There was a small exchange of thoughts between me and Sarah shortly after I returned to Austria. One that still resonates strongly within me. “Doesn’t it all feel like a dream?” was one of the rhetorical questions Sarah posed. – followed by a “I can only imagine how you are feeling now.”
Of course, such a train of thought might be very fitting for a post here on our blog: what was it like to find my way back into the “old traffic flow” in Austria? Was it necessary to reintegrate or even resocialize me over here? And above all of course: How did it, or how does it still feel for me here now, almost two weeks after my return?
I think my humble attempt to answer this might sound quite unexpected. It’s certainly a “mixed bag” of many things. Perhaps it might even be a bit perplexing for some. The latter is indeed true for me as well. It still is.
The first week felt as if I was actually cozily wrapped in a tired yet vibrant dream of two different worlds. In the second week the “veil of jet-lag” gradually lifted and at the same time the waiting, friendly arms of family, friends, and colleagues gently (and yet too quickly) led me back to the familiar. So seamlessly that I increasingly and more frequently asked myself the doubting question: “Was I ever really away?” Speaking German again, my overall feelings, me reconnecting with work within just a few moments – everything felt as if I had only been away for a weekend, if at all.
As much as life here has progressively and gently wrapped its arms around me again it would be all too easy to assume that the old and ordinary is filling out every inch of my mind again. As deeply as I sometimes believe I am stuck in this sad doubt of “Was I ever really away?” it’s the smallest of things that can so suprisingly and effortlessly catapult me out of that situation again. Things like a simple roundabout sign near my working place that instantly reminds me of the – so called – rotary near Wakefield. A local friend named Georg, who immediately reminds me of all the Georges I had the pleasure of briefly meeting in America. A typical wooden fence from over here which inevitably makes me think of the Rhode Island, the Atlantic and those beloved fences at the beaches, by the sea. And of course: every time I write to Sarah or, as it happened past week, when I read her latest blog post about Murphy’s Law and the Sons of Liberty Distillery – a place we might not have visited (yet) but one to which we have been “that close”, only a few weeks ago! It’s these seemingly “small” things and moments of everyday life over here in Austria that always trigger such unexpectedly big memories, big smiles, so much warmth and – not to forget – such huge inspiration inside of me!
Life is constant change and learning. That’s what they say. I want to add wonder to that. As a thinker and dreamer, as a reflector of feelings and a travelling man I probably need an entirely new category for such a kind of experience and journey now: when the distant felt and still feels very close and personally familiar – so close and familiar that my own mind seems to make no big difference to the actual near, letting all those big memories slumber quite inconspicuously along all the others inside my mind. I am curious to see how my answer to this topic and this journey might change over time. I am certain it will, many times maybe. Fascinating, how a human’s mind works.