Munich

Back to work Monday. Tried to retain the scent and sense of self evoked by my brief escape.

Within those walls the steady heartbeat, ominous realization that this is what I do now. This is my commute. My office. My colleagues. My tedious, boring, never-ending, relentless work. External pulse I must follow. Discordant strike against my private heart. Inside, I am fighting back.

Munich. Wanted to see the city. Walk in the autumn air and maybe go for a run but felt too sick. Sore throat could go either way. Also I had work and, from her distant vantage point, the gremlin watched and monitored. Detailed, exhaustive e-mails; implications of my deficiency. I can fight it with my intellect and self-awareness but she wears me down.  I had to work. Had to finish the analysis. Did not visit the city. Stayed in my hotel room with the laptop open, ate a Kaiser roll from a local bakery, drank kefir from a local grocery store, and was hungry.

Munich. The last time I was here I was on my way to Garmisch. Planning conference. I ran with Dutch Marines in the snow. Before that, another work trip. And another with high alpine climbs. And once he drove me to Stuttgart and we visited Marie and ate German food and visited a military museum.

In Germany always there was him: the longing, the anguish, the inability to surrender hope. And so I am again. He is here, as I feel the resonant echoes of past pain in the autumn air. When I remember this, I welcome the pain because it has always been the Janus coin – and on the other face was exultant Joy.  And my anguish is still so deep because, in another world I am with him and my joy is equally deep. I like to know this. Even when it burns.

At night I dream of him and wake with the distinctive sensation that I have spent time in his presence and I still feel the residual sensation of soul, his laughter, his smile, his conversation, all sitting with me. Please don’t go away. Not yet. But it is a dream and it is gone. And I look at my life and I hate it because he is not here. I've become an eater of ashes. I love his ghost because it is all I was able to keep.

I call Willem once. Twice. Try to talk. But all I can do is suffer. He loves me. Doesn’t want me to suffer. I have lost the knack for artifice. I cannot reassure him. We do not talk long and I cry.

Meetings during the day. Charts and powerpoint and database checking. Logistics. Vehicle traffic. Projections on science payloads. Ascent and descent manifests. Coffee in little ceramic cups. Not enough coffee.  Dinner and beers with the folks from the other agency. Networking. Conversation and collegial laughter.

There were six of them. They were nice. But nice is not what I crave. I crave kin. I crave the passion and discourse of shared work that stimulates and drives me. But if I have lost him whom I love, I have also lost the work and camaraderie I loved. And this is a dull and lifeless shadow world. My new colleagues are excited to be in Germany, glad for the glamor away from satisfying lives with wives and children and weekend yardwork, want to eat Spatzle and schnitzel and drink beer and sauerkraut and, because I live in Europe and am not afraid to find things, they follow me and we drink far too much beer. They are only mildly interested in me - the way you are interested in a waiter while he takes your order. I am genial, try to pay attention to what they are saying but I might as well be a robot for all that I am able to form attachments to them. They are satisfied with this work and I cannot be.

Today, the friendly roly-poly one asks, “How do you like your work with MSO?” and I am caught off guard. Do I dare confess the abuse and pain? Tell them I am trapped in hell and eager for escape?

No.
 

I talk around the subject, change it quickly. I tell them about a man I went to school with who went to a federal penitentiary for stealing moon rocks. We move along. They drink their beer and I am friendly and engaging. I am numb.

We part ways near the Glockenspiel. American hugs all around. I have a flight to catch.