Impossible Germany

“Impossible Germany
Unlikely Japan
Wherever you go
Wherever you land
I'll say what this means to me
I'll do what I can”

—Wilco, Impossible Germany

Buying a one-way ticket to Germany and staying for I really don’t know how long seems like something I should have done between 3 and 5 years ago. While Seattle was busy trying to set an all-time annual precipitation record, I should have peaced out some dark January afternoon and fled to South America; I should have gone WOOFing after college or done the Peace Corps instead of making coffee a few blocks north of the University district. But I didn’t, and now here I am in Heidelberg, occasionally feeling a little silly admitting I’m almost 25, I have a Masters degree, no job, and really only a very minimal working knowledge of the German language.

What am I doing here. I moved with my boyfriend, Matt, who will be studying in Heidelberg for a full academic year to finish his own Masters degree in German, and I keep saying I may seek employment as an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher or freelance travel writer. The plan is sort of murky though—I realize that, more than anything, I want some time out to decide what I should do with poetry, which I spent the last 2 years studying, and what I should do with The Rest of My Life. You’d think I’d have had plenty of time to think about both of these things in the much unstructured time afforded by a Fine Arts degree—but can I gloss that, please, by simply saying I spent a lot of time obsessing over and, in most practical ways, avoiding these issues? In a small arts program, it’s easy to find support for what you’re doing and a variety of ideas re: The Meaningfulness of that thing among peers who are, well, doing that same thing. Not to mention great friends to drink with in bars. Having much appreciated that support and friendship, I’m currently enjoying some time alone to sort through it, to see some good and really different things, to press a reset button, to kill the noise of grad school.

Anyway I’ve been in Germany for almost 2 weeks now, and the main difference I notice is deeply practical and banal: bathroom culture. Here, the standard “Klo” or WC that I’ve thus far encountered is *broom kloset* sized—my proportions are seemingly elephantine as soon as I step in the Wohnung shower, and taking my mid-sized shoulder bag into a public bathroom stall is like trying to bring along a Labrador. Often one must pay E.50 to use a public restroom, and usually these are few and far between. So all this goes to support my otherwise unsupported theory that Europeans probably don’t bathroom-read, and though it’s never been a habit of my own, it seems culturally significant that here I definitely can’t. So, you lucky American Bathroom Readers, this blog is for you. I miss you and your gentle, site-specific leisure! Your variegated stack of bathroom magazines, rippled with trapped shower steam! Enjoy them! I'll be here, generating something else to read.