I open my mouth in a European market, and out comes a confusion of speech, a jumble of gibberish–here a French word, there a German, then a mischeivous Turkish phrase. I’ve lost all control over my tongue.
I’m trying to reign in this problem, but it is hard. We stepped over the border into France again Saturday, and this is where the big troubles always begin. In Germany, I speak lots of English and the splattering of German that I can manage so far. (Still studying up!) Sometimes French or Turkish words sneak into my speech, but they are the odd escapee from under the fence. I have some control over my language.
Then I step over the border, and all hell breaks loose. My brain seems incapable of releasing only the French words from their cell block. No, that would be too orderly. The gates fall and all the imprisoned words escape at once–a melee of language, a fracas of phrasing. A mess. Really. Or is it?
Mess-peranto. A new international language for people who make a mess of languages. Let’s start a movement! This could be like Esperanto for people who are enterprising enough to know smatterings of a few languages, but too lazy to actually order and develop their linguistic skills.
Bad idea?
I’m pretty sure the French cashier I practiced on thought so.
Aaahhh, it feels good to exhale and inhale again. Deeply, fully. We’re finally here in Germany. Dogs travelled well. We’ve found a house. We still have only the clothes and backpacks on our backs, but the day is coming when we’ll settle, and so I find myself actually breathing again. For, possibly, the first time in months.
But here’s the rub: I want to relax and enjoy, but not settle too much. The word settle is funny and a little unnerving to me–I get this visual image of fish food sinking down to the bottom of the tank. Then just lying there until it decays or gets gobbled up. Ewww. That’s not the objective here.
I love the fact that launching yourself into a new life and a new culture gives you fresh eyes, and does so often catch at your breath. It may be unnerving sometimes, but being a little off balance is heady stuff–an adrenaline rush. It’s fun!
I won’t deny it–it’s a relief to breathe again. But I’m pasting a photo below of one of the many moments today when my breath stopped and my heart skipped a beat. We’re in Europe! And that’s worth a few missed breaths.
No doubt about it–I hope the currents will allow me to waft around a bit in this life before I settle.
Photo licensed via Creative Commons by Flickr member winestyr
It is a tawdry tale. A tale of woe. Of unrequited lust. Of temptations to be seen but not touched or tasted.
Of cheese.
Of what?
Of cheese.
***
Sometimes stories don’t travel the trajectory we expect. Oftentimes, in fact. In this story, the Stinking Bishop is not a sinister church cleric–although that would be the beginning of a great tale. No, in this case, the Stinking Bishop is simply a British cheese named after a sinister church cleric. A singular cheese of considerable stench.
Let me preface this story by saying that I am no fan of stinky cheese. On a visit with us in England, my father-in-law once mused, “How can something that smells so bad taste so good?” My answer: it can’t! Nature throws out certain warning signs that we shouldn’t ignore: the glaring red hourglass on the belly of a Black Widow Spider, the earth-shaking roar of an angry lion. These are nature’s way of telling us to run–run fast and run far– we are in mortal danger! And then there is the smell of very stinky cheese–same principle, folks. Why would you want to eat the stuff? But, I digress. I did have a story to tell.
My husband likes a stinky cheese. If it smells rotten and has veins of mold (blue, black, green–he has no prejudice), then he’s in! My basic policy is that any mouth that eats that stuff will not be allowed near my mouth for 24 hours. Sometimes this policy keeps him out of trouble, but other times the cheese is too powerful a mistress.
And so, when he heard of Stinking Bishop–the ultimate bombshell, the Marilyn Monroe of stinky cheeses–he was, sight unseen, smitten. But the stuff turned out to be elusive. To the point that he nearly believed it was a fable, a mirage, a Fata Morgana.
He had nearly given up his quest for the fabled cheese, when we found ourselves at Castle Howard in Yorkshire, England. (Read this aloud in a dramatic voice, and channel all the best scenes from Monty Python and The Holy Grail, and you’ll understand the great and rediculous heart swell that overtook my husband as the following events unfolded.)
After a day spent touring the estate and playing with our children in the gardens, we visited the shop–a sort of European farm market. And there it was in the case of cheeses, shining as if an aura surrounded it and emitting a sound only perceptible to the true of heart–a siren song to draw in weary travelers. Stinking Bishop cheese.
