Struggle and Chaos in three Countries

Peered out my window, looking down from thirty-three thousand feet. A placid, azure blue sky surrounded me for now. To be sure, there had been turbulence before, and there would likely be turbulence again. But for now, it was calm and I had long since learned to weather a storm. It is autumn, 2012 and I’m planning an expedition – a pilgrimage of sorts. Traveling to my place of birth to visit the family I left behind so far away, I yearn to re-trace my roots.

Far below, ghostly clouds pass indifferently, as indifferently as the mists of time have passed by me. As we near our destination, I close my eyes and remember that day years ago, and the younger woman who left under such different circumstances.

The younger woman left with nothing. My older version returns as a self-made woman. I left as a German and returned as a German-American. We left at a moment’s notice, those years long ago. Only two weeks before I left the first time, I could never have foreseen any reason to hotfoot it to Switzerland, nor any necessity to immigrate to the United States. Yet, for all my changes in fortune now I am, in many ways, the same person who took that leap of faith years ago – a survivor, a maker, a take-it-as-it-comes kind of woman.