Traveling Transformations

 

UPDATE:

I wrote this six years ago after my return from my sabbatical. I can't believe six years have gone by already. So much has changed and I'm six years older. I re-read what I wrote and honestly, I would not change a thing. My feelings about Europe are still as potent as they were then. I've been back to Germany and Austria in 2009, and the feeling of being "home" was stronger than ever. I do believe that travel is the best teacher. I sincerly hope you find a journey as exciting and transforming as mine.

Gute Reise!

San Francisco, 2012

 

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Who would have thought that my travels through Europe would transform my life forever? I had visited Europe as a wide-eyed but rather naive twenty year old. On January 30th, 2006 I got on the plane again, hopefully years wiser and less naive, but just as wide-eyed as that August thirty-five years ago. This time I was on a sabbatical that would take me to England, France and Germany.

I have George W. Bush to thank for this adventure. It was his reelection in 2004 which made me so despondent that I thought I just had to do something to get out of myself; to get out of the country. Not wanting to uproot totally and leave my job and family, I decided that a sabbatical would be just the ticket. Luckily, my school agreed. I had been teaching since 1989; fulltime for the past seven years. I felt it was time to recharge the batteries and bring a new perspective to my teaching.

Teaching a course on the Holocaust, I decided that I would like to visit Dachau. Wanting to speak French, I decided to take a beginner's course thinking I would be fluent within a week. I had a great desire to learn more about art and music. To that end, I wanted to visit the British Museum and National Gallery which I didn't have a chance to do 35 years ago. The Louvre and Musee D'Orsay in Paris would be put on the list of "must sees." Fascinated by different cultures, I wanted to see how the other half lived. I wanted to lose 25 pounds! I was fortunate that my colleague who taught art was offered a teaching abroad position in Paris at the same time. I shared an apartment in the 12th arrondissement in Paris with her for seven weeks.

Making arrangements for the trip was exciting but also quite scary. There were so many things to remember. Don't forget the pills, bring your favorite photos in case you get homesick, make sure all your personal papers are in order just in case...I was leaving behind all that I had known and felt safe with, my partner of 20 years, my colleagues at school, my friends and family. My favorite therapist! She had warned me; the leaving will be hard, but the coming back will be more difficult. As usual, she was right! The week before I managed to talk or visit everyone who was near and dear to me, just in case... I updated everyone's email so I could keep in touch. I found out that the internet would be my lifeline.

In addition to my wanderings in Europe, I also planned on flying back to Washington, DC rather than San Francisco. I was going to visit two very dear friends who had must moved there; I hadn't seen them in five years. After a few days there, I was to fly to New York to spend two weeks in my hometown. A few months prior I had a dream about "going home"; in the dream I was searching for my mother. The lure was so strong that I knew I needed to walk the streets, spend time with friends and family, and revisit the house where I grew up. I hadn't been back to the house since 1999, the year my mother passed away. I couldn't bring myself to visit. Now, it was time. After all, hadn't she given me "the signal?"

My mother was very much on mind as I embarked on my journey. You see, she instilled many of her core beliefs in her three girls. While I got the shape (not a good thing) and her pleasant disposition (a good thing), I also inherited her fears. I grew fearful of well, almost everything. It wasn't just the fear of water, flying, wind, loud noises that scared me, it was the fear of not being smart enough, thin enough, or pleasant enough (keep smiling I was told). I had a hard time trusting my decisions. I had grown up with a particular world view. A friend put it best. I'm unsure where the saying comes from but it fits me exactly. "Some people see the world as a sea of danger with islands of safety; others see the world as a sea of safety with islands of danger." Guess which one I am?

In addition, I also had to deal with my physical limitations. I have had fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome for the past twenty eight years. There were days when I couldn't get out of bed, nor did I want to. I guess the best way to describe the feeling is to try and imagine having five or ten pound sandbags hanging off your body; they pull you down and you can barely move. I thought how am I going to get my luggage up and down the Metro stairs? Will I have the energy to walk through the British Museum (concrete floors just kill me) without stopping every five minutes to rest? Would I be able to manage a trip from Paris to Munich by train all alone? Will I be able to make decisions successfully? How about just getting on the plane for ten hours? There were so many doubts in my mind. Well, this is what I found out.

First, I have plenty of stamina! Granted the first few days I just wanted someone to put me out of my misery. I felt awful; pain and fatigue consumed my body. But, I managed to huff and puff my way through the Tube stations, managed to stay on my feet at least an hour at the British Museum, and schlepped two pull-ons, a backpack and personal satchel up and down the Metro stairs. Within one week of settling in Paris, I was walking two miles per day, and carrying groceries home from the supermarket. I should have counted how many train stairs I have walked up and down, I bet it must have been over 2000!

Second, I made swift and smart decisions. I must have gotten stale along the way, what I mean is, when you live with someone for twenty six years you must take their feelings and needs into your decision making. Here I was alone with my decisions; I had no one else to rely on except myself. How liberating!

Third, I discovered that I must have been suffering from acute circuit overload. At home my responsibilties were to my partner, our two dogs, and my extended family. At school it was to my students, my dean, my colleagues. I fretted over the way the country was headed, consumed by politics and the war. I felt there were never-ending demands on my time. It is true and I have been told that I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. At times I feel responsible for everything and everybody! Another core belief from mother, I assume. How liberating it was to just think about myself.

Fourth, I discovered I liked to write. I knew I always had a story in me, I love to daydream and fantasize. One night, early on into our stay in Paris, I sat down at my trusty iBook and began typing. Two hours later I had thirty pages. I had the bug. This was my routine - I'd get up around 7:30, have breakfast, clean up a little around the apartment, then plan my day. Sometimes I knew where I was headed, other times I'd just pick a Walking Tour of Paris guide card and take off. After three or four hours of walking, visiting a museum or other attraction, I'd head to the supermarket, pick up something for dinner and head back to the apartment. There I would put on the headphones and listen to my French music, all the while pounding away on the keys. It was blissful. My housemate came home around 7 pm, we'd have our dinner, a glass of vin, then I returned to my masterpiece.

Fifth, I am by nature a very friendly and trusting person. A core belief had been to never to talk to strangers, be wary of everyone. Well, I can't tell you how many strangers I spoke to on my travels. I found that the majority of people, wherever I was, want to be helpful, many would go out of their way to be helpful. There was the man in the Tube station in London who picked up my colleagues two very, very large suitcases, and as he ran up the steps he called over his shoulder, "help your mate." (that was me). Or, the French mail delivery person, a beautiful black women who walked out of her way to bring me to the right street in Paris. The bartender in Munich, who seeing I was alone and perhaps lonely tried to carry on a conversation with me, me with my cryptic German, he with his limited English. He even put on American music for me thinking I might be homesick (I didn't have the heart to tell him I preferred German music). So, in my mind the world certainly is a sea of safety with only islands of danger. I didn't find any of those islands on my travels. In fact, I joke that the only time I felt in danger was trying to get on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway at rush hour!

My return

Well, my therapist said it would be a challenge when I returned home and boy, was she right. First, I really didn't want to come home. It isn't that I just found the French more refined or the Germans more polite, it is just that I felt "at home" there. It is a feeling that is still hard for me to describe. Naturally, our present political situation also made some of the colleagues who taught in the Study Abroad Program and myself refer to America as the TWC...third world country! I found myself being critical of almost everything American.