A Place I Can Call Home: My Transition
A Home Away From
I, having been under a bit of stress lately, have been thinking of ways to shake the blues. What I needed was a few days of sitting and being still. A few days of being by myself. I could have done it at my home but I needed a change for a while so I began to look around for places I could go. Paris is the usual suspect. I ended up paying more than double what I would usually pay for the three-hour train ticket and about the same for a room for a few nights where I usually stay. Apparently, there was a holiday over the weekend. When this is the case, Germans flock by the thousands to Paris to get a bit of the beauty in the city during springtime. I packed a few changes of clothing and three of my most important things; my Camera and some Kodak Portra, my fountain pen, and my journal. I headed out to the train station with my favorite shoes on. How could I not have seen that not only did they had a hole in the front toe but also some of the sole on the back was “talking” as I walked. All of this is from over three years of walking around Europe through different cities. Something told me to check and see if I had my passport, a document you don’t necessarily need in the EU provided you passed through customs in another EU country. It was there. I looked at it carefully and read what the expiration date said “August 13th, 2024”.
ABOVE: A man and his dog sit next to a stand of beads next to the street I was wandering down. Animals, particularly cats and dogs are territorial and don’t like to be moved around from place to place. I understand why.
ABOVE: Very spontaneously I lucked up and found a group called “Black and Abroad” who were doing a wine tasting in the Maire area. Everyone was speaking English and I felt like I was “home” again.
I don’t want to talk about Paris this time although the city inspired me to do this piece. Instead, I have to get right down to business and discuss what has been going on through my mind when I see the people in this place.
I’ve been living off and on in Europe since 2003. I remember when you could smoke in any establishment, be it a club or a restaurant. I remember when the idea of fast food in Germany was the local Doner spot down the street in the Turkish neighborhood. I had never seen a Kentucky Fried Chicken or a Pizza Hut anywhere in Germany. Sure you had the “Mickey-Ds” here and there but they were few and far between. I hadn’t seen a Syrian or Afghani refuge, they weren’t here yet. I was 22 years old and about to turn 23. Prior to that I had only ever lived in one place. That was about twenty years ago. During that time I’ve been living in Europe for more than half of that. Its not about where you are from but about where you end up staying.
ABOVE: This woman was looking at me look at her through my sunshades. I didn’t ask for a picture, I just took it and she didn’t ask for it not to happen, she just posed.
Could It Be Time To Go Home?
Since then, I have travelled and lived all over the world in Europe, Asia, the Americas. I’ve travelled to well over 20 different countries for extensive period of time. In fact, I was one of the first people in my family to have travelled outside of the continental United States. Every time I go back, which isn’t often, people ask me how it is “over there”. “How are the people?” They ask and usually follow it up with a lot of “I heard this and I heard that about how they live” type of banter. All of which I simply say, they live about how we live over here. Not that much different. All of which, of course, is not at all partially true. I do this for the sake of not going off kilt and splurging out how much of an expat I have become, and how much I have grown to despise so many things about the USA. They would either be turned off, get defensive, or think I needed some mental help or a mixture of all three.
ABOVE: My favourite neighbourhood to be is Montmarte on the outskirts of the Paris city centre. This gentlemen is almost 60 years old and was born and raised in Montmarte. I asked him what is the most important thing about Montmarte and he said, “The people…the soul of the people”.
The fact is I could never live in the United States again. I have an episode of reverse culture shocks every time I go “home”. For those of you International Relations specialist out there you may think that the “Western Countries” are indeed alike and that there is no real significant difference between the two European Union style and American. I’d beg to differ and counter that stance. Where would I start? Maybe at the extensive, overindulgent reliance on cars and underappreciated or flat out nonexistent public transportation. In Europe I don’t even own a car and can travel over 50 miles away to another city from where I live and get in and around that city without one for as little as 15 Euro. I can’t remember the last time I have sat in traffic. I was at a relatives house and asked if she wanted to go to the park and she said yes and proceeded to grab her car keys. The nearest park, in hers and many other communities in the states are many miles away. We can move onto the insane health care crisis and costs. I know people who would rather not go to the hospital for a checkup and potential cope with a perfectly preventable illness because it would cost too much. The over emphasis on tech in the United States is real. Last time I was there I saw a guy wearing two Apple Watches, typing on a Macbook while looking at an Ipad. Not that people don’t have tech in Europe but how much is enough? The athleisure (oh the athleisure). People don’t even try to look good in a lot of cities back home. Comfort over fashion seems to be the everyday idea for most people but is it not possible to be both? I can go on and on, but I don’t want to. Suffice it enough to say I feel like a stranger in my own country when I go back to the United States. I’m just not like the normal typical Nationalist American anymore. That’s not to say I don’t love the people in the country, I just don’t feel at home anymore and I don’t agree with the lifestyle.
