I'd just graduated from college and I was going abroad for the
first time, to spend a year in Germany as an exchange student at the University of Stuttgart.
School didn't start in Germany until mid-October. I'd fly to Bremen
on the 7th of September for a week of orientation before I went on
to my host university in Stuttgart. Until then, I was at home but
in an odd limbo, watching all my friends start jobs or graduate
school. People would talk about this party or that band, two weeks
from now, next month, and I would stop listening, knowing I
wouldn't be there. I was not in this narrative any more, I felt
ghostly, as though my hands would pass through things instead of
touching them.
The humid August weather gave way to a brilliant week of autumn:
cool dry mornings and impossibly blue sky. Rare for NC so early in
September. I felt like a person who is going to die--I thought,
Leave this? It's far too beautiful to leave.
On one of those mornings I said goodbye to my boyfriend, who was
from another city and still had a semester left to finish at the
university. We'd been pretty serious, and leaving him was almost
too much for me.
We'd also decided to date other people during the year I was gone.
It was the only thing that made sense for us to do, but still it
was hard.
And I was scared out of my mind to go to Germany. I could read and
write German passably, but speaking and understanding were much
more difficult. I had no idea how I'd manage over there, but I was
going and that was that. I'd throw myself in the water and I'd have
to swim then.
I came home from telling my boyfriend goodbye, and my best friend
from college was waiting for me. She saw that I was in a daze, so
she dragged me into my room and packed my suitcases for me. Yes,
every item in my suitcases, for an entire year, she packed. (She is
still my best friend.)
Then there was somehow sleep. By the time S. left the next morning,
I'd pulled myself together enough to put the finishing touches on
what she'd started.
My parents took me to the airport in the mid-afternoon. I have a
crooked photo of myself and my father taken by my mother (who is
Not A Photographer). I'm smiling, but you can tell it's not easy
for me, you can see the mix of eagerness and grief and desire and
alarm on my face. My father's smile, however, is big and proud and
purely happy.
I was lucky on the plane to Frankfurt. My seat partner was a German
businessman of about forty. In the overhead bin he stowed a live
lobster in a box with handles (presumably for boiling in the
Fatherland), and introduced himself in fluent English. Through the
evening he ordered us a steady stream of gin and tonics, and I kept
up with him, my Southern head for alcohol not forsaking me, even at
altitude.
I never did sleep, and was still a little drunk in the morning. As
we landed, the businessman laughed at my state and handed me his
card, said to call him if I ever needed anything while I was in the
country.
He kissed me on the cheek as we left the jetway and strode away
with his lobster.
Now I was in the Frankfurt airport, still buzzing away on gin, with
a three hour layover and shaky German.
I managed to change money and buy a cup of coffee (Einen Kaffee,
bitte! I will survive!) I drank it and then, because I was
afraid I'd fall asleep and miss my connecting flight, I began to
walk around the airport.
I had my Walkman and pulled out a
tape my boyfriend had made for me. "Psychedelic Furs," the
label read.
I popped it in and a moment later, the first song, "Forever Now",
was crashing in my ears. It was perfect for walking again and again
around the airport. I didn't play the rest of the tape, either,
just "Forever Now," over and over, as loud as I could stand
it:
you and i are walking past yeah
having lost our way
we don't count our money
we are giving it away
yeah giving it away
By the time they called my flight at last, I was sober and had a
dull headache. I drank more coffee on the plane, took two aspirin,
and was so excited to arrive I forgot my fatigue.
From the airport I took a taxi to my hotel, I'd burned the name and
address into my brain: Ueberseehotel, Wachtstrasse 27. Like an
incantation that could save me from all harm: Wachtstrasse
siebenundzwanzig, bitte.
I arrived at the hotel, checked in (oh, thank God they speak
English) and tried to sleep in the strange German bed with the
big feather comforter.
After a couple of hours I gave up on sleep and went outside in the
afternoon sunlight to the city marketplace, only a block away. It
was "long Saturday," the first Saturday of the month, so the shops
were open until 6 p.m. I was bemused and entranced; the whole sight
seemed as unreal as Disneyland.
doesn't this remind you
of these things we've done before?
like counting all the times
we've seen ourselves in other scenes
In the late afternoon someone knocked at my door. He introduced
himself as A. Several of us in the program had arrived a day early,
did I want to go out with them that night to the local disco?
Oh, yes.
So twelve hours after walking in the Frankfurt airport trying to
sober up, i was drinking gin again. This time without ice.
At some point in the night, A. and I looked at each other with some
kind of recognition. It was beyond gin and
newness, and it was mutual. And I suddenly knew my boyfriend and I had been wise to
decide we would see other people.
everybody's busy
listening and pulling blinds
this is all so stupid
we're just shouting.
i want you
The next day I was tired but otherwise I felt well and was ready to
start again. I would figure out how to make a new life far from
everything I'd ever known, in a new language. I wouldn't have to do
it entirely by myself. I would have help. I would be all
right.
If I had to choose a week of my life to be living always, this might be one. And yet I know I have days and weeks like
this yet to live.
you and i are walking past yeah
having lost our way
we don't count our money
we are giving it away
yeah giving it away
let it stay forever now
