Lessons

Short things I have come to believe are true. Numbered for convenience, not ranked by importance. Updated slowly.

1. 1

   Most urgency is invented

   The thing that felt like it had to be done today almost never did. The real deadlines are quieter than the fake ones.

2. 2

   Learning a place takes longer than a semester

   By the time I understood how Brussels worked — which neighbourhoods were which, where the decent coffee was, what the rhythm of the week felt like — I was three weeks from leaving.

3. 3

   Discomfort and danger are different things

   Moving to a new country alone is uncomfortable. It is almost never dangerous. I confused the two for longer than I should have, and it cost me some experiences I would have enjoyed.

4. 4

   Find the mosque on day one

   In every new city, the mosque is the fastest way to find community, orientation, and usually someone who knows where to get good halal food. Not finding it immediately is a mistake I only made once.

5. 5

   The hard papers teach more than the easy ones

   The paper I nearly gave up on three times taught me more than anything I read smoothly in one sitting. Resistance to reading is usually a signal worth paying attention to.

6. 6

   Europe is not one thing

   Belgium and Spain and France share a union and a passport zone and not much else in daily texture. The coffee ritual, the relationship to punctuality, what counts as a reasonable portion of food, what strangers say to each other: all different.

7. 7

   Homesickness is not only for home

   I became homesick for Barcelona while still in Barcelona, in the last month, knowing I was about to leave. Homesickness can be anticipatory. It can be for a version of a place you haven’t lost yet.

8. 8

   Write it down or it didn't happen

   I have memories I am certain are real but cannot verify and cannot describe precisely because I didn’t write them down. I have notes from 2022 that tell me things I have completely forgotten. The notebook is not optional.

9. 9

   Being foreign is an advantage in understanding a place

   A local stops seeing their city. A visitor sees it for two days and misses all the texture. The person who has been there six months — foreign enough to notice, resident enough to understand — sees something neither of them can.

10. 10

    Salah five times a day is a good reason to go outside

    In the first year in Germany, when motivation to leave the apartment was sometimes low, having to pray meant having to find water, having to orient myself, having to look up where the nearest mosque was. It got me out. That is not a trivial thing.

10 lessons so far.