"The World Beats Dead"

(This is the fifth part in a five-part series.)

Thing We Will Miss #1: The People

Now the sun has risen over our last day in Lithuania. We have packed and weighed our luggage. We have scrubbed our toilet and emptied our refrigerator and swept our floor. Tomorrow at this time we will be somewhere in the airspace between Vilnius and Frankfurt, and by midnight Michigan time we will finally have arrived in Detroit. And so it is at this moment that our thoughts naturally turn toward exactly what it is we will miss most: all the people here whom we have come to know and to love.

I will miss my students: their humor, their kindness, their intelligence. I will miss being in the midst of all that potential and determination and having the opportunity to give it shape and direction. And as time continues to march onward, I will miss watching them do all of the tremendous things that they will undoubtedly do.

We will miss all the long-termers at LCC who taught us the ropes: people like Jared and Carrie, our appointed “buddies” and now friends, who gave us an in-depth introduction to the supermarket, the outdoor market, the bus system, the currency, and the cell phone situation. People like my boss and friend Robin, who, despite that she is a volunteer herself and has been here for years, welcomed us graciously to Klaipeda, fed us, took us on trips with childlike gusto, and made us feel unique and appreciated. People like our neighbor Geri, who made us cookies when we were stressed and soup when we were sick and graciously put up with us borrowing her furniture and wiping out her Internet. People like Steve and Laura, two generous souls who have an entire Lonely Planet’s guide worth of travel advice and the kindness to share it.

We will miss our co-volunteers, the others who came last August to commit a part of their lives to this remarkable place: Grace, my office mate and best bud, who became as close and comfortable as family to both of us. Mark and Sherry, our musical cohorts. The VanderArks, who, between the three of them, have read more books than everyone in the state of Rhode Island combined. Becky and Erik, who were crazy enough to invite everyone over to their apartment at 7:30 each Friday morning for a homemade breakfast and a time of communal thanksgiving.

And we will miss all of the other Lithuanian and non-Lithuanian staff and faculty at LCC who keep the place running: Scott’s IT colleagues Antonius, Aurelius, and Roman, along with his lovely wife Ksenija; our Lithuanian professor Radvyda, who should probably be sainted for her profound patience; the eternally cheerful Ilona, the gracious Robertus; the accommodating and affable Vaida.

As we leave these people, along with many others I failed to mention, we leave a community that has taken us in unconditionally and supported us beyond any of our expectations. We move forward with an emptiness in the impressions they have left upon our hearts.

Thing We Will Not Miss #1: Missing Other People

Although we will greatly miss all of the people over here, we do look forward to not missing all of the people over there. It seems as though, with all of the advancements in technology, living overseas would not feel like such an insurmountable distance, but still it does. There is e-mail, Facebook, Google chat, and endless variations on these themes. There is even Skype, a program that allows you to video chat for free with anyone anywhere who has a webcam and an Internet connection. These are wonderful things, and they do make distances seem considerably shorter. But does anyone else out there find each of these methods, especially Skype, to be strangely unfulfilling sometimes?

Before Scott and I left for Lithuania, I told myself that Skype would be sufficient for communicating with family and friends. It didn’t take long to see how far off I was. Don’t get me wrong; Skype is a precious invention. Still, it can also be extremely awkward.

The problem with Skype is that we tell ourselves it’s just like being in the room with someone. I guess it’s that expectation that makes the actual experience so disappointing. Sometimes I find myself thinking: Wow. Does it really feel this painful to be in a room full of family and friends? And the answer is, inevitably, no. One time we Skyped during a friend’s birthday party. Our friend called us up, then put us on a table. People would accidentally walk in front of the computer and then realize that they had been caught. The problem is, after you get stuck on the screen, you can’t just walk away and leave the computer people with no one to talk to, regardless of whether or not you know them. It’s kind of like answering a phone call from a very persistent salesperson or not walking fast enough past one of those Mormon missionaries. You have a moment where you think, “Dammit; why didn’t I stay in the corner where it was safe?” or “Next time I’ll make sure to walk across the other side of the room.” But you realize that there’s nothing you can do at that moment, so you’re just going to have to stand there for several blundering minutes and flounder for questions to which you don’t care to hear the answers. The aforementioned birthday party was particularly painful.

(A man who is married to someone’s high school band teacher, after he has inadvertently scratched his nether region directly in front of the webcam, glances down to see us grimacing out.)

Man: “Whoa! Hey! How you guys doing over there?”

Us: “Good.”

Me: “Great, really.”

Scott: “Yeah, great. Lovin’ it.”

(Man looks around for someone to save him; no one appears.)

Man: “Well, so….how do you like it over there?”

Us: “We love it.”

Scott: “We love it, but it sure is different.”

Me: “Yeah, it is different. We love it, though.

Scott: “Boy do we.”

(Man takes a long drink of beer, reaches for crotch, then reconsiders. Man drinks again. Looks back and forth. Party seems to have become strangely unpopulated.)

I would ask the man questions, but within the past minute I have become socially retarded. Plus, I do not actually know who the man is.

Man: “You guys are probably seeing a lot of things you wouldn’t see over here, huh?”

Us: “Yeah, sure are.”

Scott: “Yeah, you wouldn’t believe it, dude, seriously.”

Me: (in a whisper to Scott) “Wait. What’s his name? Dude?”

Dude: “What? I can’t hear you. You’re cutting out.”

(Skype hangs up. We breathe a collective sigh of relief. Then we feel guilty and call back. The person who answers creates some lame excuse and leaves the screen. After a couple of minutes, another unsuspecting victim, a cousin this time, gets caught in the webcam tractor beam. Looks over, realizes his mistake, tries to conceal his disappointment. Shakes it off.)

Cousin: “So, you two. How’s it going in Lebanon?”

These are unique and exaggerated examples, but you get the point. How many people in your immediate “community”, whatever it consists of, can you sit down and have a meaningful conversation with? Honestly? We have this idea that if we share words, especially if images come with those words, then we have communication. Many people, especially the older generation, despair about how people don’t have real relationships anymore, about how youth would prefer to communicate via computer and cell phone rather than face-to-face. It is perfectly acceptable for teenagers and twenty-somethings to answer a phone call right in the middle of a conversation now; I’ve done this myself. I’ve even facebook-messaged someone rather than walk 20 feet and knock on their door. But I realize now that the older generation has a point. Real community, real intimacy, even real communication is not just about saying the right words at the right time. And it’s not about saying enough of the right words. It’s also about being in one another’s physical presence. It’s about listening to my dad play guitar in the morning over coffee and helping my mother feed the horses and chasing my parent’s demonic dog around the backyard and taking a long walk with my brother and hoisting my nephews up on my shoulders and driving with my sister to the gas station for a disgusting cup of coffee because we have a Beantown Coffee Club card and think it’s hilarious. It’s about sitting next to people and sharing the same food and laughing at the same jokes even if you are falling off the left wing in your “Marriage is so gay” t-shirt while half your extended family members own entire walk-in closets full of firearms.

This is what we will miss, and this is what we will not miss. This is why we are so sad to leave and why we are also so indubitably glad to come home.

Because of you.