In these last months before I return to the US, I’m appreciating my surroundings more fully, like the mist on the hills I saw yesterday after it rained. The beauty of my fourth and final Spring in Kandern evokes the same sort of Sehnsucht as a new discovery, like the time I first discovered the sunlit meadow in the forest path, or the first time I ascended Hoch Blauen on foot. It’s the same feeling of longing for something beyond the good and beautiful that is often most striking when experienced for the first time. Except now the longing is tinged with a stronger element – hanging on, grasping, thirsting for the fullest taste of this thing which will soon be out of reach. It’s a longing for what I don’t miss yet, missing already what is here in front of me. I tell myself to experience it fully now, because in a few months I’m going back to the flat land of Illinois. Maybe the stronger the feelings now, the more deeply imprinted on my memory they will be. I can’t take the hills back to Illinois, but I can bring with me the memories of those pine-scented running paths, blossoming apple trees, and sunlit fields sparkling after a rain.
Yesterday, a few friends and I stopped at the self-serve flower field to cut some of our own fresh tulips. We were an eclectic group of friends, from Seattle, Minnesota, Alberta, and me from Illinois. All of us are in Germany together: picking tulips, teaching, living life as roommates. This experience of picking tulips was one of those moments to savor – this close community of friends doing something so beautiful and simple. But it was also a reminder of my other home in the States. Growing up, we had a row of tulips surrounding the bushes in my front yard. Every year, the first sign of Spring was the tulips poking their little green heads through the ground, eventually growing tall and blooming into colorful cups of petals. I do look forward to being at that home again; my deepest roots are there. I look forward to going home and hugging my parents again, hanging out with my brother, and seeing old friends. I look forward to being on the same continent as my boyfriend – being in the same time zone, having the ability to actually see each other in person more often, getting to see his eyes light up in person instead of through a pixelated Skype window.
I anticipate these joys of the future while mourning the loss of the past.
I’m caught in the in-between world of transition, loving and missing what is now and yearning for what is yet to come.
