Now that I've been here for a couple months and had time to adjust to being in Germany, my mind has decided to start playing tricks on me. I'm melding locations, juxtaposing Valparaíso and Berkeley and Portland streets and buildings and landmarks onto Munich. If this weren't confusing enough, I'm seeing people from Chile and from the States here - people who cannot possibly be here. Stephanie's host siblings, Carrie's semi-stalker, a few random people from my high school, some swimmers here and there... On top of this, my languages are mixing together so much that I cannot tell which language I am thinking in. Spanish, English, German, all mixed up in my head and using the grammar from other languages, just to add a bit extra confusion. Maybe this is part of becoming familiar with a place? I start to relax and consider my surroundings to be normal or familiar and then my brain throws in images from other familiar places. This is a fun bit of psychosis, right now, let me tell ya...
I think being completely familiar with a place, being "at home" might occur when the surroundings are no longer strange, the architecture and landscapes no longer impressive. I remember Stephanie telling me at the end of last semester that she was glad to be leaving Chile in a way, because she never wanted to consider the cerros as everyday images; she wanted to maintain her wonder of the Valparaíso hills, and therefore would leave. I don't know that leaving the place is entirely necessary; but I agree with her on one part: I'd rather stay a stranger than lose the ability to be awed by my surroundings.
And I suppose in some way I'm succeeding, because I don't feel that I've become more Chilean, or more German. Rather, I'm becoming more neutral, and yet more American at the same time. I feel stronger ties to my own country, but at the same time more separated... In a way, I would like to have firm roots and feel like somewhere, just one place, is HOME. As it is, I don't know what I would refer to as my one home; the title is shared by the Bay Area, Portland, Valparaíso, and München.
I feel stretched, partially in four places and yet not completely in any of them. Part of me wants to latch on and put my roots firmly down somewhere, and then part of me wants to disconnect, so as not to be pulled, not be stretched...
It's making me feel thin, because I'm trying to love München, trying to understand it, and at the same time I miss my family and friends - in Berkeley, in Portland, and in Chile. I'm not even sure how to be homesick, because which one is "home"? Sometimes I am homesick for Lewis and Clark, sometimes for Berkeley, and sometimes for Valpo. At other times I miss all three at once, and then I just detach, but the thinning is still there...
...Nun aber schrumpft der Ort, wo du stehst:
Wohin jetzt, Schattenentblößter, wohin?
Steige. Taste empor.
Dünner wirst du, unkenntlicher, feiner!
Feiner: ein Faden,
an dem er herabwill, der Stern:
um unten zu schwimmen, unten,
wo er sich schimmern sieht: in der Dünung
wandernder Worte.
(Last stanza of "Sprich Auch Du" by Paul Celan)
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