Bittersweet Return

Already missing the streets of Europe

Nostalgia, that bittersweet feeling of missing the past, comes from the Greek word nostos meaning "a return home." Appropriate, I think. Homecoming is something we all long for, yet I'm not sure many of us ever achieve it. I'm not sure it's even possible to achieve. Home is a mental construction more than a place or even a set of people. Going home is the illusion of perfect belonging, and it always proves false once we arrive.

At least, that's how it is for me. At 8pm on August 30, I stepped off an airplane onto American soil (well, onto American carpeting at least). I was thrilled to be "home." After a long stay abroad, I was ready for barbecue and drip coffee and shops that open promptly at 8am and stay open until 10pm, even during lunch time. I had a new apartment to look forward to with new furniture and a walk-in closet where I could hang - actually hang! - far more clothes than could ever fit in a suitcase. I could go months at a time without worrying about catching a plane to anywhere. It was good to be back.

Ten days later it's still good to be back. I'm struggling every day to get more of my life together: reactivate my American cell phone, get internet service in my apartment, assemble my new furniture. I'm eating the foods I missed and buying Three Buck Chuck (a relief after dropping $25 on that Chateauneuf-du-Pape). But the real question is, did I come home? Did my nostalgia go away?

And the answer is of course not. I'm just nostalgic for my other homes now. Every day I think of something I miss: the wide, empty spaces of the Sardinian landscape, the gorgeous views along the Amalfi coast, the urban nightlife of Florence, or Paris's cafes. If I scratch below the surface of my most recent trip, I find I continue to miss places I lived many years ago. I miss the friendly pubs and fabulous whiskeys of Ireland. I miss the civilized urbanity of bike transport in the Netherlands. I miss the cool Troodos Mountains in Cyprus and I even miss - and I never thought I'd say this - the wonderful, polluted chaos that is Athens, Greece.

So even though I'm back in the land of my citizenship, I'll never quite settle in. There will always be that bit of nostalgia for the way things are back home.

Copyright 2010 Sara Harding