when you return home you notice things
After five days I still haven't finished unpacking. Armenia feels like a dream I keep trying to sleep my way back to. The world won't stop spinning long enough for me to get my bearings, but slowly I seem anyway to make my way through the day in this familiar and yet unfamiliar small, Texan hometown of mine.Here are some of the first things I noticed:
-Hot. So hot. If in the near future you can't find me, just look around for puddles.
-My sister is tall. She hid from me at the airport, then tapped me on the shoulder mid-other-brother hug. I turned around to see this beautiful, young woman standing where my little sister should have been. Still, goodness if she isn't the same, bright star I left two years ago, same smile, same laugh. She was just passing by my room and walked in simply for another hug.
-The shiny, heavy silverware. It's pretty how the end of forks and spoons tapers into leaves and roses, how the edges are rounded, how clearly they reflect my face upside-down. I do the dishes and handle them a little slowly just to look at them.
-The whirring of fans in the morning. In Armenia, my house's only morning sounds were birds singing outside the window and my breathing. Now I hear the air conditioner and the fan in every occupied room.
-The colors. The dark green of trees, the Arizona Cypress, the Ashe Juniper. The crushed, stalky yellow of dried grass in yards too heat-blanched to give more than some spots of faint green. The blue of pool water. The comforting, deep brown of a cup of Armenian coffee made on my parents’ stove.
-My Texan accent. It is coming back. It is coming back strong
-My Armenian accent. I keep un-aspirating my T's and saying my vowels funny. This is based on reports from my mother who keeps asking me to repeat things I'm fairly certain I said in plain English (whatever that is).
-My need to kiss. I keep forgetting that a kiss on the cheek is not an American tradition.
-General awe. There are certain times I find myself looking all around with my eyes wide and my jaw open, thinking, "I'm sorry; am I here, like actually HERE, right now?"Then there's the new dog, the vertigo, the shiny gym equipment, the sound of tires on paved roads, etc., etc.There will be more. I wish I had made a similar list in Armenia.
