CONNECTIONS: Going Home

More than two decades ago, I lived in Lausanne, Switzerland. I spent about nine years there, and when I left, I never returned.
But a few years ago, a bunch of “les amis” agreed to meet in a Vevey restaurant on a given day at 5 p.m. and wait for me.
At 5 p.m. on the appointed day, I was several hours from Vevey with a broken-down car. I had the address of the restaurant, but no phone number and no name. Worse, most of my friends didn’t know each other. Some were actors in an experimental theatre troupe I ran. One taught English with me. There was an old boyfriend, and a woman with five kids who lived in my building. The only thing they had in common was me. I had set them up for disaster.
I paced, I fretted, I got the car fixed, and, feeling guilty and tardy and irresponsible, I raced for Vevey.
Meanwhile, the group had assembled in the restaurant and sat around a large wooden table. First, they looked at their precision watches and the cuckoo clock on the wall. They engaged in polite chitchat. When they had discussed the weather, movies and un peu de politics, they ordered fondue and white wine and started asking each other how they knew me. One told arty stories about theatre life. Another talked about unconventional ways I had of teaching English. A third told tales of romance in exotic climes. And on and on. They hardly looked up when I walked in at 10 p.m.
“Hello, les amis,” I bellowed.
There was a long moment of silence, and then the questions came at me.
“You found a gas mask and a photo of a dead soldier dated 1917 and created a World War I theatre set in your apartment lobby?” one asked.
“You loaned your boyfriend $4,000 on your second date?” queried a second.
“You set your kitchen on fire?”
“You were acting when a critic threw up at a performance and you laughed so uncontrollably they had to stop the play?”
I tried to apologize for being late, but no one cared. They were merrily clinking glasses and sharing fondue. My arrival was, in a sense, anticlimactic. The best part of the evening had already transpired. They had told stories and found out a lot about me that they didn’t know. Through them, I was able to recapture a life I had lived, and fill in many of the details I had forgotten. We howled as they told more tales and, when it was time to part, they all promised to keep in touch with each other. “Welcome home,” one of them said to me. “It’s been a great homecoming!”
What if you got everyone together, and shared the diverse pieces of your past? What if you assembled your assorted friends and relatives — even if they didn’t know each other — for an unusual, unpredictable and, ultimately, enriching and meaningful homecoming? Here’s wishing you bon courage and bonne chance.

Judith Fein