Going forward, looking back.

The sun is a fiery orange and the sky is purple and pink with the small villages of southwestern Germany as the photogenic backdrop. The Black Forest is barely visible in the distance and its dark mountains stretch forever, unyielding along the right side of the train. The countryside is whizzing past me. I already have said how wonderful the train system is here in Germany and throughout most of Europe. Since I’m not yet a train riding master, I am still fascinated by the configuration of seats. They all don’t face the same way, and since sometimes the trains change direction when they leave the station, you aren’t necessarily guaranteed a forward-facing seat. You can guess how I ended up sitting on my trip to Interlaken, Switzerland this weekend. Going forward, looking back.

The first few minutes I kept peering out my window and trying to get some semblance of where we were headed. After a while, that quickly became foolish so I resorted to just relaxing into my comfortable seat on the express train and seeing what our train was passing. It’s difficult to sit still sometimes, but even more difficult when you can’t see what’s ahead of you. We are a very forward thinking culture. For example, during the day, most often my American friends and I ask each other “What are we going to do tonight?” We need to know what our options are, decide what the best one is and look forward to the next decision and figure that out. My friends from other countries here at the Goethe always ask me what we did: How was your weekend, did you go out to eat last night? They want to know what we have done and what we are doing, instead of what we are going to do. I’m going to start working on changing that around. I want to spend more time living in the moment, instead of always basing my decision on what I am going to do.