Anna Callaghan
OCCRP
Sarajevo, BiH
It took a number of hours upon arrival for it to hit. That looming, unavoidable ‘what am I doing here’ moment. Do you ever get used to that feeling? It usually strikes once you think you’ve avoided it – it sneaks up on you like that.
The more daunting parts of my physical journey are long over. I packed up my NYC apartment into six boxes, the remainder of my belongings are with me in a pair of duffel bags. This is the first set of constraints: the comforts of home. You can’t fit all your creature comforts into your luggage. Part of being uncomfortable might be born from the discomfort of not knowing how to exist in a new place without everything you’re used to. It’s good to get out and to get uncomfortable sometimes. Transitions like this show that comfort often breeds a sort of complacency, an aversion to change because it feels strange.
I feel rather strange now. Brand new places make you long for home and the streets you’ve learned to navigate. In new places, the most mundane elements of a routine become laborious. It also shows you how quickly you can rebuild those little routines just about anywhere. How easily you can exchange one place for another.
Travel today is so quick that perhaps the sheer pace at which you may find yourself in a new place is jarring. In a car you can watch the scenery change slowly through the window, feel the air get thick and then thin again, notice the little changes that mark a people or a region. I fell asleep as our plane sped off the tarmac at JFK and woke again as we touched down in Vienna. I spent four hours in a terminal better suited to be the skeleton of a modern art museum. The smoking room was a glass box. I paused for a few moments to stare at this smoke-filled cube in the middle of the terminal. This was the last time, I’d soon realize, that smoke would ever be constrained.
I was rattled awake as the turbulence shook our plane as it descended into Sarajevo. There was minor panic and minor comfort in that moment. The green trees and snow-capped mountains sent a relieving wave of Pacific Northwest nostalgia through me, countered by a feeling of anxiety that surprisingly was not induced by the jostling plane. I realized that this was really happening. This thing I’d talked about for months, suddenly there was nothing left to talk about. It’s kind of like in movies when the shot starts with a view of earth from space, and then quickly starts to zoom in on one tiny point. It shows how big the world is and it makes you feel small.
Tomorrow I’ll get my first story assignment and meet my new coworkers. I’m balking at the idea of trying to write a story about a place I barely know. Can you ever know a place well enough in three months? I’ll find out!
Anyway, I’m irresponsibly neglecting my jet lag so good morning to you and goodnight!