ABOVE: A street performed and his beloved cat. I actually met him before he sat down in the street to play. I asked him if he always “dresses the part” in terms of him being a street artist and he said NO! “Everybody in Montmarte has their own style. We all know each other here.”
I’m closer to fifty than I am thirty. I loved my thirties; I really loved my thirties! I don’t plan to slow down very significantly but at some point, it’s time for me to find somewhere to nestle in. I’ve been doing a ton of running around in these last years, it’s the reason I have holes in my shoes now. It’s like a child of say three or four years old. They run around hard for a few hours and then, when they get tired, they cry and cry not knowing what that feeling of exhaustion is and they fight it until all they can do is find somewhere to nestle in and take a nap for a few minutes or an hour. That place is usually never where the child feels most uncomfortable or even a little uncomfortable. Indeed, its somewhere they feel loved and appreciated. Somewhere gentle that can absorb them.
ABOVE: Around the way somewhere in the 13th near Goncourt metro, I spotted another local who told me he has been coming to this same cafe to read a paper every day for 20 years.
Earlier, I spoke a lot about how I no longer relate to the United States and its culture anymore. I’m unsure if it’s entirely because of my extensive time I’ve spent overseas although I’m sure it has at least something to do with it. I’ve learned a lot living overseas and especially Germany. You would be forgiven if you thought that Germany would be my “nestling place” like the baby analogy I used above. The truth is, I don’t and never really have nestled with Germany. It’s because of the way I am treated in the country primarily. One example is the language. I speak German at the C1 or so level, enough to order food, ask directions, read correspondence, and express myself when need be. I’m not, however going to be writing any political speeches anytime soon and I do struggle to keep up 100% with certain news programs. Despite my high level of German, whenever I speak the language and someone hears my heavy accent, they change the language to English, despite me having made no mistake speaking the language. In other words, I’m treated like a foreigner, like I’m not at home. “Oh, I just thought it would be easier for you.” Is the usual answer. The problem is I never said it was hard in the first place.
Another reason, and maybe the most important is the lack of those who love you are few and far between. I don’t have many loved ones, but the ones that I have are getting older and I wish I could see them as easily as taking an hour or so drive away like some of the people do here that I know. I’m sometimes a bit lonely, and I know if something were to happen to me, it would be an inconvenience for my loved ones to fly from the United States to see me or check on me. I’ve been here for a long time but not long enough to have that type of support system.
ABOVE: A mother and daughter play a little game. I decided to speak to both and not to my surprise neither spoke English. Eventually I found a translator that came by and she told me that the mother did the same thing with her when she was this age. The mother was 56 years old.
ABOVE: She is a fashion student somewhere in Paris. I asked her where she was from and she said Pigalle, a neighbourhood in Paris.
One Thing at a Time: First Things First
I had my passport in my bag while I was sitting on a park bench somewhere in the 13th Arrondissment in Paris. I had been sitting there for hours pondering life, reading over what people had said to them after I photographed them. 2024 was the year my passport is going to expired which would mean I would need another one soon and a renewed VISA. I thought to myself, for less than three minutes that I wouldn’t need a VISA or a Passport if I went back home. During that 120 seconds of thought, I couldn’t find a thing that could keep me there for a second longer. My home is somewhere in Europe, somewhere where the water is warm and its sunny most days of the year. So what if I don’t have any loved ones here in Europe. I can always “create some”. Well maybe that thought is a little extreme I say as I write this, or maybe not.
I’ll be moving to Rome, Italy at the end of June or beginning of July to start yet another adventure. I am ready and optimistic for this move. I don’t know if it will be my last, or if Germany is waiting for me to come “home”. What I did settle on is that I needed some new shoes, and that’s what I bought. Ready for the next three years of wear and tear.
ABOVE: An Italian photographer and writer I saw seated at a cafe. Her and I had a lot in common, two wanderers in a foreign country who don’t speak the language. I wish her the best.