It was twenty years ago today...

The most logical assumption would be that I am referring to St. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, but I am actually not. Twenty years ago today was a point at which my life changed forever. It was Friday the 13th and I was on embarking on a journey bigger than ever before. I had worked for a family with 3 children for many years, being nanny, tutor and everything in-between until they moved from Hamburg, Germany to Concord, MA. Their farewell party invitation was my first paid graphic design job (and it was paid well). So they needed some nanny help over there in New England and asked me to come flying.

So I found myself on the morning of Friday the 13th 1989 at the airport with no less than a dozen of friends to get me safely to my first airborne adventure.* To be really honest, I had no desire to see and experience the USA, I was in love with Great Britain and that is where me and all my friends wanted to live. Consequently they all did, but I overshot by a 'few' miles. My concept of this country was quite set, I had a very prejudiced view of America, mostly through the media. It is almost impossible for me to recall how I pictured this country, but plastic, bold colors, superficialities, violence, noise, inequality and ruthlessness come to mind. I had been a very politically active teenager in the middle of the Reagan years, with cold war, SDI and cruise missiles being something to demonstrate against. I accepted the job offer anyway. I liked being part of that (slightly dysfunctional) family again and because in all fairness, I thought I should at least get my prejudices validated first hand. Last but not least, curious me was interested in visiting NYC, after all, everybody said that was something in itself and not part of the country really.

It took about three weeks for me to completely fall in love with Concord, Boston, the Transcendentalists and the beautiful landscape. I lost my perfect british accent - yes really - and came to think that this country was made of milk and honey. One could say that I went from one extreme to the other. Blame it on Concord, how was I supposed to know that not all people live like that, take the Daimler to the Ritz for lunch and have front row seats for every concert at the Symphony? The day I landed at Logan in Boston seems so long ago and yet is still so present in my mind. For sure I learned that preconceived notions and first impressions are not to be believed, that everything has more than one side to it and that we can like and dislike something at the same time. It made clear that the truth is often somewhere in the middle.

That Friday the 13th 1989 changed my life, whether I wanted it or not. Even though it is a mute point, I do think about how I came to be here, so far from home and to some extent I do regret having chosen this path. I am a person who clings too much to the past and ponders alternate roads of life - a complete waste of time - and so this day today is filled with very mixed feelings, kind of like a celebratory and melancholy confusion. I don't even know why I have to think so much about it, I might as well try to find the meaning of life and that is probably something I cannot see from my little vantage point.

It is, what it is. I came to Massachusetts 20 years ago today!

* When I returned, not one person was waiting for me. Every single person thought that there will be so many people anyway, it would make no difference whether they show up or not.