to this, another shift was occurring. I was losing my almost constant companion of 16.5 years...my dog. I didn't anticipate her passing to loosen my moorings so significantly that I literally found myself adrift. Worse yet, I was anxious. I floated in and out of days accomplishing what was necessary but certainly not seeking ways to re-engage in the world around me. My detachment was further complicated by the vitriol, the hate, the palpable xenophobia spewing from every conceivable media as a result of the elections at home that caused the world to seem too large and forbidding to tolerate the casual traveler, the gypsy. I developed a significant case of angst and I lost my ability to experience wonder in the world around me. My pervasive curiosity and drive to explore completely abandoned me. I vividly remember having it shortly before we headed to our next post when two ducks made an unexpected visit to our 6th floor apartment in Switzerland. But where did I put it after that? Perhaps I had not even arrived in India with it. Had I forgotten to even pack into the crates and suitcases filled to the brim with all of the other elements of our life?
It was not until I was seated in the aisle seat of a plane headed to Austria, which my husband graciously arranged for me, that little fragments of memories creeped into my consciousness to really remind me of what I had misplaced. Sitting there on the plane, I remembered my very first overseas flight, the trepidation of flying into the unknown to a country and a continent where I had never been. That remembered version of myself puzzled over my ability to master another currency on the fly and the challenges of using decade's old language skills that had long since fallen into disrepair. But also present was that sense of wonder, the amazement that in a few short hours I would be standing with a dear friend, thousands of miles away, seeing things I had always wanted to see. As the plane lifted off I was curious as to where that novice but intrepid world traveler had gone.
The layover in Dubai, coupled with the our eventual arrival in Vienna provided me the first inklings of a world I more readily recognized. The effusive greetings of family and friends welcoming travelers exiting the customs gate bolstered my lifted feeling and as I too received the embrace of a dear friend glad of my own arrival and even more anxiety fell away from me.
My friend Catherine welcomed me "home" and with effortless grace inserted me into the daily routine of her life. Once my husband arrived and we continued our travels to Bern, Switzerland, our dear friend Doris and her wonderful daughters welcomed us with open arms, making us feel like long-lost family. Those days and weeks were a much needed balm restoring the lost me.
Wandering the streets of a city I truly love - Vienna and continuing my travels to Bern, Switzerland - a place I've called home, served as a welcome reminder of the traveler I became so very many years ago. Here in these bustling metropolises Austrians and Swiss wandered markets and stores intermingled with both tourists and settlers from faraway lands going about the business of their lives - clearly oblivious that someone may not look like them or dress like them. And I began to think that perhaps it is only the politicians should be afraid - they are so convinced of their continued success sowing fear of strangers, of foreigners, of anything that can be castigated with the label of "other" as the only viable way to protect their dominion, their power, that they have missed the point entirely. The world is becoming smaller, entire cultures are being uprooted and transplanted to continents half a world away. Transplants, natives, and tourists go about their day - the share a meal, they buy groceries, they pickup children from school, they take out the trash, they sleep and get up the next morning and start all over again. People are basically just people and each day this awareness is becoming more readily apparent and accepted as the realization this fear-mongering and sensationalism is manufactured and more often than not, an illusion that they are refusing to accept and no longer allow to gain purchase in their world. I ordered a coffee in a cafe with outdoor seating and the bells began to peel the hour, I felt the last of myself return and again wonder settled over me.
