We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there — Pascal Mercier
January 2024 and I am back in Geneva. This would be my sixth trip here since September 2022 when life started to return back to normal and work travel resumed after the Covid. Since then, it has been an unusual run of work trips to Geneva that spanned spring, summer, fall, and winter.
While here across different seasons, I saw trees come back to life and spring blooms in Jardin Botaniques; during the visit in the summer we took a boat trip to Lausanne and back; in fall I saw changing colors of leaves as they completed their journey from birth to death; in the midst of winter in December, I had the pleasure to walk through the Christmas market that was set along the Lake Geneva. And during this trip I walked under falling snowflakes.
In some corner of my mind, I wonder what fraction of locals had the pleasure of seeing what I have seen (and were cognizant of their experience) or as it often happens that trials of tribulations of living through the day make us look at our surroundings from a unique perspective.
It is curious to note that the places we live and places we visit are seen through different colored glasses; one vibrant and filtering the few best morsels a place has to offer, while the other fogged up with the effort of living.
One more trivia, no matter whatever the season I visited, I had the pleasure of taking long walks around Lake Geneva.
Besides being in Geneva so many times in the past, I still like coming here. It is a place that by now I am remarkably familiar with. A positive aspect of coming here is that I do not have to figure out logistical issues. By now, I know that when I come out of immigration at the airport, I will turn left to get to the train station. I will board the train and take the seven-minute ride to the city center. I will step out of the station, turn left and head for the same hotel — Jade Manotel — that I have been staying in for a long time.
But what I am here to tell is not about the pleasures of visiting Geneva but some emotions I go through when work is finished, and it is time to head back home. It is not about coming but about leaving.
It is the last afternoon of work for which I came here for. We are just tying up some loose ends to ensure that we did achieve the intended goals. It is also time to go over action items for after we leave, e.g., finalizing the meeting report. In a couple of hours, it will be time to power down our laptops, collect our belongings (and make sure power adapters etc. do not get left behind), shake hands and head back to our hotels.
It is also about that time I start to feel a surge of emotions that will gradually amplify walking back to the hotel and spending my last evening in Geneva. It is the emotion of vague nostalgic sadness of leaving things behind.
I took the long route back to the hotel and walked along the Lake Geneva. Perhaps it was the path I took, but the emotion of sadness was more than usual. Or perhaps as you get older the sadness of leaving things behind and realizing that mortality might take over and I may never come back, accentuated the sense of sadness.
During the walk I also started to wonder if others in the meeting felt the same. I am sure that the local organizers who were also part of the meeting did not. It was Friday afternoon; they have been in the meeting the entire week (meetings are harder on the local participants who have to also maintain their daily life while the people who travel in to attend have their rooms made by the hotel staff and they just go out to eat). Local participants are eager to wrap up the meeting, head back home to enjoy the Friday evening and look forward to their weekend (the weather forecast for which is much better than while we were here).
How about others in the meeting who flew into Geneva, some from far away places, did they have stirrings of the same sadness? I would never know but for varied reasons some of them may just be eager to head back home. But for me it is what it is, and in some form, the same sense of sadness has always been part of my last day of travels.
To me, the final evening at the place of visitation feels like being in no man’s land. While on the one hand, we are severing the connections from the place we have been to, on the other hand, we have not yet returned to the familiar routine of home. The final evening is a transition zone.
To return to the hotel room, collecting my belongings, and packing them (and making sure that nothing of mine is left behind) adds to the sense of sadness. The act is closing up a chapter, however brief, in life and moving on.
From past experiences I also very well know that the feeling of sadness is impermanent and soon the present will brush it side into a dustbin. After packing, I will head out for dinner and think about getting some sleep. And sadness or not, tomorrow morning I will check out and retrace my steps back to the Cornavin, board a seven-minute train ride back to the airport and become part of the crowd that is either beginning or concluding their travel.
When I get to the train station, I will take a moment and look back at the city in the morning haze and wonder if this might be my last trip here? For just like there is always a first time, there is always a last time for everything too. The latter is different in that the last time could be a cognizant decision or it may be that although we intend to return one day that day never comes. It might just happen that in the darkness of the night, we might just depart and everything we ever did or wanted to do again automatically gets the status of being done for the last time.
I am back at the hotel. Enough of the feeling of the nostalgic sadness. It is time to pack and head back home tomorrow. When I get back home, I know I will say that pleasure of travels besides, there is no place like home.
Ciao.
