I'm reading My Berlin Kitchen - at first it was a bit slow-going, but I'm about halfway through and really starting to get into it. In a nutshell, it's Eat Pray Love meets Julie & Julia.
What I like about the book is not that it's such great writing (it's fine, but not great), or that it's such an intriguing story (30-something year old woman who blogs about food gets a book deal and writes about her love life and how she got her book deal), but how much I truly relate to the author on so many levels - her sense of displacement and longing for wherever/whatever it is she doesn't have at the moment, then as soon as she obtains it, wanting the other; her love of food and cooking; the way she prays to God and the universe for answers; the way she realized one day that every time she did something, it would be the last time she would experience something in exactly that way (i.e. an existential crisis caused by realizing that time only moves forward, and never comes back again); her journey in hearing and listening to her own heart.
Growing up with divorced parents, I know exactly what the author is talking about when she discusses how she'd long to be with her mother in Berlin, but as soon as she left her dad in the US she would miss him terribly and want to be back in the US, and vice versa. That is the story of my life. I cried so many tears on planes at the end of every school year (because I'd miss my mom and my friends/family in Virginia) and at the end of every summer/winter vacation (because I'd miss my dad's family in California), that I used up my life's allotment of tears for goodbyes during the years of age 8-17. I no longer have any tears left for goodbyes - in fact, I've developed an emotional block in feeling sad when I say goodbye. When P left NY earlier this year to move back to Cali, she asked me how I could possibly move around so much - she noted that it's so sad and difficult to say goodbye to a place - to pack up your life and say goodbye to the places, people and life you've known for years. She noted that she just couldn't imagine doing it again, and didn't know how I could do it so often and so easily. I don't remember what I told her, but I remember thinking about it after that discussion and realizing - it's easy for me because I am emotionally deficient when it comes to goodbyes. A normal person feels sad -bereft even - when leaving friends, family, job, a place that has been home for awhile. I simply...don't. I mean, I do, but I don't. I feel longing for my friends and family when I'm not with them, but it's not that difficult for me to say goodbye, pick up and move my life somewhere else. I figure: if we are true friends/family, we will stay in touch and see each other again, and it doesn't really matter where we are. I will miss you, but my life will not end and neither will yours. It's so cold and unfeeling, no?
Sometimes I wish I wasn't so callous. I wish I could be more emotionally attached to people, places, things. But my experiences - especially those during my formidable adolescent years - have turned me into an emotional vagabond. I can go somewhere, fall absolutely in love with it, but I know I will need to leave it one day. Usually, that thought doesn't make me sad - it actually makes me feel relieved, to know that I have a finite period of time there so I should make the most of every moment, squeeze as much out of the experience as I can. I can deal with finite. I can deal with temporary. It makes me a better planner, and I'm nothing if not a planner.
***
A quote from the book that rings so true to life:
..."even when you have found your person in this world, the person you know, deep down in your mitochondrial DNA, is meant to be by your side in this life, it is no guarantee that this person will not also drive you completely batshit insane at some moments along the way."
What I like about the book is not that it's such great writing (it's fine, but not great), or that it's such an intriguing story (30-something year old woman who blogs about food gets a book deal and writes about her love life and how she got her book deal), but how much I truly relate to the author on so many levels - her sense of displacement and longing for wherever/whatever it is she doesn't have at the moment, then as soon as she obtains it, wanting the other; her love of food and cooking; the way she prays to God and the universe for answers; the way she realized one day that every time she did something, it would be the last time she would experience something in exactly that way (i.e. an existential crisis caused by realizing that time only moves forward, and never comes back again); her journey in hearing and listening to her own heart.
Growing up with divorced parents, I know exactly what the author is talking about when she discusses how she'd long to be with her mother in Berlin, but as soon as she left her dad in the US she would miss him terribly and want to be back in the US, and vice versa. That is the story of my life. I cried so many tears on planes at the end of every school year (because I'd miss my mom and my friends/family in Virginia) and at the end of every summer/winter vacation (because I'd miss my dad's family in California), that I used up my life's allotment of tears for goodbyes during the years of age 8-17. I no longer have any tears left for goodbyes - in fact, I've developed an emotional block in feeling sad when I say goodbye. When P left NY earlier this year to move back to Cali, she asked me how I could possibly move around so much - she noted that it's so sad and difficult to say goodbye to a place - to pack up your life and say goodbye to the places, people and life you've known for years. She noted that she just couldn't imagine doing it again, and didn't know how I could do it so often and so easily. I don't remember what I told her, but I remember thinking about it after that discussion and realizing - it's easy for me because I am emotionally deficient when it comes to goodbyes. A normal person feels sad -bereft even - when leaving friends, family, job, a place that has been home for awhile. I simply...don't. I mean, I do, but I don't. I feel longing for my friends and family when I'm not with them, but it's not that difficult for me to say goodbye, pick up and move my life somewhere else. I figure: if we are true friends/family, we will stay in touch and see each other again, and it doesn't really matter where we are. I will miss you, but my life will not end and neither will yours. It's so cold and unfeeling, no?
Sometimes I wish I wasn't so callous. I wish I could be more emotionally attached to people, places, things. But my experiences - especially those during my formidable adolescent years - have turned me into an emotional vagabond. I can go somewhere, fall absolutely in love with it, but I know I will need to leave it one day. Usually, that thought doesn't make me sad - it actually makes me feel relieved, to know that I have a finite period of time there so I should make the most of every moment, squeeze as much out of the experience as I can. I can deal with finite. I can deal with temporary. It makes me a better planner, and I'm nothing if not a planner.
***
A quote from the book that rings so true to life:
..."even when you have found your person in this world, the person you know, deep down in your mitochondrial DNA, is meant to be by your side in this life, it is no guarantee that this person will not also drive you completely batshit insane at some moments along the way."
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