It's interesting how quickly you forget something that was so second nature to you at one point in your life when you are thrust into a new culture. It's like everything you've learned is pushed back into the abyss of your memory, because your brain is going through massive information overload for survival. Constant questions pepper your thoughts: "Am I on the right bus, tram, metro?" "Will anyone help me if I am on the wrong bus?" "What will be my level of humbleness today when I need to seek help in English at the Post, grocery store, mall, or pharmacy?" Or maybe your brain is still massively trying to comprehend the lifestyle you live - seeking Rembrandt, van Gogh, 16th and 17th architecture and history on a whim because you can. Or maybe your brain has seemed to grow exponentially because every day is a new challenge and learning experience; it hurts your brain and its wonderful. Whatever it is that forces your daily routines of your home country to recede into nothingness; when you return, it can make you feel confused, incompetent and childish.
My first few minutes back in the US saw me at the MacDonald's at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. I placed my order and the women told me how much to pay. I had just gotten cash from an ATM and Brett had given me some change. I looked at my wallet like I was looking at money for the first time. The change felt flimsy, light and unfamiliar. The dollars were just green. For a littler longer than a split second, I couldn't remember the worth the coins symbolized. I was used to Euro dollars and cents. The coins are heavier, sturdier, the bills colorful and different sizes. I saw myself suspended between 2 cultures. And I saw myself through the eyes of someone else. "What is taking her longer to pull her money out?" In a fluster I handed her some money, received my change and order and quickly walked away from this social encounter feeling utterly ridiculous and ashamed.
My children couldn't remember how to turn a shower on...it's different from our shower in Amstelveen. I was re-living the exact moment of my children's panic of not knowing how to turn a shower on again - I was thrust back two years ago to the exact same moment in my bathroom in Europe. Speaking of toilets, the toilets in Holland are higher, so for the first few weeks of being back in the US, my muscle memory incorrectly remembered the height of a toilet, and I often found myself slamming into a seat.
The first time I walked into our local grocery store here in Avon, almost the size of an American football field, I emerged two hours later frazzled, exhausted, in need of a glass of wine and knowing that if my emotions on the inside were visible to the average person, I would look like a caricature of a mad person: hair teased out to all angles, eyes wide and maniacal and maybe even limping, like I'd been through the ringer. I couldn't remember where anything was, I stupidly ran the length of the store several times because I forgot that I had to write my grocery list according to how the store grouped items. I found myself talking out loud about how I didn't want 4 chicken breasts, I only wanted 2, I didn't want the large ketchup, I wanted the small, and why couldn't I get a small ketchup. I spent several minutes in the cereal isle contemplating the excessiveness of cereal. I have a full size American refrigerator, twice the size of my fridge in Holland, but I refuse to stuff it based on principal. If I run out of the small ketchup, I can just get more.
My grocery experience is so different than the one I had in Holland - perhaps a little more than 1/4 the size of my local grocery store here, I could be in and out in 20 minutes with 5 days worth of food. My brain can't even start to reconcile the largeness of my "local" grocery store compared to the closet sized market we went to when we were in Essaouira - a small fishing village in Morocco. The four of us could barely squeeze into the space available for customers. Here, we told the man behind the counter how many eggs we wanted, and from a large crate, he handed us our eggs, gently placed in a baggie.
Even geographically, I've found I've had a tough time re-adjusting to the vastness of my surroundings and where I fit in this space. In Europe, we were hugged and wrapped tightly by the high density of buildings, people and the life they breathed. Even in the areas of the Swiss, French and Italian Alps we visited, peaks seemed closer, valleys tighter and more narrow. Here, we live in wide open spaces. Absolutely breathtaking, but I've grappled with its vastness. But it is this same geography that helps connect the me I am today, to the me I was two years ago. I have long since believed that the mountains ground and offer me peace and clarity. That hasn't changed. I read a book this summer, The Steady Running of the Hour, written by Justin Go. In it he describes the mountains as follows: "One doesn't see beautiful things in the mountains...one becomes them." And that speaks of my soul. And I am happy to be back.
Life after re-entry is a juxtaposition. I simultaneously feel familiarity and ignorance; isolation and connectedness; happiness to be back and utter sadness to be so far away from my life and the people in it of the past two years. A few weeks ago, I stumbled across the following quote by the poet, Catullus. And though I am not sure the word "hate" is appropriate to my situation, to change the wording would lesson its impact and take away from how I feel about repatriation. "I hate and I love. And if you ask me how, I do not know: I only feel it, and I am torn in two."
I take comfort though, in the fact that though I've traded my Dutch bike with a road bike, I've taken a bit of Holland back with me...And I was right, I do like road biking.
Cheers,
Noel
Mountain pictures of our new, old home:
No comments:
Post a Comment