Sometimes I wish I had never left my home village. Sometimes I think it would have been easier to have just stayed living and working in the area I grew up in. At the time I thought everything about my life was just right and I certainly don't recall any yearnings for friends and family farther afield. Everything was in arms reach and I was not frustrated by the way things were.
Having lived in 6 quite different countries on three continents, I have had wonderful culinary and cultural exposure. I have seen different ways of preparing cabbage (in South Africa you cut it open, tip in some onion soup mix, then a large knob of butter and finally throw it in the fire for a long while til it's cooked. Whilst in Germany you ferment it for weeks on end, producing the world famous Sauerkraut).
For breakfast I have enjoyed eating yoghurt and equally enjoyed eating marmite on toast. I have drunk cherry beer on cobblestone terraces and I have put maple syrup on just about everything.
I have lived in countries where there are more languages and dialects than I knew ever existed. I have also heard linguistic sounds that I can not replicate. I have lived in places where you wash tins out before placing in the right bin; I have lived in countries where you bundle up newspapers in a very particular way and place in front of your house at a specific time in order to be recycled. I have waited for hours and hours in emergency waiting rooms and I have also been seen at home by a Doctor, within minutes of a placing the call.
In all places I have met people who have changed my life and shaped me as a person. I have become richer because of these experiences and because of the delightful people who took the time to introduce me to their culture.
So why do I wish that I have never left my village?
Well there I did not know what was outside the walls. There I did not know that Foie Gras was a menu option, there I did not care which beer I drank. It was there I could drive to my friends and not wish there was a public transport system that ran like clockwork, with a frequency of 7 minutes. It was there that I accepted the way things were, rather than knowing how different things can be.
Now I find myself wishing to live in a place which combines all the best elements of the countries we have lived in. A country with the weather of one, the trams of another, the proximity of coast of yet another and the safety and cleanliness of another. In this combined country all my favorite people would live in the same street and we would all drink the beautiful tap water that comes directly from the mountains!
This vision of home does not exist and never will.
So it is now that I realize that any place I live there will be something missing. Therefore I wonder if I can ever be happy, knowing something is not quite right?
Have I been contaminated by experience?
My conclusion is that I know I took the right path and I know my life is better because of my travels. It is often more complex and challenging because of the knowledge we have collected on the way, but I also know that I can be happy anywhere in the world.
The condition to this happiness is that I find ways to continue to enjoy these cultural and culinary experiences with my favourite people. So to any of my friends reading this, thank you for tolerating my little cultural eccentricities. Thank you for allowing me to share with you any new habits or traditions I have picked up on the way. Thank you also for your willingness to taste different beers, try out new forms of cabbage and for simply allowing me to vent about about the size of the potholes in the road.
(Footnote, thank you to Mr. Shiny Shiny for the expression I shamelessly stole for my title!)
I totally echo your feelings on this issue! Sometimes "ignorance is bliss". I still would not trade those enriching experiences though. Mr. Shiny Shiny flattered by your title quote ;-)
ReplyDeleteMy first though also was "ignorance is bliss"...but nevertheless it is ignorance! so onward to more interesting experiences, people, food and beer! xo
ReplyDeleteI read this post in an afternoon in office. It touched my heart. I was so absorbed that I suddenly became nostalgic. A picture was vivid in my mind’s eye: my parents, my sister and l used to live in south-east of my hometown. One small kitchen where we used real fire to cook everything, and one bedroom for four. We shared a triangular courtyard with four other households. Life was so sweet in my memory. Long summer days, quiet streets, mama coming home with a paper-frog, my doctor father would give my sister a simulated injection because I, the younger one, dreaded it so much...And it was in that small kitchen, there was a small window from which I looked into a small garden of another family. I always wondered “what is behind that garden?”
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I sometime steam Chinese cabbage until it’s soft and the juice comes out. Then I put in drops of soy sauce and sesame oil. Simple but very delicious, at least for me. I just can’t live without soy sauce and sesame oil.
When it comes to breakfast, my new favorite is to put yogurt on each piece of bread topped with raspberry jam... miam miam ( I think this word if French. Youpi for myself), plus a glass of freshly-made soy milk. I have a soy milk maker. I can make one for you when you come back.
I left home when I was 19. I have left behind that small garden for close to 20 years now. If time could stand still, I would like to go back and relive my memory with my parents and my sister, and then come back to my current life.