Curiosity minus the cat

Whoever first said, "Curiosity killed the cat," must have had a truly boring existence. Surely it was some adult's idiomatic way of telling a child to stop being nosy. Yes, this is what we do in America; we threaten the death of cute animals to children whose minds are full of wonderment! Now, I don't believe that anyone is really advocating felinicide, but are we still squelching the truly probing minds of children? If there is anything that I have learned since arriving in Europe, it is that curiosity and wonder are the centerpiece of a happy existence.

I realize that, to some people, wandering a city where no one speaks your language and you resort to poor renditions of charades to communicate does not sound like a good time, but for me, it represents a certain freedom. It also pushes me to be a better communicator and a more patient person. These are such good things. E.E. Cummings once said, "Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit." I have learned, more than ever in the last two weeks, that I believe in myself and my ability to take risks that free my spirit.

Where Nicaragua taught me such love for humanity and such compassion for others, Europe has taught me a self-sufficiency that has made me stronger and more open to the world. In Nicaragua, I spoke the language and understood the culture. I felt a communal bond with the people that I don't always feel in Europe. Here, I have been challenged by different personalities and different customs. I have learned to enjoy the adventure of getting lost and rely on my own reasoning to find my way again. I guess there really isn't much choice but to become self-sufficient when you are in country after country where few people speak your language and you know nothing of theirs. Traveling alone like this has brought out the phlegmatic in me. I have always known the sanguine part of my spirit, and I think that it is also obvious to those around me, but being here, wandering, has revealed to me a level of self-content that I am not sure I knew before. Some of the most beautiful moments of this trip have been those I have spent completely alone - watching the Elbe flow beside me as I took the train to Prague, meandering slowly toward the Blue Wonder (bridge) along Dresdner StrasBe (this is my attemt to make a letter that isn't in English), and today, walking, completely lost, toward an apt I only barely remembered through alleyways and crooked streets.

I have discovered how happy I am to sit on a corner absorbing the sights and sounds of cities around me. I have found such beautiful music in the words that float effortlessly in the air above me. I have discovered that pain and anger and joy and love are not contingent upon understanding another's language. They are the expressions that transcend, and in the last few weeks, I have shared smiles and laughs and knowing glances with people who are so very different from me yet, at the core, still so infinitely human.

To be sure, I have also shared incredibly beautiful moments with friends. I have laughed at a restaurant with Kris and Conny, two beautiful Germans I met more that 3 years ago when they wandered through Gainesville. I have sat across from my arrestingly lovely friend Cindy (de Chile) at a cafe in Berlin, just enjoying the precious moment of reunion (we haven't see each other in more than 3 years). I have gone to the opera (there are no words for the beauty of Carmen) and wandered the beautiful, misty city of Dresden with Micha, my dear friend who has taken such good care of me and drugged me with love of Dresden. I met my Lithuanian Doppelganger, made a new Finnish friend, and visited the beautiful German countryside to see Mutti and the rest of Micha's lovely family. And now, just today, I am reunited with my friend Jay, one of my favorite people and the only person other than my dad who gets away with calling me Heath. I have felt welcomed and loved and warm despite the rain, and it has all deepened my understanding of how blessed I am as a human being. My life is so small but so rich with beauty and meaning.

I feel very much like Cummings must have when he wrote, "The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful!" Covered in dirt in Nicaragua, walking through rain in Berlin, breaking bread with great friends in Dresden, being barked at by an official in Prague, getting shocked (badly) in Kiev, trying to find my way through back streets in Yerevan - all of it, every tiny moment, is absolutely stealing my breath away. I hope that these blogs, in even the smallest measure, are conveying that, because I feel absolutely lost for words.