Is it Guten Tag or Auf Wiedersehen?

I leave tomorrow for Europe. In two days I will be strolling along cobblestone streets in the town of Freiburg, breathing in the fresh Black Forest air, eyes wide at the sight of cathedrals and more bratwursts than I can imagine. Yet on the eve of this Deutschland adventure, I can't help the unshakable and subtle anxiety that I feel.

Did Marco Polo feel these jitters before embarking on the Silk Road? Did Christopher Columbus worry about language barriers, motion sickness, and packing too little underwear? Did Neil Armstrong feel the sudden desire to call every friend and family member to tell them how much he loved them?

Though the lands have been explored and the maps drawn, every trip I take still feels like a great adventure. It is strange how the unknown can create such a mixture of fear and excitement, a mixture that is what propels me in my desire to travel and to explore. I find that there is nothing more catalytic of self growth and change than travel.

So here I am, only a couple of hours before boarding my plane bound for Germany, nearly unable to believe that I am about to make my first trip to Europe. All I can do is try to enjoy these butterflies, not much different from the bittersweet butterflies of a high school crush, and all the while try to pack enough underwear.

Janie

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Notes on a River Changed

Eventually, I turned towards home and my feet found my familiar path, northward along the river Stort’s banks. The sun slipped behind the clouds, but even if the sun had shimmered, the water would have barely sparkled—it looked greasy and stagnant. A moorehen on the banks looked startled, frightened and plunged into the water to join a floating crisp bag. Pigeon droppings marked the asphalt path. Nettles grew bushy on either side, no longer seeming wild and free, but ominous. I couldn’t smell the nettle’s tangy fragrance anymore, instead I smelled salty chips from a local kebabery and something fried and cinnamon-y wafting from the opposite direction. It has changed drastically in the past few years. I remember a time when my path through the center of town used to have that same English magic as the path I found. No longer.

Bishop's Stortford is located halfway between London and Cambridge. There is easy train access either way, making Bishop’s Stortford the ideal commuter town. Of late, commuters have moved in like a plague. Tall buildings thrown up to accommodate Bishop’s Stortford’s new residents tower over the little river. Other obscenities—new grocery stores, parking garages, chain shops and restaurants—also encroach upon the river’s banks. I used to pick loganberries and feed the ducks on the river, now I run past a tall metal fence edged in barbed wire, turquoise paint flaking off.

The river winds into a park and some of its charm returns. The water seems to flow a little faster, a few ducks scoot along belong bridges. An elderly woman walks two dogs and children gather in the green spaces. My path is again dirt. Hope is not lost. 

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Notes while Running Down an English Path

On my first day in England, not five minutes from my grandparent’s house, I found a hidden path. It caught the corner of my eye; I crossed the street and started down it.

It was a day of saints: overcast but with the sun making periodic and splendid entrances—shimmering rays bursting through the clouds and traveling earthward, exactly as if they should be illuminating a saint below.  It would have been fitting for the magical rays to illuminate the entrance to this riverside road, just like a glowing gateway in a fairy tale.

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After a long flight, my body craves a run more than it craves sleep. Until I go, I feel claustrophobic and disoriented-- unable to gage where exactly I am. My head clears as I extend my legs, feel the fresh air and peer around at my new surroundings.   Running is my way of keeping tabs on the environment around me. I can travel farther than I ever could when walking: I explore, I follow hidden paths.  I follow my heart and my feet.  My runs prove that there are endless amounts of unknowns in one’s own, familiar environment. I am always finding new things within the small radius that I can cover in an hour on my feet.

The dirt path follows the Stort River, winding away from a busy street and plunging into picturesque English countryside. All was in bloom: the edges of neighboring fields were trimmed in Queen Anne’s lace, nettles and purple, trumpet-like flowers spilled onto the path. In other parts, trim blossoms in the verdant gardens of little cottages were just visible over the fence.

I entered into a dappled region; path shaded by tall trees. A sign told me I was entering Rushy Mead Nature Preserve.  I could immediately hear the underbrush rustle with abounding English wildlife. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a water vole—a creature of Wind and the Willows— plunge into waterside rushes. On the opposite shore, two haughty swans roosted in an overturned rowboat. In the calm waters, geese and green-headed mallards paddled along amicably. Fuzzy, black moorehen, the English water bird that always looks desperate, struggled to keep in line.

I passed over bridges, water rushing underneath, and passed by slower pools formed by old locks. The shiny metal levers of Southmill Lock 1 and Twyford Lock 2 stood ready for a boatman to crank. Twyford was next to a mill house, a Tudor building where English country folk have harnessed the river to make their bread for centuries. For all I knew, I could have been back in time. The shiny houseboats that bobbed in the water, shiny paint catching the sun, supported this thought. I imagined the roving occupants—still as magical and mysterious as all river people— probably descended from the first Roma to come to Britain. The Moondance, blue with white letters, looked peaceful and I guessed the river people slept inside.

I continued, coming to a gate. Going through, I passed a stable surrounded by fallow fields filled with delicate buttercups which splashed yellow across the green. The path led me under an archway of trees forming a shady portal into another world.

It was fitting: I had entered another world; the ingress only steps from my familiar ground. 

Photo Credit

Photo Credit

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Youthful Eyes on the Environment

When we were seven, my good friend Julia's parents finally quit smoking. The cause? Their little first grader's nagging. As part of her elementary school curriculum, Julia was learning about the perils of smoking. It was her concern that finally convinced her parents to kick the habit.

As much as we believe parents shape their children, rarely do we consider that the opposite may be true. But the British government apparently does. Recently, seventeen local councils called on citizens, including children as young as seven to become the nation's environmental watchdogs-- to be on guard for littering, noise pollution and other environmental infractions. Participants in programs like "Eyes for Islington" in Islington or the "Junior Street Champions" in Luton receive information about collecting evidence and reporting environmental crimes. As a writer in the Independent pointed out, it is a chance for Britain's youngsters to leave their computer games, get out their notebooks and commit themselves to a better community.

Of late, fears of dwindling community cohesion and violent youth have been widespread across England. Last July, two policemen from the East London borough of Croydon were hospitalized after a riot which began when a school girl resisted one policeman’s request that she pick up a fast food carton she had just flung on the ground. The riot left the community in distress. A school headmaster from Croydon said, “In the past, there would have been National Service, a sense of people working together, living together. But in modern, urban Britain that is decreasingly the case.”

This program may be one step towards training a new, civic youth. Teachers commented that the student participants in the venture were already learning healthy environmental practices and community stewardship. These positive benefits help dispel fears expressed by select Britons that the program may incite youngsters to infringe on their neighbor’s privacy rights. The program teaches responsibility, not snooping.

If we can inspire an environmental conscience and a community spirit in our young people, then we are looking to a brighter future.  Sometimes, it is the young who have the best ideas and strongest convictions. I don't doubt the power of a bunch of caring seven-year-olds to enact change where adults fail. 

-- Brenna Daldorph

 Image source: Leonid Mamchenkov at Flickr under a Creative Commons License.