Where It Began

 

At five years old, this little girl with sparkly glasses from the small town of Warren, New Jersey, was about to embark on the trip of a lifetime.

She would travel with her family across the Atlantic on board the original Queen Mary ocean liner (where, among many other adventures, she’d befriend a waiter named Tony, who would sneak her extra boxes of Sugar Pops, her then favorite cereal), landing on the shores of Southampton, England. From there the six-some would travel by train to Karlsruhe, Germany. (Of note, one brother was inadvertently delivered elsewhere, after strolling onto a car of the train that broke off and headed to France. Fortunately, despite initial panic, he was found and the family remained in tact!)

Once settled into a little house on a street called Gretelweg, she would walk a cobblestoned path to the bus that brought her to kindergarten, where she mostly remembers drawing a lot. She would also play with the neighborhood children, develop a fondness for Toblerone chocolate, visit castles and lap up their lore, travel on winding alpine roads, gape at tulip fields, and collect a doll from each of the umpteen countries they’d visit before arriving home a year later, by then fluent in German.

It was an impressionable age and may very well, as her father suggested, have unwittingly sparked her love for seeing other parts of the world.

While it wasn’t a long stay, Austria had been one of the family’s travel stops. Twenty something years later, she would again visit Germany (and their old house on Gretelweg, which looked even smaller then!) and would again see Austria, noting the similarly striking beauty of both countries. And now, about 60 years later, she’s off once more to Austria – this time to lead an art retreat in the Alps.

Life works in mysterious ways, doesn’t it? I kind of like that. It’s not exactly where it started, but close enough. And part of me will bring the spirit of “little me” along on this next adventure, where I’ll also, no doubt, be drawing a lot and playing with friends.

♦

Side note: I wrote this pre–Austria trip, and have since come and gone (it was glorious), but am just now getting caught up here on my blog. Retreat details coming next!