Eduard-Julius-Friedrich Bendemann:
The People of Jerusalem in Exile (c. 1832)

" … not actually sentenced to spend time in jail but still there, even if Just Visiting."

Before we'd found permanent housing, we discovered that we'd been Exiled into the one place with more Exiles than any other place in this country. Federal government employees are routinely sent "on station," assigned to work in Washington for periods ranging from a few months to a few years. Thousands are encouraged to volunteer for these assignments, promised better future promotions, and a deeper understanding of how the system they're a part of works. Many bring their families, but more don't, and consequently, there are thousands of people left wondering what to do on weekends. Many work right through their weekends, figuring that the sooner they finish their assignment, the sooner their exile might end. Local connections seem challenging to make. The locals have families to attend to, and other ExPats have their own lives to live. Further, the sheer size of the DC Metro area means that people who work next to each other throughout the week might bunk fifty or more miles apart. Consequently, an Expat's life can be lonely.

The Muse and I, within a couple of weeks of arriving, began hosting a Sunday night potluck supper at our temporary digs. The apartment complex—and I mean "complex" in the same way a Freudian psychologist might use the term—featured a pool deck complete with a propane grill. Two of The Muse's on-station co-workers would gather with us, and we'd grill something and drink wine while resolving many of the world's most pressing problems through Sunday evenings. These suppers set up a pattern of hosting gatherings of people visiting the area. As ExPats ourselves, we understood how it was for others like ourselves. We hosted a couple of Christmas dinners during our tenure there, during which we roasted poultry and got maudlin together after supper.

The Muse even took to inviting teams visiting for some meeting over to the house for a bite of supper afterwards. She'd call late morning asking if she might bring twenty or thirty visitors over for supper that evening. I'd always agree since it seemed to me that it would be a sin to be too busy to take some respite from our ExPat isolation. We could share our experience with visitors and utterly shift our experience from isolated loners to temporary benefactors, if only for an evening. And these gatherings were wildly popular and became almost legendary. Those invited to one of The Muse's gatherings always got more than some supper. It seemed as though people could have actual conversations there, unlike the stilted negotiations that more often occurred at the office or in mass meetings. More than one agreement was sealed after one of The Muse's famous meals.

ExPats owned both of the houses we eventually rented while Exiled to DC. The first was in The Hague, on station with some multinational petroleum organization, and the second was in Morrocco with his family for the State Department. ExPats also owned many places we looked at but didn't rent. The house in Alexandra where water dripped from the dining room's ceiling fixture was an ExPat-owned property. We learned that many ExPats kept houses in the way that some frat brother might have kept house in college. They'd never grown domestically out of the shared big house stage of homeowner development. The town we ended up living in featured more ex-Peace Corp volunteers than any other. It seemed like every other neighbor could regale stories of their time overseas while we did our ExPat time domestically, though Washington DC sure seemed like a foreign country much of the time.

We lived in a world there that seemed to understand our dilemma. It took The Muse and I many years before we became somewhat accustomed to the rules and rigors of ExPat living. I paid close attention to those we invited out to that Sunday evening pool deck when we first arrived. They seemed to compensate for their distance by at least insisting on eating well, and I took inspiration from their suggestions. If we couldn't have family dinners, we could at least have decent ones. We could be formal with ourselves when we couldn't be formal with close relations and perhaps thereby manage to keep from going feral while Exiled out in that world. As hosts for ExPats and visitors, I suppose we came to almost seem like natives to them. Over time, I certainly found where to source nearly everything any host ever needed to please guests at the table. I was never entirely able to convince myself, though, that I was anything but a visitor there if not actually sentenced to spend time IN jail but still there as an Expat, even if Just Visiting.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Exiled, #PureSchmaltz