Remember that story you read in high school about people that were prisoners in a cave and never left it? It follows that one of these people was released and went out into the light for the first time, and when he returned he did not know how to describe it to the rest - grass, trees, sunlight, etc. It also mentions that he comes back seeing the dark atmosphere in the cave and the people around him.
[I’m not gonna go into enlightenment business with this, it’s leading up to something different.]
Can one experience something and not know how to describe it? Hospitality, friendship, organization, I can’t think of any other specifics right now. It transcends borders, psychological and physical. Culture. A different area of the world. A different mindset. I can’t put it into words in English, at least. I’m talking, of course about living in Germany, to get something out that I can understand, because I can’t quite grasp being home now and not there.
I lived there for just short of two months, and it was the longest time I’ve been alone away from home, and one of the best things I’ve ever done with myself. I’m struggling to say more than it was an eye-opening experience. It seems like I was there exactly long enough to become settled and accustomed to how life goes on there. Immediately or soon after I was plucked from my new-found potential home. I loved the country.
I knew it. I understood it. Not just becoming familiar with the systematic things, but to know the culture, the people, the place. It’s like savoir and connaître in French. [And in German, it’s kennen and wissen, if you were wondering.] But this is something I became part of. Not for very long, but apparently long enough to actually become part of it. It’s hard to describe with any sort of intellect, because I haven’t got any, really. But I can say that it is indeed something that takes a lot of hard thinking to put into words. Perhaps just writing down some stories about being there will help to understand what I’m going on about now. Actually, yes, I believe it will.
One day soon, possibly tomorrow. I just had to get this blurb out about it. I miss it so much right now.