Heimkehr

"You can't go back home to your family-- to a young man's dream of fame and glory,to the country cottage away from strife and conflict, to the father you have lost, to all the old forms and systems of things which seems everlasting but are changing all the time." -- Thomas Wolfe, "You Can't Go Home Again"

Thank you, Ms. Monroe, for those years of quotation tests. Some of them are actually applicable to life.

Return is a strange thing. I could wax on about the theme of homecoming, of Heimkehr, of return in an Odyssean sense--but I shan't.

Coming back to the United States, entering at the Houston airport was a bit startling for me. I was shocked at the multiculturalism everywhere. The TV played a program about How to Go Through Customs and there were races of every stripe on the program, the same with the customs officers and the baggage control officers. At the end of the program, these officers came on, and in different languages, said, "Welcome to the United States." And then the program panned out to all the small clips and said, "WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES." What a bastard country this is, I thought. The words I said once to a fellow intern rang even more true now: "We're a country of mutts and mixed-breeds." We are. It is a country, on the whole, completely without any sense of style and order that Europe has. One would never think such a bastard, chaotic, style-less culture would be the world's most desirable place to live. But it is. And that's what's amazing about America. It is a country without preconceptions, without Ordnung, with only a loose tie to the past, it grasps greedily at the future and what tomorrow brings. A child born on American soil is American, regardless of the nationality of his or her parents, regardless of the language spoken at home. Because America isn't about concepts handed down from generation to generation, nor is it about race, nor language. America simply a land, soil in which possibility can grow, a workshop--as crazy and messed up as it is--a workshop for dreams.

This study abroad experience has been so eye-opening for me. I can't even begin to say. As my plane touched down in my hometown, I thought to myself: "That was it. That was my study abroad experience, and now it's over." But I quickly chided myself: That was one adventure, and there are many, many more adventures to come.

I'm posting a photo of Greenland with this post, simply because I felt the old last-walk-through-the-Englischer-Gartens wouldn't do. We flew over Greenland (yeah.... kinda far north) and down through Canada and near Hibbing, Minn. (birthplace of Robert Zimmerman). I was entranced by Greenland--this country where I had learned, "Iceland is nice and Greenland is full of ice" (this is very true). It actually existed. One could visit it, even.

My father once brought home a big, stiff-child-friendly map called "It's a Big, Big, World." I date it by telling you that Russia is named the U.S.S.R. I'm pulling it out and flipping through it now. Neuschwanstein Castle and a beer stein are painted over Bayern, a music note, mountains and sunglasses over Austria, gold bars in Switzerland. This colorful map brought me much delight as a child (and probably explains a lot about me now).

The opening pages read: "Have you ever thought about how big our world is, and how much there is to discover?"

But, my friends, this fun map for children has an essential truth: It's a big, big world. There's so much to say, I couldn't say it all in a thousand posts, so the silence shall have to suffice as gravity enough. I smile at you in the silence, and hope you and I can realize this endless world of wonder and opportunity.

Maybe a moonbeam, just a starbright, forever nightshade mary goodnight -Latin Playboys