The German Has Returned

This was written on September 18, 2013, in Vietnam:

The past few nights I haven’t been able to sleep through the night. I am exhausted in the evening and I often fall asleep, watching TV or reading a book. Then an hour later I wake and stay that way until dawn. Tonight is no different, except I finally understand my insomnia: it’s been exactly one year since I left the United States and returned to Germany.

As I sit here in my hotel room in Danang, Vietnam, I watch the curtains as they blow in the hot South-east Asian wind. I feel very close to the lightning and rumbling of the thunder on the 24^th floor of this high rise that towers over a shit-brown river. On my right I can see a lit-up, white statue of Buddha and on my left is a bridge in rainbow colors. Below on the streets, a Vietnamese man is trying to sell his services by repeating the same phrase, over and over.

The vision that pushed me over the edge tonight and finally transformed my insomnia into a very brief “cry-me-a-river” episode was of my dog Morla and I, walking in the Upper Peninsula fields at the Native American Sun Dance in Rapid River. It was during that time that one of the elders decided that I belong to the Wolf Clan, maa’iingan. Back then, thinking about the traits of a wolf, and my own personality, I found my new clan to be very fitting. I still feel that way, and the vision tonight reminded me that nothing really has changed yet at the same time everything has.

A year ago I was persuaded I am an American. I dreaded leaving my habitual and cozy life in one of the most beautiful spots on Earth with the greatest IPA, my closest friends and best dog ever. My goal was to return to Marquette as fast as I could, buy a house in the woods and live  a life as natural and sustainable as possible.

A year ago I complained about the German way, being suddenly so close to family again, moving back to my provincial home town, having to speak that guttural German language and feeling claustrophobic with 80 million people in a country the size of Michigan (which has only 9.8 million people).

A year ago, I thought 365 days is a long time.

Heavy torrential rain outside my hotel room draws me back into the present moment. I listen to the whistling wind under the door, which – how ironic – sounds like a howling wolf. I better take a look at the emergency exit map and locate the flashlight in case the newly built Novotel skyscraper doesn’t stand this crazy amount of water streaming from the heavens. I wish I could cry as much as it is raining and release all the stored up anxiety, pain and fear over the things that have happened in the past year: My dad’s cancer, my failure to write a book, my disappointing tangle with German men, fights with my mom, grandma’s poor health, almost collapsing under self-imposed workloads, more cancer and death in my extended family, cigarettes, missing my American home, walking without a dog at my side.

Yet during this year also a lot positive happened: I fell in love with Germany. Suddenly I enjoyed German words again, both written and spoken. I realized while mountain-biking the beauty of the German countryside. And look at that: German hip-hop music on my i-tunes. I switched from NPR to Die Zeit, and how did I ever exist without German food and Radler? The best part: I am close to my family again. So close that I can’t imagine leaving them again for another 16 years. It’s bittersweet, of course, since I am still as much of an Upper Peninsula wolf as I am a central German gal, but I think it’s time for me to give Deutschland a second chance.

In Vietnam, the rain has eased a little and the howling sounds more like a ghost now. I am beat and ready to try sleep again. Perhaps I can actually relax now since I finally said it out loud: “The German has returned.”