Bull-riding in Texas and Ennui in Europe

Christmas in Texas is irreversibly over. What do you learn when you visit the place you spent the first 25 years of your life, the very house where your family has been living since you were three years old, after you have been living in another culture for four years? How do you pack two suitcases to travel to the place you grew up for a short visit and then pack your life back up into two suitcases to leave that home for your other home?
My answer: in the postmodern spirit, you build your own culture. The Dallas Fort Worth area will always be the place my personality was “hard-wired” to register, process, and react to people, places, and things, to create my own image of myself. And the strong German elements in my family belong to this growing up process, making me adjustable to life in Germanic Europe. And so, the two suitcases are couriers helping me transport artifacts of my life from one part of my home on one side of the world to the other part on the other side.
So which ancillary events precipitated these insights? First of all, when I first walked into my room at my parents’ home, I took my passport out of my jacket and put it in a drawer and closed the drawer – a very symbolic gesture. In Germany, where one must always be able to identify oneself, my passport is my only accepted legal proof of who I am. In the USA I don’t need it – a driver’s license suffices. I also took off my heavy jacket and put it into the closet – won’t need this heavy stuff for the mild Texas Winter.
In a CD music store I happened to run into an old friend from high school band, whom I hadn’t seen for 10 years. She has since been able to establish herself in full-time employment in directing children’s theatre. While this makes me happy for her, it also made me happy for the whole community, because this indicates the Dallas Fort Worth area is growing culturally, slowly taking away one complaint I used to have: that this area was a cultural desert. Now Starbuck’s and others give us real cafés in which we can repose and reflect, sipping on coffee and staring into space in that spirit of ennui (sophisticated boredom) you only know if you’ve spent time in Europe. There are even a few commuter trains between Fort Worth and Dallas, so you can actually take public transportation for a few events.
But there are still essential elements that will always be different between the two worlds. When you enter a café in Texas, some will notice you and smile as an automatic reaction, and the persons working there will almost immediately greet you with a big smile, making you think they came to work that day just to serve you as their most important customer. And when you make a menu choice, you will coincidentally choose the server’s favorite item, as they will tell you with matchless enthusiasm. And, if the coffee has to be brewed anew and you have to wait, you just may get your drink order free, as it was cheerfully announced to me in Fort Worth. So, if you were down when you came in, you will be up before the first drop of coffee greets your lips.
When you enter a café in Germany, if anyone notices you at all, they will simply stare at you for one second with no visible reaction and then return to their activity. The wait staff may give you a polite greeting, or they may not, and you will find a seat and peruse the menu. By then at the latest you will notice the smell of smoke in the air – something long banned in Texas establishments. Then the wait staff approaches you and asks what you would like. They dutifully record your choices without commentary and leave to do their work. Now you can unpack whatever you brought along to establish your raison d’etre in this café. Perhaps all you brought is your bored face you use to soak in the ambiance of this room – that is okay. And, if you are lucky, the wait staff may smile at you, which means that there is something about you they definitely like, and if you return to this café, this person will probably smile at you again. This is not necessarily the beginning of a steamy romance (though one can never rule such occurrences out…), but rather simply the elegant and subtle European way of getting to know people. In Texas we take the bull by the horns and smile from ear to ear at everyone, so if you really want to get to know someone better, a smile gets you nowhere. You have to be more aggressive and somehow hope the other person gets your drift. In Texas you can dig in and take others for a bull ride to get to know them. In Europe you, as they say in Germany, “wait and drink tea.” You take studied distance and respect the autonomy of the other to an (from my perspective) extreme extent. Every expression, word, gesture, look, and smell is part of the construction of a new relationship that may only be a passing acquaintance or perhaps grow to a deep life-long friendship or romance. But, this you cannot know, and that is the mystery of getting to know people in Europe – a fascinating and challenging use of subtlety and patience.
Life in Texas is wonderful in its own way – the open, aggressive straight-shooting friendliness and willingness to help others expecting nothing in return. And life in Europe, with its mystery and enigma, makes friendship something you can’t take for granted here. You didn’t get to know your friends overnight, so you and they will fight for you and them no matter what may come.