I was somewhere in Eastern Europe the day my childhood pet, an untrained, completely out of control Dalmatian named Ringer died. Ringer was my humble yet attention-starved servant from the day she arrived unexpectedly when I was thirteen and remained my charge until I moved on to greener pastures (or faster lanes) in my early twenties.
It was Christmas and bitterly cold as you would imagine Eastern Europe to be this time of year. I was homesick and the phone call home cost a lot (even with the advantageous exchange rate) but no price was too high for me. I was sure it would make me feel better to speak to someone back home. I longed for familiarity in the form of fuzzy navels served in plastic red cups and mashed potatoes made with condensed milk; but the bad news was blunt with the completely opposite effect.
So, I spent the rest of that Christmas day with a friend in an expat bar drinking Czech beer, playing pool and getting high with three Dutch guys who did not speak much English while It's a Wonderful Life played on all the small TVs in the back drop. It was the first (not last) time that I felt I may have ventured too far away from home to ever truly go back.
No comments:
Post a Comment