EXIT/EXILE/EXPAT/EXPLAIN

Coming into America…
The first people I see…they have meaning that they cannot know, and they might not even understand.
I see them in their diversity and also in their inequality. In my hometown, at least, white people are the ones traveling, black and latino people are helping them do it.
Usually I am very pleased to see them all, thinking about how great my nation is, really. That’s what I was brought up to think. Watch any channel exported, calling itself “international”, like CNN, and I see my nation (“MY nation”, my country). Patriotism couldn’t be further apart as a concept of pride and citizenship /belonging between a German and an American.

What did Monika say last Wednesday: Ein Mensch ist 96% unbewusst, nur 4% bewusst. (A person is 96% unconscious, only 4% conscious of all that is around them.)
I would believe it, really. We do not know all of what influences us—I realized scent really influenced my emotions (the white carnation and red rose I doused in Dad’s cologne after he died, flowers pulled from the bouquets on his grave.) Then, I learned that our sense of smell might be the oldest sense we have, buried deep within our brains with its synapses and connectors...

I was at yet another German wedding last week. The party was additionally fun because of the music played—total ausgeprägt von Goth und 80-ziger Jahren hits! The Cure, The Clash, Sisters of Mercy, U2, and then Nirvana and Green Day.
I felt a pride that always occurs with hearing good English-language music.

I just sang along and looked around as I danced, wondering how many others would know the lyrics, AND what they meant at the time they were written or now. Somewhere singing along to U2. Tears filling my eyes at how far away Double Cell really is from me..and then we embrace eachother whole-heartedly after months of barely virtual communication. Someone wasn’t their to feel the distance with me.
WHY have we chosen this?? WHY have I chosen this life for myself??! This distance in my heart, my life, my understanding, is always somehow apart…if it wasn’t already, then I imagine it. Apart, disoriented, but mostly lovely. This is a partial response to Double Cell's musings on travel.