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Striking Out

I first left home at fifteen. Not as a runaway, but as a naïve exchange student going off to live for a year in northern Germany. What I remember most about the days leading up to my departure was the nagging fear that I’d embarrass myself by getting so horribly homesick that they’d have to send me right back.

I’d pretty much failed at overnight camp not that many years earlier. I cried so hard for the first couple of days that they finally let me call my mother which, naturally, only made it worse. I even struck out at day camp. I don’t think the counselors had ever had to deal with a sobbing, homesick 10-year-old before.

That first summer abroad I did end up with bouts of loneliness so intense that my only relief was to open the floodgates and cry. But it wasn’t just me failing. My first family was wacky, not just culturally different. Fortunately, the kind program director kept a close watch on his charges and moved me out within a few weeks.

I eventually settled in with four brothers, a welcoming father and a D.I.Y. mutter who poured all of her creativity and longing for a daughter into teaching me the domestic arts. I learned, among other things, how to knit sweaters, preserve fruit, bake kuchen, plant a vegetable garden and hang the laundry properly on a line. We rode bikes around town, took trains into the city, fetched milk each day from a nearby farm and went on long afternoon walks through the fields. It was a thorough apprenticeship in the thrifty, sustainable European lifestyle that is now so popular here. It was wonderful.

My sixteen-year-old’s trip to Morocco this past summer brought back memories of my own generous introduction to the great, wide world. He went with ten other students on a global service learning program, accompanied by three highly experienced adults and their satellite phone. I had no qualms about his well-being on this grand adventure, but when I gave a last hug at the airport and tried to whisper “Be safe!” in his ear, a tremendous sob leaped out instead. To keep from completely losing it, I chomped down on my lip so hard it bled.

Of course, he had a fantastic trip and came back bursting with stories, already planning to go back in a few years’ time. I too had returned badly bitten by the travel bug, so bad in fact that I spent eight of the next 13 years living overseas. That’s one of the dangers of international travel. The more you experience it, the more you want, or need, to experience it again.

This is also true for the themes of this issue. We take up arts & culture with a profile on Kate Whoriskey, Intiman’s talented new artistic director, and take a new spin on education with Wenda Reed’s suggestions for classes this fall and Katie Tynan’s recommendations for joining a writers’ group.

The arts, just like education, writing and travel, should leave you wanting more. Done well, they open the door to new ideas and emotions, helping to reshape how you perceive yourself and the world you inhabit. I don’t know about you, but I thrive on that kind of exposure and I hope this issue will leave you wanting to experience something new this autumn.

Marianne Scholl
Publisher & Co-founder

©September 2010, Caliope Publishing Company