Nostalgia for an Imaginary Fatherland

I am writing from Copenhagen, after nearly a week in Sweden and a brief day in Helsinki. Both were lovely, but I must say that so far, Copenhagen is my favorite.

It's the most diverse of all the Scandinavian cities. People are not just thin and white and blonde hair. Walking on the street, you see people of all skin colors, looking perfectly at home. The natives look much more middle European.

More like... Germans.

And Danish sounds like German. On the train from Malmo to Copenhagen, I thought I could almost understand the conductor. All around the train station, I see familiar traces of the language that I once was fluent in. And then, lying in my hotel bed, I turned on the TV and four of the stations were German. I could watch ZDF and ARD and SAT-1, all the familiar stations that helped me while away the long winter nights in Potsdam.

And that's when it hit me: I have been missing Germany. I have been away for four years. And I miss it.

Away. A funny word to use, but one that I chose instinctively. My nostalgia for Germany is not like missing a country that I have visited and liked. Strangely, it is like missing a country that I count as one of my homes. I have only visisted a dozen times, lived there for 10 months. And yet... even before I have visited the country, I have longed for it and almost loved it.

Is it because of Beethoven and Bach adn Goethe and Wittgenstein? Perhaps Germany is the closest thing I have to a spiritual homeland. I remember reading an essay once, where it said that "I have been missing Paris even before I visited." This is how I feel and have always felt about Germany. Visiting Israel was a very spiritual experience for me, but visiting Germany, for me, was even more so. I remember the first day I was off the plane - my uncle drove me from Zurich to Konstanz. And as soon as we entered the border, I remember saying to myself, thinking: I am in Germany. I really am in Germany!

And sitting here, in Copenhagen, this most German of all Scandinavian cities, I am realizing that I want to go back to Germany. I have been away for four years, and now I'm finally at its doorstep again. Many of the tourists here are German, and sitting on the bus, I hang on to their conversation hungrily, trying to remember and to understand.

All the while, I feel enveloped by nostalgia -- for that year I spent in Potsdam, but more for an imaginary land that I have always wanted to call home.