I’m sitting in the Red Carpet Club lounge for United at SFO. I’m surrounded by suits and Blackberries and important looking people, or rather, people trying to look important. Outside, beyond the leather chairs and the lacquered tables, It’s strange to realize that the only tangible perk that comes with a life of adventure and lost love and exotic destinations is access to the lounge with the free crackers and cheese at the airport.
I’m getting ready to go back, for the first time in a year and a half, to do a little work, meet some old friends, and revisit my memories.
The cheese and crackers are tasteless, and my hand holding the little packets is trembling.
*
I’m in London, checking into a familiar hotel near Victoria station.
“You’ve stayed with us before?”
“Yes,” I say.
“And your address is in Zurich?”
I’m surprised, though I’m not sure why. The last time I came to London, I was a Swiss resident.
“Ah no,” I say, a strained smile forming on my lips. “I’ve moved home to the U.S.”
Perhaps it was the forced admittance of it, the palpable reminder of the memories I thought I could avoid at least just this once. I’m not a tourist here – I haven’t been for years.
“Can you write your new address on here please?” She hands me a printout with my Zurich address.
I start to cross out the lines, then pause. “Oh, I have a new passport number too.” I cross it out.
She laughs. “Everything’s changed, right?”
*
I’m in the London office, and I’m bumping into my past left and right at the company meeting. A Moscow acquaintance I met in Zurich who has since moved to London.
“I chose London because Zurich is just too small,” he says in his bold Russian accent.
A Swiss intern who’s started his second summer internship in the London office.
“I like Zurich better than London. There are too many people here.”
Perspectives. Everything’s the same, except our perception of it.
“Are you still with that Spanish guy?” the Swiss intern asks.
He remembers you from the party – everyone does. I had on sky high heels and jungle print slacks, and I had leaned into you at the kitchen counter.
“Que alta,” you had said. I bent my knee to the side and showed you my flowered leather heels.
“You understood me!” you said, surprised. Of course I did. I always understood you.
“No,” I said, “geography.” The Swiss intern nods, pretending to understand.
*
I’m in Zurich after dinner, at the Paradeplatz tram stop, sitting in metal bistro chairs in front of upturned tables. Lights glow from the tram station and the surrounding building windows, illuminating the overcast night sky. An old friend sits in the chair next to me, speaking enthusiastically about the upcoming gallery showing for his photography. I try to engage him as best I can, try to divert him from the inevitable question. There’s an awkward pause when we abruptly run out of conversation.
“Are you still with him,” he asks.
“No, no of course not,” I say, as if the question was silly, and not dreaded. “We live in different countries,” I continued. “It’s too complicated, you know.”
“Right, right,” he agrees, nodding.
But how could I tell him the real reason? How could I say, We were too afraid to love each other, we were too afraid to risk a heart for an amazing lifetime?
“We’re on other sides of the planet,” I say instead. And in between us, oceans of fear, regret, and everything unrealized.
The number 13 tram squeals into the station, white sparks lighting up the wires in the Zurich night.
“It’s been great seeing you,” I say, squeezing him in a fleeting hug. I jump on the tram and when the doors fold behind me I don’t look back.
*
You can always go back, but not to the life you had. You can return to your old haunts, even your old friends, your desk in your office and your favorite reading spot by the lake. You can ride the same tram and get off at the same stop where you used to live, and you can smile remembering the old parties and the past mishaps and all the joy and regrets in between. But you can never really have it back. You can’t sit with your circle of friends in a restaurant at Sihlcity, you can’t sunbathe on the shore while those same people practice diving into the lake, you can’t skate outside in the snow covered ice, you can’t hold your lover again while he cries in front of a backdrop of mountains and ferris wheels and Swiss memories.
But do you want to? I’ve gone back to Zurich, but I’m not going back to my life there. I often wonder if I would, given the chance. We always say that if we could go back and do something over, we’d do it better, we’d change our ways and smile more, have more fun, be less irritable, try more things we were too afraid to do the first time.
I’m ready to try.