STINKING BISHOP CHEESE read the sign before the humble wheel. You wouldn’t have known you were in the presence of greatness if not for that sign–it was like that scene in Indiana Jones where he has to pick the true Holy Grail from a room full of faux grails. THE Grail is humble, unassuming. As was my husband’s beloved cheese. Or, at least, it looked that way.
As James approached the counter, the shop girl was handing samples of cheeses to prospective buyers. I think James was drooling a little. When his time came, he said, “I’d like to sample the Stinking Bishop, please.” The shop girl recoiled from his advances. Then she leaned over the counter and half-whispered, “Sir, we don’t open that cheese in the store.” My husband’s whole countenance dropped.
He looked at me. “No,” I said. “But,” he said. “No,” I said. Then I leaned, as the shop girl had done a moment earlier, and said “We can’t carry that cheese in the car.”
“Katie playing dress up at Castle Howard.” Or, as I’ve come to think of it, “Someone call the medic, they are opening the cheese!”
He understood that I was right. There are some things that are too powerful to be schlepped around in the profane world. And WAY too powerful to sit, enclosed in the tight space of a warm car.
The day did come when he was able to possess the object of his desire. I can’t tell you much about that moment. I was not in the room at the time. I was, purposefully, not in the room at the time. What’s more, we simply don’t speak of it. It’s his private moment: an obsession that I can’t understand, but a conquest that I would not want to sully. Some things are just too powerful.
We will soon bid a fond farewell to Alabama and begin waking up to glorious German mornings. So before we begin the tales of our travels in Germany, it’s time to collect a few thoughts on what we’ll miss, and what we will not miss, about Bama:
I will NOT miss the Black Widow spiders. Horrible! And everywhere! Terrifying little beasts. (Can you tell I have spider issues?) They overtook our patio furniture and moved into our mailbox last year when we left for 3 weeks of summer vacation. After that, I took to wearing big, yellow dishwashing gloves each time I’d go to retrieve the mail. I’m sure the neighbors talked–but I don’t care. I was doing my best to keep up the eccentric Southerner image and warding off Black Widow bites at the same time. Seemed like a win-win situation to me. All the same, I can happily live without Black Widows.
I can also live without the summers that continue into the holiday season. No living nativity should include Baby Jesus in a sunhat and swim diapers. Not that Bethlehem is known for its blizzards… but…let’s save that digression for another day. I’m just saying, September really ought to be the outer wall of summer, after which Mother Nature should change out the seasonal scenery for you. Any less than four seasons, and the climate is veering off toward abhorrent. (Any more than four seasons, and it gets pretty weird too.)
And, no, I won’t miss all the giant trucks that never sound like they have mufflers. Which is funny, because they do have mufflers. (Thanks to their monster tires, you can actually look up and see the mufflers looming overhead when they pass. Maybe they are just decorative mufflers. Or maybe they are really extra sound pipes, like a church organ. Clever… but I still don’t get it.)
I WILL miss the BBQ from Dreamland Barbecue. And the banana pudding. Yum! Some of the best BBQ ever–right up there with Stamey’s BBQ and Chandler’s Beef BBQ in North Carolina.
I will definitely miss the neighbors–some native Alabamians, some not. All friendly. All funny. All standing rabidly on one side or the other of the Alabama/Auburn rivalry.
I’ll also miss the way store clerks strike up long conversations with you like they’ve known you all their lives. I’ve a feeling that won’t happen much in Germany. . .and, anyway, it will be a while before my vocabulary isn’t exhausted in a three minute conversation.
Back to things I’m not fond of–I’m not usually a big fan of lists like this: what I love/what I hate about _____. There’s a lot to love about any place. And I’ve never met a place that, no matter how great, didn’t have it’s low points. But, as Melville said, “There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast…Nothing exists in itself.” Life is a study in contrasts, so bring them on! A little sour in the sweet provides the necessary punch.
And punch line. Let’s be honest, it’s those “what I don’t like” lists that provide the laughs. Where would we be without the horrors, the gaffes, the Stinking Bishop amongst the cheeses? But that, my friends, is a tale for the morrow. See you then!
Travels and Tomes: One Expat's Amblings and Ramblings 