20 You Can’t Go Home Again

Communications with my friends and relatives in the US and other places around the world remind me – sometimes forcefully – how very different my expat lifestyle is from theirs. Living in another country and, in my case, living in a much larger city than my rural hometown often feels like I am on another planet.

Thor Heyerdahl, the famous Norwegian leader of the Kon-Tiki expedition in the mid-20th Century, wrote of an experience he had as a young man. On his first trip to the South Pacific, he encountered two old Scandinavians who had lived in the islands for years. Here they were, living in paradise – tropical breezes, tropical beaches, tropical fruits and flowers, tropical girls! And what did they daydream about? They missed the gooseberries of their home country! For them, the simple, unglamorous gooseberry had come to represent all of the pleasures from their previous life which were not available in the islands. For me, gooseberries matter not at all. However, I have found no steaks in my new country which match the bacon-wrapped, medium-rare fillets of my favorite steak house in the hometown of my youth. The same is true for the shrimp nachos as they were prepared by my favorite Mexican restaurant. Becoming an expat requires some sacrifices.

However, putting pre-expat memories aside, let’s be a little more objective. As he aged, the American writer Ernest Hemingway famously returned to many of the sites of the adventures from his early years – the glamour of Paris, the bullfight rings in Spain, the safari in Africa, the canals of Venice, the indolent pace of Key West, and the hunting in the mountains of the American West. Invariably, when he returned to those same spots years later, the people were not as funny or heroic or guileless as he remembered. The places were not as beautiful and sophisticated, or charmingly rustic and undeveloped. Everything was changed: the ease and simplicity, the excitement, the food and drink… None were as good as he remembered – and he had hoped to relive. Indeed, he had changed also. Not as physically strong, not as ruggedly handsome and irresistible to women, not able to drink all night then fish or hunt all afternoon after a morning of productive writing, Hemingway himself had declined. Attempts to relive those early experiences brought him more disappointment than pleasure. Despite the advantages of fame and wealth, those original sensations eluded him.

Hemingway never admitted that the sensation and charm of a first experience could never be reproduced; this was precisely because they were a first experience, something new and often unexpected. It’s true for all of us, including Hemingway. I confess; it is true for me also. No chocolate will ever be as incredible as my first taste of fine Swiss chocolate after a boyhood filled with American candy bars. No relationship will ever be as sweet, trusting, and innocent as our first love. No current pets could ever match the loyalty, intelligence, and antics of beloved dogs and cats from our past. In my stories, no steak ever tasted so good, no skies were ever so clear, no fish were ever so willing to bite, no afternoon on the golf course was ever so satisfying, no river was ever so beautiful in the evening, and no friends so humorous as those in my pre-expat life. As I regale my new friends with tales of my old life, they must wonder why I ever considered leaving such an idyllic life to become an expat.

I am determined not to make Hemingway’s mistake. As the saying goes, “You can’t go home again.” Probably, I won’t even try, regardless of how alluring the memories may be. I am quite satisfied with the life I have now. Besides, the folks back home think that I, the expat, am the one with the glamorous and exciting life. And, yes, the steaks in my new town are pretty good, too. Plus, there is the excitement of discovering new taste experiences. I still haven’t found shrimp nachos as good as the old place in my hometown, though.