I Must Be Home

Last night I slept deeply and well on a bed which did not allow me to feel every little movement my husband made next to me. I drank an excellent morning latté made with proper espresso, and afterward I had a most satisfactory bowel movement. Most noticeably, the toilet tissue did not come apart uselessly upon contact with moisture. This all must mean that I am back home in Austria after a month in Supersize Land (otherwise known as the USA).
Everything here seems comfortably small and homey after America. One cannot get lost in our local airport unless one is drunk or has dementia. The streets are narrower, the drivers sensible, and today is yet another holiday on which Mary probably did something or other (she was a very busy woman in May, and I can never keep all the Roman Catholic holidays straight), so it's very quiet for a Thursday. A and I unpacked our luggage and I did three loads of laundry, which are now drying in the rather cool breeze and intermittent May sunshine on the balcony of our flat. Like most of the people we know here, we don't own a clothes dryer.
It was, though not A's first trip to the USA, his first time on the West Coast, which is a world unto itself. I grew up there, so for me it's a matter of "watering my roots": visiting relatives and friends, enjoying the sunshine, and making disparaging remarks about how American society has gone to hell in a handbasket since I left it in 1983, especially grammatically (really? You went to the store multiple times??). However, whilst disparaging fast-food chains I still gorge myself shamelessly on quintessentially American goodies like REAL charbroiled cheeseburgers, vanilla malts, Mexican food (well, yes, in California!) and almost anything from my favorite food store Trader Joe's. My husband sports 7 kilos more around his middle than he left home with. I have not dared the scales yet; though my jeans are noticeably tighter, they do at least still fit me.
We took advantage of the current dollar-to-Euro ratio to buy A a MacBook Air, which he has been coveting anyway and which he actually needs for his studies. A is a middle-aged back-to-schooler, working on a theology degree from home. But this isn't one of your cheat-sheet, get-a-degree-quick operations; no, this is a serious course of study involving genuine application and many books of bigness. And A's old Mac (I mean really old; it still has the non-magnetic lead) had been showing even more signs of its age than usual lately, aside from not being able to handle most software updates. So A ordered the MacBook, necessary software, a case and all the trimmings from Amazon and paid less for all of that than he'd have paid getting just the MacBook here. Which he couldn't have done anyway, since any MacBook sold in Austria would have a German keyboard (like mine does). Ordering it from the UK, his home country, would have cost even more.
Yes... there are some advantages to the USA. There are actually, in one sense, many advantages; since life seems to be built upon the precept of "everything must be convenient", it mostly is. The cost of living is generally much lower than I am accustomed to. Food in particular (bearing in mind the current $1 - €.075 ratio) seemed ridiculously cheap, as did gasoline. And the American customer service industry has made that crucial connection between good service and their own salaries which has, so far, seemed to escape the notice of most employees here in Austria. As a result, one generally gets good, friendly service in retail sales, eating establishments and even in a public service context.
Although I admit I'm still a little taken aback when a complete and utter (and often, in our recent experience, clearly gay) stranger plonks his hip on my table, leans into my personal space and smilingly declares, "Hi, my name is Timothy and I'll be your server today. If there's any little thing you want, you just be sure and give me a holler!" The first couple of times this happens when back in America, I tend to withdraw: I don't want to know your first name or date your brother, I just want to order a meal! But I get used to it and even appreciate it when I compare it to the surliness often experienced here. And I admit that even when the service isn't great, it's more pleasant to have cheerful poor service than snarling poor service.
But, having spent a month in The-Land-Where-The-Fun-Never-Ends, it is nice to be back where life simply moves at a slower pace. A holiday means just that: school is out, there are no public services besides trams and buses on a reduced schedule, and all retail establishments are closed, as are many restaurants. This happens every Sunday anyway, so at least once a week we must stop the hectic 24/7 lifestyle that America (and, increasingly, the UK) demands incessantly by its very nature. I've grown to appreciate that, and I think I would find it difficult to live differently now. Which raises the question: Can one live differently in the midst of a society which, by its very nature, dictates that I must be available and online at all times? It must be possible; possible, that is, without retreating into the hills, hippie-style. We ran into enough aging hippies in Northern California who in the 1970's had settled into small communities and now run pottery stores, tie-dyed T-shirt shops or make goat cheeses by hand. There seem to be enough of them already. And I've lived in the 'burbs or in a city all my life.
However, 30 years of one lifestyle are soon coming to an end, so I will have to adjust anyway. It may be a more minor adjustment: from one German-speaking city/country to another, still in central Europe. I am fluent in German, though A is not; we could get by, as we have done here. Or a bit more adventurous: to the UK, where they speak "my language" (though they would not all grant that I speak theirs), but the society is quite different to either country where I've lived. Or more adventurous still: to the USA, where Heaven knows what we'd do with no job, no health benefits and very rusty social skills.
What is a middle-aged, bi-cultural, divorced and remarried ex-missionary to do?