The tumbleweeds have been blowing through this site lately, boy, I tell ya. I’m sure you all have noticed my absence, and I apologize for it. I have just been completely swamped with The Move. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say. I walk around all day long with thoughts and words racing through my head, and I always think that the minute I get home I will sit down and write everything down so that I can share it with the world. But then I get home, and I see that there is still something else to pack, or something to organize, or something to clean, and it somehow feels like a waste of my suddenly extremely precious time to sit and stare at my computer for however long when I could - and should - be doing something more concrete. After all, time is running out. In just over 36 hours, Jeremy and I will be on our way to England. If everything isn’t together by then - then we have a problem.

I’m really too tired to be writing right now (I can’t even focus on the screen properly), but I wanted to let everyone know that I have not, in fact, abandoned WordRidden, and that when I get a chance to come up for air, I’ll make the time to update on a more regular basis again. Until then, I’ll share this with you. It’s the first stanza of a poem called “Detective Story” by W.H. Auden, an absolutely amazing poet whose poetry I have come to adore.

“For who is ever quite without his landscape,
The straggling village street, the house in trees,
All near the church, or else the gloomy town house,
The one with the Corinthian pillars, or
The tiny workmanlike flat: in any case
A home, the centre where the three or four things
That happen to a man do happen? Yes,
Who cannot draw the map of his life, shade in
The little station where he meets his loves
And says good-bye continually, and mark the spot
Where the body of his happiness was first discovered?”

The first time I read this, it stopped me dead in my tracks (not that I was walking at the time - but you know what I mean). It just seemed so - so true. Who is ever quite without his landscape? Who cannot draw the map of his life? I can certainly draw a map. Give me wall-sized map of Europe and North America, give me a handful of push-pins and a pen or some string, and I can plot out the places I’ve lived, the places that have become a part of my landscape, a house in the trees, a tiny flat, a home. The places where things happened to me. The places where I’ve discovered happiness and where I’ve said good-bye continually.

I can chart my memories in an atlas and follow trains of thought across the western United States, or through the Black Forest, or now: across the English Channel and down the coast a ways, directly into the heart of a new life. Freiburg is about to change from being a destination to being a point of departure. I’m trying not to dwell on the departure and on saying goodbye continually. I’m looking forward to the arrival and the hellos and the excitement of the beginnings. I’ve got my push-pins and my string in hand. My landscape is about to be utterly transformed, and I’m ready to mark the spot on the map where a new happiness will be discovered.

The old happiness will not be forgotten. Jeremy and I went to one of our favorite restaurants tonight. We ate schnitzels as big as our heads and drank big, frosty beers. It was lovely. When we paid and were ready to go, our friendly waiter said, “Bis zum naechsten Mal” - “until next time”. He had no way of knowing that that was the last time we would be eating there for probably a very long time. It made me incredibly sad for a moment, but then I thought, “Why not?” I mean, why shouldn’t there be a next time, even if that “next time” is some time in the unforeseeable future? It’s certainly better than a goodbye. And anyway, none of the roads on the map of my life are one-way streets. I like to think that I will always be able travel back and forth. I may not be able to do it as often as I’d like, but that doesn’t mean the roads are closed to me forever. And I will always have my map in hand in case I should someday lose my way.