Back home in America

Hi friends - I wrote this last blog entry a little bit at the airport in Ft. Lauderdale while waiting for my flight home, and finished it a few days later, back home in Hermosa Beach, CA. I am still adjusting, maybe even struggling a little with being back home. I have to admit I am a little sad that it is over. I miss my students. I miss the crew on the ship. I miss the people who became my friends over the past four months. It is Christmastime and the lure of the holiday season with family and good friends is beckoning... It has taken me several days, but I am slowly finding my holiday spirit. I am happy to be home but sad for what has been left behind...

Dec. 8-11
Being back in America is weird. I’ve been away for less than four months and yet I feel like a foreigner, here. Maybe it’s because I’m in Florida. Florida is a little bit weird. And yet, it’s America, and I’ve lived in this country my whole life. They said there would be culture shock, that there would be an adjustment period upon re-entering American society. I remember feeling this way last year when I returned from only two months in Spain. It felt so strange to be back in my car driving, when I’d spent the entire summer taking public transportation or walking. Driving alone in your car is something very common in American society, but not so in the rest of the world. We are an individualistic society, where everyone has his or her own car, and prefers to drive alone. Remember that scene in Swingers when Vince Vaughn and all his buddies each drive their own car to the bar? There was a time when even my family had no less than four cars registered to our address! And we are a fairly average American family. People in most other countries have maybe one car per family, and they rarely drive alone. They take buses, subways, trains, or they walk. When I was in India, we crammed five, and sometimes six people in a four door sedan. I really had to try and get over my personal space issues, there. In Spain, Japan, Turkey, nearly everywhere we went, we took trains, buses or subways where you literally had no personal space and were forced to interact with people. I remember turning my head to the side on a subway in Istanbul because I was so close to this man standing in front of me, I was afraid I’d end up kissing him if the train suddenly came to a stop! In America, we value our possessions and lots of personal space. I haven’t had that in some time, so it does feel different. It is also really strange to hear everyone speaking English. Yes, we spoke English on the ship, but in every country, every port we entered, a different language was spoken, and we could scarcely communicate with the people. We had to try to learn hello and goodbye, please and thank you, and surprisingly it wasn’t that hard. Smiles go a long way, and people were really so helpful. We stood out in each of the places and if and when we got lost or really needed help, we could always spot other Americans (usually students or staff from the ship). I look around for my fellow Americans – people from my ship. But, no, these people are not from my ship. They live here. They are bigger than the people I’ve seen in every country so far. They are louder. I realize that I am the one staring now. They aren’t staring at me. I look just like them. I am American. I see shopping malls and gigantic stores advertising Christmas sales, large bright colored signs begging shoppers to enter. I think about consumerism, capitalism, of how abundant our society is. I think of Burma where I rode to an outdoor market on a horse cart, and watched women cleaning and separating crabs and shrimp into buckets, and children selling postcards on the street. I turn on the television and I am bombarded with commercials advertising the newest luxury vehicles, high priced cellular phones and vacation packages for holiday travel. I flip through the channels and see overpaid, fame and money obsessed professional athletes arguing with referees. I can’t believe I missed television. I am lucky – I live in a country where I can walk into any 24 hour convenience store and choose from among the shelves nearly anything my heart desires. This was not so, in several of the places I’ve been. But, I really don’t care about things. I live my life for experiences, not for personal possessions or material goods. I return to America with much less money than I had when I left, and no promise of a paycheck until February. But at least I have a job, and for that I am thankful. I know that for me the next couple of months will be a struggle, as I try to fit back into American society, and at the same time try not to forget the faces of people I’ve met, places I’ve been, and friends I’ve made. I am so afraid of forgetting. I have to find a place to live, a side job to help me get back on my feet, and start to pay off the bills I’ve accumulated while away. But I knew I was taking a risk when I signed up for this experience. And I think about how fortunate I am. There is so much yet to process from this journey. What will I change about my life? How are my views different? What have I learned that I may be able to share with others? I don’t know what the future has in store for me, or what I will choose to do next. And even though I may feel as if I’m struggling right now, I can’t forget how fortunate I am to have had this opportunity. Be patient with me if at times I am sad – I am going to miss my cabin steward, Allan, my friends from the ship, and the feeling of being at sea. I am now back in California, and as I look around, I swear I see Professor Snyder walking on the treadmill next to mine, or students from the ship passing by. The people on the ship were my family for the past few months, and though I will likely never see many of them again, I will not forget them or the experiences we shared together, traveling around the world.