After formal words, people usually come up with a question:
"Do you feel homesick?"
My answer is not easy, and I usually
avoid it somehow. Well, if you really truly want to know, this is how I am:
First I would like to mention that I moved to America, so to say, with my eyes open. It was not a candy-flavored dream, nor something I would strive for head over heels. Instead, my partner has reached a figurative Mt. Everest in his profession -- once I wanted to live with him, I had to follow him "up" -- and I would have come even if that Everest were in Albania or Antarctica. Fate was merciful, though -- this apex happens to be a Valley, and, on top of it, in a middle of a pleasant California.
My next lucky charm was English. Before my arrival, it had been my working language for nine years, hence I dodged desperation of facing incomprehensible public signs; I had minimal friction with government and business officials all the way to store managers; I needed no interpreting at doctor's. I had yet another "advantage" - I did not leave Bohemia in anger, disgust, or even bad spirit; nor was I forced to leave. My departure was not an escape -- neither from nor towards anything. It was simply a change in locality.
I'm not trying to claim that I had a simple decision to make, or that I would
make it lightheartedly. To leave my family, friends, excellent job, beloved
car... and embark for a land where people used to watch Disney cartoons every
Saturday morning instead of an every day "Bedtimer" (a short evening
TV show for children); a land where few had experienced a totalitarian government,
public transport is (practically) non-existent, baby Jesus does not
deliver Christmas presents, maternal leave is limited to a few weeks, housing market
is not regulated, official rubber stamps are rare, Easter Monday is not a holiday,
supermarkets practically never close, smoking is banned from public
places, really bad wine is very hard to find -- and so is decent beer; there is
pre-school but no after-school (organized daily occupation/entertainment
for kids after classes)... the sum total somehow breaks even -- and again, nobody
made that decision for me. I had to make it myself.
And so I did, living here and accepting it just like Betty McDonald -- if you marry
a shoe retailer, don't complain he's not making as much money as a doctor would,
and if you marry a doctor, don't complain that his worktime is not as regular as
retailer's. I know this simile does not quite fit Czech reality (especially
doctors' wages), but otherwise I'd underwrite it anytime. You get what you pay for,
and you pay for everything you get eventually, the trick is to choose what's necessary
and what's not. That's where I cannot complain -- America has opened my eyes and
widened my options. Things that I gained mean more to me than those I lost.
So where is my homesickness? It's still here. Curiously, I first thought of mostly missing Prague, castle in Telč, Southern Bohemia lakes, tiny churches just like painted by Lada, grassy paths among harvest-ready grain fields, or really good beer. But it is not so. When I get there, all these landmarks remain still in their usual places. They did not leave anywhere, they did not sprout green antennae, and just between us friends -- back when I lived in Prague, I was never such a frequent visitor to the Castle like I am now, when it grew more exclusive to me. Culture-wise, books still attract me the most -- and those can be read no matter where I am. It's only a bit more difficult with movies (USA has a different standard for tapes and disks than Europe and Japan), but that can be solved.
For I am not truly homesick after things or places. I miss the "silly stuff".
During Christmas time, I always recall expeditions to a forest, to pick the best Christmas
tree, which took a long time and resulted in our bringing back some poor deformed one,
as we'd feel sorry cutting a pretty one. I miss hot tea in a pot after a whole day
freezing out cross-country skiing or skating; watching out for baby Jesus on a cold
porch (so that our parents could "secretly" light up candles). I miss one particular
feeling I repeatedly had just at the beginning of those wonderfully eternal two months of summer
holidays; I remember hidden mushroom spots, our high school gang,
my first romantic crushes, evenings stretching into dawn somewhere outdoors with a guitar,
the smell of our original (now gone) apartment.
Only when I gained a new family of my own, memories from my original family come out much clearer,
along with those from my childhood and "young years".
Yet, would it be any different had I stayed in Czech Republic? Could I repeat any of them?
My old sweethearts are all gone, married; mushroom places grew over, the gang of my friends
are all busy taking care of their own kids, and a thousand handsome guitar players would
not grab my heart like my Hippo did, cooking a special soup for me while my throat was
sick so that I'd get something in my stomach. And so I keep dreaming about things that had
been and shall be no more, whose beauty lies in the fact that I COULD live them at all.
Would I like to return home? Well, which one? Is home a stuffy collection of buildings and faces, or the place where one strips her calluses bloody while gardening, drinks a Sunday glass of Chardonnay under a sunshade, curses her cold-hearted boss, chats with a colleague, bitches about a long queue at a post office, admires a sunset, resigns to getting stuck in traffic jams, greets her neighbors, visits her friends, pays her bills? Is home a geographical term, or a state of mind that we all carry around with us?
PS: If I could still wish for one thing -- pretty please, could anybody finally invent teleportation, so I could sit down to a coffee chat with my mom once a week again?