It was a safe, newsy choice — I mentioned Angela Merkel’s name, I avoided any overly personal admissions. But honestly, I wanted to write about appearances, and the noticing of things — the disconcerting, but perhaps fitting truth, that I find myself paying more attention to appearances in Europe. I’ve felt a little like the country bumpkin come to the continent, and the language barrier only enforces this impression. But because my German improves slowly, I’ve resigned myself to working on the other things. Take the haircut, for instance.
Last month, on a trip to Austria, I had it all chopped off. I have long hated the cliché, empty transformation that The Haircut promises, but I caved. I’d spent a few romantic weeks traveling in Europe and wanted a haircut to go along with the new persona. Something easy, I told myself. Something hip, I hoped. Now, on the bus, I fidget with my hair — my lack of hair. I’m surprised when I find one long blond strand sticking to a jacket, or an old t-shirt.I’ve since realized that it boils down to a matter of confidence, this issue of appearances. The new haircut was the first tentative step. And a few weeks ago, before anxiously taking up swimming at the university pool, I hurried off to buy a proper swimming suit and a pair of goggles. I hemmed and hawed in the department store aisle until settling on something suitably sure of itself: a sleek black suit, a flash of orange like a racing stripe. I threw in a cap for good measure. Step number two.
Uniform in hand, I’ve registered for a free class at the Schwimmbad, working on the different strokes with a group of docile slow pokes. We trail after one another up and down our lane, huffing and puffing our way through the “Kraul” while the instructor looks on. She shouts in German, “long legs!” or “strong legs!” — something about legs. The new suit does not make up for my horrendous splashing. In spite of myself, I enjoy it.
Outside of class, I go during the open swim hours and swim the length of the pool most unprettily. (The Germans, it must be noted, are beautiful swimmers.) A few old men kick their legs in lazy aerobic exercises, their round bellies hanging over alarmingly small Speedos. We eye one another warily. The rest of us spend our time darting out of each others’ ways when possible. I am a frantic swimmer — I swim too quickly for my own good, and then clutch at the edge of the pool, breathless, when my lap is finished. And then I must pause there, waiting while the other swimmers go on their paced and pretty ways, until I can continue.
Even in the new swimming suit, I feel like an imposter here. Because I am intimidated by the be-goggled, unfaltering swimmers, my laps resemble weak Ss towards the deep end. I watch the old men from the corners of my eyes. And on Fridays, when we share the pool with the divers, I dawdle even more than usual.
This week, when the older students leapt from the taller of the two springboards, they entered the water like unfolding knives. A few of the oldest boys dropped almost to the bottom of the pool, twisting, before rocketing up again. At times, when my laps took me to their end of the pool, I noticed their explosion into the water from the corner of my eye; other times, I waited under water (discreetly, oh, discreetly) to watch them curl into the blue.
But most endearing were the littlest. They clamored up to the springboard, towels in hand, and congregated near the ladder. One at a time, these narrow-chested boys, wearing older brothers’ old swim trunks I supposed, laid their towels out at the edge of the board, sat down upon them, and tucked their knees to their chest. (Such small knees these young German divers have! I thought.) And then, one by one, they rolled forward off of the diving board and slowly opened up into small and imperfect dives. Forward, toppling down; they opened their hands to the water. Such small splashes. The left behind towels waved like flags from the board.
It may be that here, I notice appearances only because, away from home, I operate differently. (Would I pause to marvel at the divers in an American pool so, I wonder?) I am tuned to watch: the Mainzers in the red and white of their beloved football team, the old women on their precarious bicycles. The littlest of the most methodical divers. The children in the Stadtpark. The rounded toes of the girls’ sophisticated shoes.
When it comes down to it, I think, it is the noticing — the awareness of differences, the interest in differences — that makes me most singular here. I fuss at the new hair. I worry about my American shoes, my backpack. But in the end the Edie Sedgwick haircut and the sleek swimming suit and those leaky goggles cannot hide me for what I am: the American — the tongue-twisted, ill-swimming, wide-eyed American. The fact that I notice that I am different makes me different.
I have switched to English again — it feels a bit cowardly, speaking and writing and thinking in English. But with all of this noticing, I can’t help it. I am utterly unable to synthesize this experience without reaching for English. I don’t have the words in German to even comprehend the way children roll forward off of a diving board and into the deep end of a swimming pool. I am still speaking an enthusiastic, imperfect German with my German acquaintances and in my courses, but it’s too painful, too frustrating, to go without English for very long.
I’m off to Paris tomorrow to visit a friend, see my aunt and uncle, and fuss at my hair in the shadow of invariably tall, impeccably dressed Parisians. Photographs from Croatia are up — expect Austria, Italy, and London and Dublin soon.
