Pleasant Plum #5
otčina (Home)
Prague, Czech Republic . She tried to explain it. The early spring air mixed with the grime of pollution. It was the smell of pastries, taxi exhaust, Astible blossoms and people. Idyllic and corrupted, ancient and modern. A place of tradition and tourism and the brilliant minds of Europe.
The faces across from her stared in uncomprehending boredom.
She had snapped senior year. Many thought the academic pressure had been to great, but it had really been the horrible vision of her future. She dutifully went to the psychologist and the counselor, but there was no change in her mind. She was set in her course. The year after, she worked her ass off. The only time to think and decompress was on Friday nights, where she flopped down on her puke green couch; not really thinking, but staring off to distant lands that only she could or would see.
Finally, it was time. A plane ticket was purchased. Armed with four semesters of German, a hiking pack, a good pair of walking shoes and hand sanitizer, she attacked Europe with an intensity that would have ended World War Two a year early.
She bought guides along the way. She would run into travelers, who taught her the survival skills. Hostels, Canadian Flag patches and discreetly “dumpster diving” to save a euro or two. She dreamed with 20 other twenty somethings in a hostel with bunk beds. She slept with men, and she might have slept with women.
Her first night in Mainz, Germany; she sobbed violently but quietly in her bunk. It was the day she hadn’t spoken a word in English. She was heaving silently, as though her body was being assimilated by something strange and yet beautiful. Roles of identity were shifting in her mind, for so long she had called herself a visitor, and now a mysterious longing wanted her “home” in Mainz.
She washed dishes, became a English tutor, and tried to hide the “ya’ll” that would give her away.
It was Prague though, that she instantly fell in love with. Enough people who spoke English, who could give just a glint-memory of home, and more than enough wonderfulness to keep her busy for months…
which then turned into years.
But she was back, warped by her time “abroad”, with more grey than her companions lounging around her unfinished scrapbook. Honestly, it was a relief for her; to do something girly, and go through the photos and process what had actually happened.
Here she had proof. When she had left, most her college friends had thought her mind had snapped.
She looked to their faces. She tried to explain where she had gone, what she had done, how it had changed her. She could see flashes of confusion and enmity as she accidentally used a German or Czech noun.
When they left, she heard one of her friends, indistinguishable from the rest of the “Midwest Twangs” (as she called them now) said:
“Boy, she really has changed, she almost seemed foreign”
She touched the picture of Prague lovingly, and remembered the smells of home.
Prague, Czech Republic . She tried to explain it. The early spring air mixed with the grime of pollution. It was the smell of pastries, taxi exhaust, Astible blossoms and people. Idyllic and corrupted, ancient and modern. A place of tradition and tourism and the brilliant minds of Europe.
The faces across from her stared in uncomprehending boredom.
She had snapped senior year. Many thought the academic pressure had been to great, but it had really been the horrible vision of her future. She dutifully went to the psychologist and the counselor, but there was no change in her mind. She was set in her course. The year after, she worked her ass off. The only time to think and decompress was on Friday nights, where she flopped down on her puke green couch; not really thinking, but staring off to distant lands that only she could or would see.
Finally, it was time. A plane ticket was purchased. Armed with four semesters of German, a hiking pack, a good pair of walking shoes and hand sanitizer, she attacked Europe with an intensity that would have ended World War Two a year early.
She bought guides along the way. She would run into travelers, who taught her the survival skills. Hostels, Canadian Flag patches and discreetly “dumpster diving” to save a euro or two. She dreamed with 20 other twenty somethings in a hostel with bunk beds. She slept with men, and she might have slept with women.
Her first night in Mainz, Germany; she sobbed violently but quietly in her bunk. It was the day she hadn’t spoken a word in English. She was heaving silently, as though her body was being assimilated by something strange and yet beautiful. Roles of identity were shifting in her mind, for so long she had called herself a visitor, and now a mysterious longing wanted her “home” in Mainz.
She washed dishes, became a English tutor, and tried to hide the “ya’ll” that would give her away.
It was Prague though, that she instantly fell in love with. Enough people who spoke English, who could give just a glint-memory of home, and more than enough wonderfulness to keep her busy for months…
which then turned into years.
But she was back, warped by her time “abroad”, with more grey than her companions lounging around her unfinished scrapbook. Honestly, it was a relief for her; to do something girly, and go through the photos and process what had actually happened.
Here she had proof. When she had left, most her college friends had thought her mind had snapped.
She looked to their faces. She tried to explain where she had gone, what she had done, how it had changed her. She could see flashes of confusion and enmity as she accidentally used a German or Czech noun.
When they left, she heard one of her friends, indistinguishable from the rest of the “Midwest Twangs” (as she called them now) said:
“Boy, she really has changed, she almost seemed foreign”
She touched the picture of Prague lovingly, and remembered the smells of home.
posted by Anonymous at 10:44 AM
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