Never to return again

A weeklong jaunt to Poland has ended with a return to the familiarity of this still-so-foreign city.  This bed does not yet feel like mine, this house does not yet carry the connotations of home that the buildings whose keys I hold should, my suitcases taunt me by lying in the openness of my empty floor.  And yet it is here that I must lay my head at nights.  It is here that I can read the street signs, that I have gained more than a passing knowledge of the subways and trains and trams, that I am asked directions in different languages.  Will it feel like home before I leave?  Will I feel that heart-wrenching tear that I felt when I left Grinnell?  When that plane took me away from the midwest?  When the next plane took me from New York?

I have not yet achieved a permanence here.  I can see it coming in the distance, but this place is not yet mine, I am not yet comfortable here.  Perhaps the return from Dresden, or Amsterdam, or Budapest will give me that jump-start that I need.  How does one make the familiar a home?  And is it likely that that will happen in time for me to realize it before I leave?