Defining Phrase: Settling In

Seven feels like a “settling in” sort of number

Sep 12, 2023

Hello! I’ve been quiet here for several months because we have been busy with summer schedules and travel, but I’m back today with a reflection on the phrase “settling in.” I began writing this piece in early August, and by now, we’ve been in Germany longer than seven months— but in the spirit of slow writing and full living, here it is. I hope this meets you in your own “settling in” spaces, whatever they may be. Thank you for being along for the journey!

Settling In: “to become familiar with somewhere new, such as a new house, job, or school, and to feel comfortable and happy there” - Cambridge Dictionary

“Are you feeling settled in?” someone asks me recently. We are at an event connected to the American community in Germany—music is playing over a speaker, a dunk tank is set up in the corner, and my kids are running from booth to booth with their friends, collecting freebies and getting their faces painted. I recognize a handful of other people, and some of them have greeted me with my name and a hug. (You do not realize the power of being known, until you are in a space where you are new and unknown.)
I briefly consider the question, which I’ve heard with increasing frequency as we’ve passed the halfway point of the year. I try to offer an honest response when I say “yes, I think so,” but the next day on my morning walk, I wonder about this mysterious phrase “settling in,” and whether a simple answer is possible.
A small heap of not-yet-fully-unpacked boxes remains in our basement. Propped against the wall just behind the boxes is a ladder for the bunk beds we no longer need, the family pictures I haven’t yet found a place to hang, and some extra 110 to 220 volt transformers. The pile has been shrinking with each month, but our storage options are limited, and I haven’t been in a hurry to deal with it. After all, even in charming Europe, my kitchen still needs cleaned every day, the laundry is always dirty, and, as I sometimes remind myself, we just got here.
Didn’t we? Just get here? I do the math while practicing my German: eins, zwei, drei, vier, fünf, sechs, sieben. Seven months.
Seven, the number of completion. The number of rest. A full calendar week.
Seven feels like a “settling in” sort of number.
Things that settle: after a storm, the weather settles. The raisins always settle to the bottom of the Raisin Bran box (at my house, much fighting ensues over who gets to eat that last bowl). The days are long in German summer, so the children are settling into bed very late. Conversations with a good friend, even over Facetime or Voxer, have a settling effect on my soul.

Seven months in, I’m still baffled by the sausage section at the grocery store. Do I choose bratwurst, rindswurst, kochwurst, wießwurst or some other type of wurst? The cheese section is equally overwhelming—all those shades of white and yellow, the strong smells, the long words splayed across the packaging like Allgäuer Bergkäse.
One day, while browsing the cheeses and not finding what I want, I become desperate and ask Google Translate to tell me the German word for Gouda.
“Gouda,” it writes back.
I stare at the screen for a moment, then start laughing, right there in the middle of the aisle. (I’m pretty sure the app is laughing back.) Sometimes, you get so used to the unknown that you cannot even spot the known.
Things that do not settle: the number of planes that fly overhead daily, coming to and from the Frankfurt airport from all over the world. The cluster of bees that slide in through open windows and swarm the pastry shelves of the bakeries in August. The cars that pass at high speeds on the left-hand lane of the Autobahn.

Following the Gouda incident—and many others—I decide to apply myself to learning German. One afternoon, I settle into my dining room chair for an online class entitled “Order a Coffee.’’ This should be fine, I think, because it’s a beginner level, and I have been ordering coffee here for seven months.
But when the first student unleashes five sentences of fluent German, I quickly check the schedule, wondering if I’m in the right room. The instructor does not assist with any English, and I fumble along the whole way with new phrases and conjugations, like someone who has not been living here for over half a year.
“That was humbling,” I tell my kids when I get off the call, reporting how I was the most struggling German speaker in the room. “But I guess it’s also how you learn.”
I am sitting in the back room of a German café, swapping introductions and stories with several people I just met. Among the half-dozen people here, we represent three continents and four languages, so we each have our own stories about what it’s like to live in a new place. Yet again, in the midst of our conversation, someone asks me that question: “are you feeling settled in?” This time, I pause before answering. The truth is something closer to a paradox: I am not always comfortable—but I am happy. Things are not exactly familiar, but every day, I grow increasingly familiar with all I will never know.
“In some ways yes,” I answer. “But in other ways, it feels like we’ll never quite be settled in.”
The woman responds with a look of knowing. She leans forward in her seat and nods her head. “It takes a long time,” she says.
Together, I think we’ve settled on a truer answer.

Because sometimes even short pieces need an acknowledgement section …

I learned about this essay format in a workshop via Exhale Creativity, hosted by Ashlee Gadd and Katie Blackburn. The form was originally inspired by a piece in Textbook by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.

Special thanks to my dear friends Kelly and Sandee for their writerly wisdom, which helped this little reflection not become 2,000 words long. (There are so many stories to share—but all in good time!)