You Are Here.

Suggested music for this post: Soul Meets Body. Death Cab. No, I’m NOT “getting over” Death Cab. Stop telling me it’s time.

The past few nights I’ve been dreaming about Europe. I wake up thinking of Germany or Italy or someplace I know is Europe but can’t quite identify. Last night I was standing in the kitchen while a child spoke to me in a nearly unintelligible Berlin dialect. “Bitte, du sprichts zu schnell; ich kann nicht dich verstehen. Langsammer, langsammer…” I said to this 10 or 11 year old kid. We seemed to be on friendly terms, but I didn’t know who he was.

We were talking about my walk to their house, a farmhouse in a hilly area. For a while, I’d tramped through fields, then along a bike path, and finally, on the shoulder of the road while trucks blew by me with their headlights on in the settling light. I was reasonably confident that I was going the right way. The landmarks were correct, but when I got close to them they were not what they appeared — a roadside chapel wasn’t a little domed chapel, it was an upturned bowl on a cardboard box.

I like it when my dreams are so vivid as to seem real, when I wake up with the details right at the front of my consciousness. It’s as though I’ve been to a farmhouse in Germany rather than in my bed sleeping. I do find it exhausting, though, because it’s as though I’ve been to a German farmhouse rather than sleeping. I wake up feeling heavy and stiff from the mental exercise of drawing all those 3-D pictures and then walking around in them.

I’m sure that I’m dreaming about Europe because as the season shifts to winter, more and more people are asking me why I’m here. Not in an existential sort of way, but typically, at this time of year, I find just the right renter from Craig’s List and I board a plane for Austria. This year, because we scheduled our plans around my parents’ visit to Austria, we’re here for the winter. Home for the holidays, as it were.

It is a delight to be here in the cozy season. Friends are nested in their houses but they are no less welcoming for it — there is baking happening and they are always willing to put the kettle on for me when I wander by. There are little parties, and bigger ones. A few nights ago I drove home from dinner using the surface streets, listening to a sweet, twangy folk music CD and looking at the Christmas lights.

My dreams about Europe are surely not based in dissatisfaction; it must be more displacement than anything else. It is odd to be so content at home and to have my subconscious trotting out the German phrase book. I do love the snow on the ground back in Austria, and the bright blue sky over the white landscape, but I don’t prefer it over the company of my Seattle friends. Because I think I’m so content to be here, it feels especially odd to wake up thinking in German.

Not really at home in Austria, I looked out at what little snow we had in Seattle and thought, bring it on! Bring it on! I would embrace an Austrian alpine winter with open arms. And, while sleeping, I set myself to wandering the roads of Europe. In my waking life, I stroll down the block and hurl myself onto the sofa of my adopted neighborhood family, just to hear them chatter about their lives. And when my doorbell rings, I am thrilled to see people I adore on my front porch.

Awake, I’m home. Asleep, I’m roaming. All this living abroad has made me one peculiar critter.