Gasping. It’s like gasping for breath. Deep in your chest, a moment of longing for something, like the feeling right before you run out of air. Pain, maybe. A tinge of sadness. But longing, definitely longing. Homesickness looks different after sixteen months in my new home. It is less born from anxious instability or … [Read More]
Of Falling Walls and Saying Yes
I kept looking around, as if someone would come and save me and make it not so hard. It was just an invitation, an offer to eat lunch together. You wouldn’t think it was that big of a deal. But it is. It’s still scary to try to get to know people in this … [Read More]
Empty Chairs and Empty Tables: A Psycho-Spatial Goodbye Letter
213. It’s not really that long, and yet it’s felt like a short eternity. I didn’t know so much could happen in seven months. Seven months in a one-room apartment August-Bebel Straße 3, a basement in Unterer Wert. I came to know it as my home, just 6 weeks after my arrival here. It was … [Read More]
Trains, Planes, and Passive Verbs or Waiting for Home (Again)
It was quiet outside. Not even the Swans had started taunting the world around them, but laid still in their corner of the river bank as I passed by on my bike. Another early morning. Another day of travel. A trip to Heidelberg with our summer interns was underway, that is, as soon as I … [Read More]
Failing Inspiration and Other Things To Not Be Good At
I didn’t know I could be this tired. Another week, another exam, another hour of your morning being spent trying to figure out how to force a guttural “r” out of your throat. Another week, another meeting, another round of trying to figure out what it means to contextualize everything you thought was easy to … [Read More]
Whispers in the Middle
“It gets easier.” Not all at once. Not even gradually. It comes in waves, difficulty. The choppiness seems all-consuming at first, and then you start to find the rhythm of the swells. Anticipation is out of the question… that would be too easy. No, you’re always in the middle of it. There’s no practice run … [Read More]
Confessions of a Control Freak
Control. I like it. Too much. I like being able to know what is coming. I like to know details. I like to be able to change things that I think are harmful. I like doing things ahead of time, so that I don’t get surprised. Anticipation. Preparedness. All seemingly virtuous, desirable characteristics. That is, … [Read More]
Fear. Faith. Four Weeks.
“But what no one has the right to do is let others suppose that faith is something inferior or that it is an easy matter, when in fact it is the greatest and most difficult of all.” – Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling Let me confess, there is nothing easy about this. This. This life. … [Read More]
Putting Down Roots
“You have to put down roots.” The only thing more troubling that she could have said came next: “And if you are going to put down roots somewhere, that means you cannot hold on to roots elsewhere.” Like an arrow aimed straight at my heart, Michal Ruth’s words cut through my ribs to the tender … [Read More]