reflections

I realized today that I have been so consumed with assimilating back into American life, keeping my head above water reporting in DC, and losing sleep over my next move that I have not given proper time to reflecting on my time in Prague.

This became clear to me when a former globalite who spent a quarter in Prague emailed me, asking how I felt about Prague in retrospect. I wrote a couple sentences about how I miss it, and she writes back this tear-jerking account of her post-Prague musings. As I read it, I felt a lump rise in my throat and it made me begin my own process of fond reflection. Her account of feeling utterly isolated but totally alive rang true for me.

Though it might not be as meaningful to those who have not spent time in Prague, I have pasted it below (slightly edited) for all to read. I also plan on beginning to articulate my own thoughts on the city one of these days...

And I have been planning and thinking of ways to get me back Europe. I
fell in love with Prague, with that area of Europe. I want to go back to Prague to work as a journalist some day, if only for a year.

I really loved that apartment, too.

I'd heard both positive and negative things about The Post from past beat reports, residency students, and people who worked at The Post (both in the past and at the time I was in Prague).
Disorder was the word that was used most often. And while my residency was a bit different, something of an experiment with online media that died after I left, I did enjoy the living experience.

And that's what I miss most. I try to explain to people this way: I was learning 24/7. At work, one thing and in English mostly. But after I got outside of the work bubble of English, I was paddling furiously to learn Czech, to learn about other people. Not through classes, but by building on what little words and verbs I'd picked up from work and then trying to get people to talk to me.

And despite being linguistically and culturally locked out for a while, I never felt more like a person in my entire life. There was this one moment where I about lost it, early in my stay. I was exiting the Muzeum station and heard a child laughing, saw a couple kissing. It hit hard that laughter was something I could understand, and that kissing was universal. Language without words.

I miss that after hours learning. I miss the shock in the shop keeper's faces when I'd build on my sentences and words. I miss the sour-faced woman at the butcher shop who always rolled her eyes at me when I'd close my eyes at her writing down the price of my ribs. I wanted to hear it and see if I could finally, finally make out the numbers she was calling out.

I miss the slower pace of life but in a city. I miss the walking. I miss the sound of the trams. I miss the rain and dew on the cobblestones in the morning, the autumnal leaves (I was there in the autumn). I miss looking out of the living room window (where I slept) at the night time skies. The tea pot in the mornings, the oven in the evenings.

So everything I'm doing right now, right now as I am making the final rounds of interviews for a few new media positions (I graduated in June and have been looking since), everything is in line with what I want to do in my life. And I hope that the skill set I'm looking to build and experience I'm gonna get will help me get back to Prague. I'm giving myself five years. I want to live in Prague again sometime in the next five years. The experience feels incomplete to me still.

And next time hopefully not as a starving student. And maybe then it'll be with someone to share it with. Because for all that I am an I-can-do-it-myself kinda girl, I realize now that I have this box of memories and nostalgia for one.