Dog Days

I am back in Germany, at least for a couple of months, now. One wouldn’t think that in this day and age going back and forth between countries is such a big thing. But it can be pretty intense at times.

I haven’t lived in Germany for a while. All our kids were born abroad. But now, that I am back and the of them are with me, I have started to reconnect with my own childhood. I re-live my school days, getting up in the dark, taking in the wet cold of a November morning, the scent of decaying leaves in the air.

Zoe is enrolled in school until Xmas and so I am slipping back into the old familiar school routine of my school days: Getting up in the dark, taking in the wet cold of a November morning, the scent of decaying leaves in the air on the way to school, feelings of hope and exasperation, and ah…those slippery classroom floors.

I find myself step outside at night just to feel my lungs fill with that old November sensation again. It’s beautiful to be back and exhausting at the same time. To some degree it’s like chasing my own shadow.