Yesterday, I saw my daughters off on their long-awaited trip to France. Lydia and Isabelle have successfully completed two years of college, worked hard at their jobs and planned and saved for this trip for months. Yesterday, I watched them step into their own experiences of international travel and was so proud and a little verklempt.
I didn't grow up with a lot of travel, but I did grow up with a 2-year living abroad experience when my father was stationed with the army in Germany from 1974 to 1976. As a two, three and four year old, I was very impressionable and soaked in the German language and the belief that foreign = good, because of wonderful German neighbors Hans and Margret Becker.
So as a kid growing up in northern Minnesota thereafter, I was drawn to anything foreign — exchange students, foreign languages, studying world history, etc. I took two years of French at my Virginia High School. This was before the school offered a German program, which I would join as soon as it was offered. One year we had a student teacher, Mrs. Blyckert, in our French class. I liked her so much that when she landed a job in a nearby school district and planned a trip, I decided to travel along with her group to France in 1990. That would also provide my opportunity to take a train to Germany and visit Hans and Margret after 14 years apart.
So all this leads up to the song I'm featuring today. “Feels So Different” by Sinead O'Connor has always been my European travel song. Her album I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got was released in early 1990, and it really captured my imagination. Although I sensed she was a troubled soul, she had not yet become a controversial figure.
“Feels So Different” is the first song on the album, and is so beautifully orchestrated with a slow, steady build. It begins with her speaking the Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr with a warming orchestra backdrop:
“God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.”
The song moves into life experiences, lessons, struggles — all the while the orchestra singing along in support of her growth. She reaches a place where she realizes her over-reliance on others, her abusive background and all kinds of letdowns are pointing her to the strength she has in herself:
“The whole time, I’d never seen
all I need was inside me.
Now I feel so different.”
That's where the song crescendos and all the contemplation in the verses before are realized. The driving and soaring orchestra accompaniment makes the sound so timeless. And no one can sing through the emotional landscape of life with the kind of raw passion that she can.
This is the song I would always play as the plane was descending and the landscape of some other country was spread beneath me. It's a melancholy yet hopeful song, and the prayer at the beginning and the conclusion at the end allude to spiritual fortitude that allows someone to rise above their past and embrace what's before them.
I always felt a shift of leaving behind some fearful part of myself when I travelled abroad. And this song spoke somehow to that — plus it was intensely emotionally stirring in its lyrics, arrangement and production.
I worked hard to afford that first trip to France and Germany. It was wonderful to see so many places and people — Onkel Hans and Tante Margret as well as those I met on the France tour. In coming years, I would travel with my high school German club (even though I had already graduated) along with my lifelong friend Maggie and my dear cousin Julie and other friends. And I would study abroad in Austria to complete my college degree and branch out in many regional travels alone, with friends and with my host mother Helga. Eventually, my lifelong friend Melanie would join me in Austria for a month of travels to several countries.
Because I worked year-round (sometimes in multiple jobs), I saved a lot and made it a priority to finance my travels to visit dear people in Europe — friends and even distant relatives. That connection so many years ago with Hans and Margret in Mainz-Gonsenheim, Germany sparked a curiosity in me and an embracing of the world, and it also guided my college study path.
And every time I'd be arriving at a destination, I'd play “Feels So Different” as it brought back that feeling of anticipation and unlimited possibility I felt when I first traveled to Europe in 1990.
When Dan and I were married in 1996, we learned that Hans had passed away. Three years later, we made a trip to visit Margret before we moved from Connecticut to Washington. I was so happy to have Margret meet Dan, and they really hit it off.
In these past two decades, traveling internationally hasn't been a priority financially or logistically with four kids and many moves, but in 2015 I was fortunate to take Lydia and Isabelle to France and Germany, where they met Margret and her extended family. I'm so glad I seized the opportunity to make that trip, as it would be the last time that I saw that dear lady.
And now my daughters are off on their own adventures — that they saved for, worked hard for, prioritized and planned. I'm so happy for them and proud of their independent spirits.
As we stepped into the international terminal at LAX yesterday, I got that old, familiar, electric charge in my spirit. Here was the world, all converged in one place — Turkey, Singapore, Scandinavia, Korea — as I looked around at all the airline names and the diverse crowds of people. My eyes welled up at what incredible times we live in, seeing people blending from many nations in these places apart called airports. It gets me inspired and electrified every time.
And as I watched Lydia and Isabelle move ahead into the ticket-holder-only area, I smiled and waved and prayed and thanked God. And “Feels So Different” was playing in my head and has been ever since.
Reflective and thankful,
Jen