Sure, anniversaries tend to make us all a bit sentimental, but perhaps it's more than just an anniversary that has me thinking about the passing of time, and especially HOW we've passed that time. This time it's also the ending of one assignment and the preparations for the next. Another departure, another arrival.
This is how I picture my life since 2011:
Yeah, it's essentially a continuous structure: one life, one career, one family. But each segment is more than just a different color; each segment is also a different country, language, set of coworkers, job, climate, time zone, cuisine, favorite evening news, and distance from "home." I put home in quotes because that's feeling like an increasingly misty spot on the map. This is an actual conversation from our living room:
Is 425 the area code where we lived?
No, it's the highway.
Are you sure? I really think it's the area code.
Yeah, okay. But then what's the highway called? 415?
No, that's the area code in San Francisco.
405? Is that the highway? That doesn't sound right. Just a second... let me look it up.
Town and road names sound familiar, but we can't place from where we know them. Favorite restaurants, leafy parks, a nice drive - they're all blurring together until I find myself with the memory of a lovely weekend I'd swear is accurate that has us waking up in a Bogota apartment, going for a Washington hike, and finishing the day with a nice meal at a Bucharest restaurant. And don't even start me on trying to figure out if that beach we visited - you remember, the one with that long pier - was in Maine, New Brunswick or Maryland. Sure we own a house in our "home state," but we've never slept in it. In true bureaucratic fashion, the Department refers to this as our "home of record." Of record. Sounds cozy, eh? This designation has nothing to do with roots, one's family, holidays spent, or neighborhood cookouts. It's all business. Keep yer' memories to yourself, lil' lady. This if just for tax purposes and we gotta' know where to ship your stuff when you retire. The term "our house" has been replaced by "our investment property."
So what do folks do when they find their anchors slipping?
Last night my husband and I went out for an evening of dinner and music at an Italian restaurant nearby. Sounds pretty straightforward, certainly nothing worth writing a blog post about. But this place is more to us than just a Friday night out. I'm not going to tell you that it's because the food is among the best we've ever tasted, or the wine list unparalleled. Simply put, our forays to Pistone's have become a familiar routine, somewhere we can go where we know what we'll find. What we find is a real Dean Martin-ambiance: a crew of career waiters - older gentlemen with accents (Italian, Albanian), wood paneling, colored-glass lamps lighting the raised semi-circular booths upholstered in overstuffed Naugahyde, a menu of Italian standards where they know how to put together a proper antipasto, and best of all - the attached lounge bar where every Friday night a two-man band belts out classic country/rock favorites until midnight. This has been their regular gig for the past 13 years, taking requests and playing guitar (acoustic, electric and steel) for their faithful crowd of middle-aged-plus date-nighters. The bartender, holding court from the horseshoe-shaped bar, has been there for 25 years and likely many of the patrons, too. After dinner, we saunter into the lounge, order a Jameson or glass of wine, and soak up the cozy familiarity. Sometimes the band recognizes us, and sometimes they thank us for coming out as if it's our first time. It's okay - we recognize them and especially their playlist, not only from our many previous visits, but also from our whole lives. They take us from Little Feat's "Willin' " to Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer," and end up with a beautiful version with full guitar solo of Garth Brooks' "The Dance." The singer's wife joins in from a stool at the bar with her tambourine and suggestions for the sound mix. Couples take turns on the tiny dance floor and folks shout out requests.
Routines like dinner at Pistone's with Eddie Pockey and Brint playing in the lounge are more than just pleasant evenings to us. They've become threads that hold our scatter-shot experiences together. In a life of many-colored LEGO bricks, these little pieces of reliable familiarity, where we can walk in and it's just like we never left (even though it's been two years) make us feel as if we have a home. We know what it looks, tastes and sounds like - and it's always there for us.
Foreign Service families hear thanks for our service and appreciation for serving in foreign countries. I used to think they were just thanking us for the difficulties of living outside the U.S. (i.e. more than 10 miles from a Target), or for putting ourselves in danger - which is undoubtedly true in some places. But beyond that, it's clear that what we really are in danger of losing, or missing out on, is this:
Which is why simple things like an Italian restaurant and a great lounge band have become so important to us. They remind us that some things don't change every two years. Some things have roots that keep growing while everything else is in movement.
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