Strangeness of being home

Last time I visited home I felt as though I hadn’t really left. I’d been gone six or seven weeks but everything at home still seemed familiar. The leaves hadn’t yet started to change. The grass was green and needed to be cut. It was as though I’d been away on a trip for work just a little longer than usual.

This time it seems different.

Changing planes at the airport in Newark the overall scene seems so different: people speaking only English, shirts and hats from U.S. sports teams, people carrying coffee cups with cardboard sleeves, gigantic cups of Coke that match the people drinking them.

The TSA personnel at the security checkpoint are obnoxious and yell directives at the growing line of travelers. Such people in Germany are largely indifferent – I think it is requirement of the job -- but at least they are not obnoxious.

On the drive from the airport I notice yet another shopping center has been built, with yet another set of the same stores: Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Petsmart. How many more of these does this area need?

I don’t mean this to sound negative. This is simply what seems most apparent.

The leaves are gone now, and the trees are just brown sticks. The grass has taken on the faded color of fall.

We stop at the grocery store. It seems huge to me now, brightly lit and with so much more stuff. This is something I miss. It is strange to see people pushing carts so loaded with food. It is strange for me to fill a cart with food. I never get more than I can carry in two bags. We go to the check-out line. The cashier is actually friendly. Out of reflex I’m about to start putting the groceries in a bag myself when one of the baggers comes over.

I find this whole process interesting. When I arrived in Germany, everything was strange and unfamiliar. I would walk 10 minutes to the store and be looking around at everything. I think that’s partly why we so easily recognize tourists. After a while though, a walk to the store was just a walk to the store. All the little details started to fade into the background as they became familiar.

Back at home after being away, the experience is similar. Many of those things that were part of the background are now very obvious.

I go for a trail run through the nearby West Woods park. It seems so quiet, and I don’t see another person. That never happens where I am in Germany. I go for a bike ride on one of my usual routes. These are roads I’ve ridden probably a thousand times, but now they seem fresh. For a moment, I’m a little disoriented and run a stop sign where there is cross-traffic.

There is also so much that seems so unattractive and out of balance: the sprawl, the parking lots, the huge vehicles, the endless stream of the same stores. I wonder how these things can be so overlooked.

Being able to see things from a different perspective is one of the opportunities of this work assignment. But I’m afraid it’s inevitable that no matter where you are, over time, you notice less and less. That is unfortunate.