davethegrinch.net

Sarah says:

I wonder how many times I’ve flown in and out of Sea-Tac airport. Over the past 10 years, hopping on a plane for everything from same-day business trips to our three-month life break in New Zealand, I’m gonna go ahead and average maybe 5 round-trips a year which has my tally roughly at 50 take-offs and landings in and out of Seattle. And each and every time I see those gorgeous mountains, those amazing lakes and that beautiful city skyline, it takes my breath away. It doesn’t matter what kind of excitement I’m flying off to, I’m always sad to be saying goodbye and it’s the view that is the first to welcome me back home. No matter how many times I see it, the awe never wanes. It is simply stunning and it means home.

Of course my last take-off out of Seattle was January 8, 2007 and I have since had 33 take-offs and landings. THIRTY-THREE! Our carbon footprint this year is absolutely enormous and this number is really nothing to be proud of but my point is this - not a single one of those take-offs or landings had the spectacular view out of the window that you can have from Seattle and certainly none had the same feeling as flying home but that’s OK because not one of those flights was actually returning me home. That is until my flight on September 25th and my eight flights since then.

As most of you know, I have secured a contract position with my former employer that allows me to work remotely from our apartment in Amsterdam and in return I commute to their London office every other Monday morning and return to Amsterdam Tuesday evening. September 25th marked my return to the ever-familiar and ever-glamour free world of business travel. Even trans-continental business travel is not really all that glamourous. It felt strangely similar to every other business trip I’ve ever taken except this time I had to clear immigration - between two countries I’m not allowed to work in which made explaining my interesting non-working working situation almost dramatic/traumatic/problematic/deportomatic. However, my story eventually seemed reasonable to the nice immigration man and once drama was safely avoided, it was business as usual.

Work travel is work travel is……work…..travel. Rising well before the sun, traveling on every possible form of public transportation, drinking soothing smelling but terrible tasting airline coffee, security, immigration, customs, two different currencies, desperately trying to remember to get a reciept for everything, hours in an office, work work work, drag your trusty carry on luggage across town to check in to your home away from home, plug in your laptop before you even take off your shoes, back to work and still working at 9pm, where have the hours gone??, order room service, watch some TV, take a shower and smile at leaving the towel on the floor, sleep, rise well before the sun, do the whole thing over again in reverse. finally……returning home…..like a record…playing…backward.

And technically I was returning “home”. I was returning to the city where I’m currently paying rent. My husband was there waiting for me. And, as I guzzled my free KLM international flight wine (tip for next time: free wine on international flights is great and it certainly was welcome after working and commuting, etc. but the London-Amsterdam flight is only 40 minutes which equals about 15 minutes to drink cold red wine which isn’t pleasant so next time go for white), I had a brief “ahhh” moment as we were descending into my new, if temporary, European home city and the captain said prepare for landing.

And then the ahhhh moment disappeared and suddenly I was struck hard by my very first bout of homesickness. It felt like a normal work trip, it had all the markings of a normal work trip, the overall travel time was about the same, I had a laptop with me, life felt normal, familiar, the same..but..but..

Where were the mountains??

Where were the pretty lights??

Where was the Space Needle??

The yellow cab? I5? Downtown Seattle? Capitol Hill???? My lovely condo???? My home?

I am returning to a city that I don’t really know, yet I’m living my normal life in. I am expecting the city to wrap its comforting arms around me and welcome me home. But it can’t - despite it’s willingness, it simply can’t. It’s not the city, it’s me. I’m just a tourist with a roll-a-board and some high-heeled shoes.

There is an unmistakeable feeling of landing in a new place, a city you’ve never been to before, a new discovery. We have had so many opportunities this year to feel that sense of excitement that we’ve almost been too busy to feel any homesickness. For as long as we’ve been away from home, the only bit of home that I really needed was my husband by my side. This feeling of landing in a new place is unmistakeable because it can never been mistaken for the feeling of a homecoming. There certainly have been places along the way where we’ve stayed for a while. But none of these places were ever pretending to be anything other long short stays and we, though we always tried to become familiar with the local ways and assimilate, never pretended to be anything more than observers, maybe sometimes contributors, but mostly selfish observers…tourists.

There is also a very unmistakeable feeling of coming home. For all the cities that I’ve been to, all the foreign cultures I’ve observed, I’ve never ever found a place I wanted to call home more than Seattle. It may sound completely contrary to what David and I are presently doing with our lives, but I really enjoy my home and I absolutely love my city. David and I passionately rave about it to anyone who will listen. That familiar, warm, welcoming feeling of home is like a soft enveloping breeze – it makes my heart smile. And that feeling seems intensified when returning home from a work trip. Work trips are weird. You are are expected to fulfil your normal daily responsibilities, do your normal job, work with your normal co-workers, talk your normal talk and wear your normal work clothes, yet you are completely removed from everything normal. Your normal home, bed, pets, couch, food, routines, friends, family, dinner with your husband. I think….it is slightly unnatural. Returning home is even more fantastic in this scenario because one is usually travelling solo meaning there is someone or something waiting for you. It is very sweet.

Yet, suddenly I’m changing the rules, in fact I’m changing the entire game and expecting it to instantly fall into place. And for the very first time since leaving home, I desperately want the welcoming arms of Seattle. The captain of my plane is speaking dutch, the planes outside my window are not Alaska Airlines planes, but KLM, and an immigrations officer stands between me and my apartment and, yet, I am home. Hmm, I suppose for now I’ll just take the free wine and the view out the window for what they are. A little cold and not how I’d have it forever, but they’ll both be gone before I know it so I best enjoy it while I can.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 26th, 2007 at 3:28 pm and is filed under Amsterdam, Global Travels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.