Cultural Confusion

These first days have been tumultuous. I was sipping cool wine in a dark corner of Rome, and then suddenly sitting with my family at the dinner table in Minnesota. The 24 solid hours of travelling, while definitely long enough, was not adequate transition. Even the preceding ten days, spent glorious trekking across Italy, was not enough. It really was a flawed idea from the start: Like 10 days gallivanting around Italy would make it easier to return? Yeah right.

Regardless, I’m sitting here in the air conditioning (what is that?) of a national chain coffee shop, feeling a little displaced. Suddenly, I am back to my American life. I have my cell phone and the ability to call anyone at anytime. I have wireless Internet access always at my finger tips. I shop in grocery stores where the chicken comes in nice cut and cleaned packages. Cars zip around the city and the only pedestrians are people out to get exercise.

I asked a friend to walk with me to Barnes and Noble last week. She looked at my request sideways, but being the great friend she is, happily agreed. Half way through our walk I realized that this wasn’t going to work. America is not Europe, and walking as a means of transportation is not a reality. The only route to the Barnes and Noble, located smack dab in the center of busy suburbia, is not pedestrian friendly. After almost losing our lives to an Escalade (a grossly extravagant and unnecessary vehicle in my opinion), struggling against the noise and wind of an overpass, and walking through a McDonald’s parking lot littered with trash, we arrived. The quiet of a Barnes and Noble has never tasted so sweet. I wasn’t going to give up easily, so I switched from walking to biking. I almost felt like I was in Spain when I rode my bike to the grocery store to pick up some vegetables and then rode to the bread shop for a loaf of bread, despite the odd looks I received from the other customers, wondering what sad state I had been reduced to that I had to BIKE to get my groceries. Needless to say, life is still full of adventures, just a different kind of adventure- adventures in adjustment.

Not wishing to exude the “I’m back from Europe, and it is so much better than America” attitude, there is beauty in the return to home. And this country is home. America may not have everything figured out, but the I have such a beautiful appreciation for my community and the people I love. I love sitting down with my family for dinner at night or meeting a friend who has known me since I was 10 for a cup of tea. Community is a place of comfortable companionship. It is in interaction and conversation with these people that serves as a mirror, a reflection back to us of who we were and who we are. With a community with which we have history, we are able to perceive better the change that time slowly, but assuredly works in our lives. It is one of the greatest gifts of community- an opportunity to better engage our heads and our hearts in this life.

So as my head and my heart engage in this transition of life, I am looking at old things in new ways. In articulating my experiences to others, I am having to internalize just what the past six months of my life represent. This is a bittersweet process. A dear friend asked me a great question yesterday. “When you landed on American soil, Sarah, was it a relief or a burden?” he asked. I stopped for a moment before answering, “Both.” The dream had to end and I knew its end was coming, but there was this deep part in me that secretly hoped it wouldn’t have to be that way. I guess it is the true definition of bittersweet. I’ve never been on such an emotionally difficult flight. Those extremely awkward 10 plus hours were startling.

But I accept that bittersweet. Each day is proving to be a new adventure in seeing how my new basket of experiences, thoughts, and ideas find their own room in this life.

That is why we need to travel. If we don't offer ourselves to the unknown our senses dull. Our world becomes small and we lose our sense of wonder. Our eyes don't lift to the horizon; our ears don't hear the sounds around us. The edge is off our experience, and we pass our days in a routine that is both comfortable and limiting. We wake up one day and find that we have lost our dreams in order to protect our days.

From Letters to My Son by Kent Nerburn