der Abenteurers

I watch my sons as they move into a new life here in Germany. They are 12 and 15 - not easy ages to make major life changes. Not easy ages even when changes are not made. They have never learned a new language. They have never lived in the different city - with the exception of holiday travel. And yet they have embraced our new life so whole-heartedly it makes me amazed at their spirit and encourages my own.

It is not all sweet, this spirit of abentuer (Adventure). When one ventures out into a new world, the first thing one must do is to leave the shores of your own world - this can be figurative or in our case quite literal.

We have left not only the very real land and belongings and home which we had created for ourselves, but the also the many habits, likes and loves of our lives - from our toys (yes even dads have toys - of course we do) to our personal spaces to our dearest ones. All gone from the daily touches we so easily took for granted.

Meeting a friend for lunch or coffee, spending the night with his best buddy, eating sweet potatoes, our favorite restaurants (Mai's, Kalichandgis), watching TV and understanding every word, moments spent lazily going through life not having to work at every conversation, rare moments spent alone by choice, not by the lack of dear ones near, having a shopping list of our normal buys that we knew would be in the shop...all replaced by an uneasy sensation of constant newness and discovery.

This is abentuer - and it takes a certain amount of backbone and fortitude to not become overwhelmed by the constant struggle to learn and adapt. For me this comes from having a perspective of the longer term, some inner voice that keeps telling me in my moments of frustration and wanting to run away - to run home - that this will make me stronger and in time this too will become the familiar. But this is the mind of an adult, not the mind of a adolescent turning into a young man or a boy turning into an adolescent.

I watch my sons embrace their life here and like me they struggle with the frustrations of language and differences. Language is the biggest barrier and in two months they will begin high school - difficult high school all taught in German language. I see them struggle with learning the language when it is supposed to be summer holidays. I see their young minds not fully embracing the serious nature and benefit of this time of learning - they are after all boys. I see them taste the anger of change when things here are not like home and do not serve them - when they are refused entrance to a movie rated "18" - even with their father's permission, because it is not allowed here because of violence in the movie, a movie that would be easily accepted as PG13 in America.

And I see them seek out and embrace those things which are new to them and offer them more than their old life did. There is more freedom and mobility for them here. They are mastering maps and subways as they become more independent. Yesterday they became lost in the subway - taking the wrong line. But before they entered the train, they realized their mistake and found their way to the right train. They bicycle around the city and yesterday did all the shopping for and prepared dinner - a combination of familiar and new. They prepared chicken wings (but with a curry baste), brussel sprouts and butter vegetables. They were so proud of themselves for purchasing our entire meal for under 4 Euros - quite a feat!

A huge desire of mine as a parent has always been to give my sons a wonderlust - a sense of abenteur for the worlds beyond the ones we know. When they were very little I fed this desire by excitedly asking them if they would like to go to "a restaurant with food from a whole different country?" And their excited looks and energy matching my "put on" and the fun we had in Indian and Hindu and Thai and German and Irish and other restaurants as we began exploring other worlds through food alone - in Dallas. .

Even these early voyages gave us lessons of the abenteurer. On one such exoctic trip to the Far East - our neighborhood Chinese restaurant, I ordered a "Pu-Pu" Platter for my sons. They giggled with glee as dad said a dirty word and joked about eating "Pooh-Pooh." Later when the waitress took the order in all seriousness and went off to get them their meal, fear set in. Dad was going to make us eat "pooh-Pooh." It took several minutes of calming them to get them to ease up a bit, but it was not until they actually saw their meal, that they really relaxed. .

Every voyage outside familiarity has some thing to teach us and we ourselves direct this - by either acepting or rejecting what goes on arround us. Either we grow bigger and braver or we shrink. Later we took bigger voyages through holidays in America at unusual places like a Buddhist retreat in New Mexico or in several visits to Europe.

I love the way they have embraced the change in our life and it encourages me for the life view that they might have when they become men. I love to think that now when they think of what kind of life they want to live, that it will be one with no borders - they may choose to live as Americans or maybe not. I love that I live with abentuerers. And I am so very proud.