Vanity vs. Practicality

I'm on the Long Island Railroad to Long Beach with Lynn and Mystic. They met hiking the AT a couple of years back. Rows of white houses line the tracks, ducking in and out of trees, the roofs awash in ambers, grays, then a touch of forest. Mimosa trees! Looks like we have them here in New York, too. And pools are scattered all over the lawns, above ground, in the ground, with slides, diving boards. There are kiddie pools and bird baths. In the heat, water is crucial. I don't know how people live in the desert without it. In San Pedro (de Atacama, Chile), you left the house and were covered in dust. Your boots, jacket, jeans brown from the suffocating earth, as though it were coughing itself onto you. Hence, you wash your clothes in water. Exactly what the earth was longing for the whole time.

So let's talk about reverse culture shock. Did I mention this yet? A woman with a baby on the plane from Atlanta to New York works at Emory University's Study Abroad Center. Apparently, students who go abroad witness culture shock only upon return. There are no problems abroad, adapting to the new culture, speaking a different language, changing habits and routines. The issues arise once back in the States. And, people, I think she's got something. The announcements on the subway are in different voices, "The doors are closing...please step away from the doors." Somehow I thought they'd be the same. And familiar. They're not. The smells of vendors are so weird. When I walked off the plane in Atlanta, I smelled breakfast sausage cooking and fresh coffee brewing, only it almost made me sick. It just smelled like excess. I guess I'd gotten used to fruit juice stands and churrascos.

And speaking in English is even troublesome. First off, your vocabulary disappears. Or you know the word in Spanish but can't remember the word in English anymore. And you start conversations, thank people, ask for things, say, in restaurants, in Spanish. And people can just tell that I'm a little off. They look at me differently now. Might be the hip pack I'm still wearing. It's the top of my backpack, a removable bag that attaches around my waist, and it holds the past 5 months' essentials: journal, camera, wallet, book, sunglasses, pen, odds & ends. My friends have laughed at me. I just can't seem to get used to carrying a purse again. It stresses me out and I can't fit all that stuff in any of them. In the battle between vanity and practicality, I'm still rooting for practicality. Oh, give me another week. The LIRR has the same recorded voice. Guess the person responsible for voice recordings on the MTA changed in the last 5 months. Thank heavens for the little things.

Oh, and my accent! Having been out of the habit of speaking English, once you start speaking it again, you revert back to the default value of how you learned the language. So, I'm speaking Southern again. Lynn, a fellow Georgia peach, and I were waiting for the bus, chatting. A Brasilian chimed in and asked us where we were from. She responded, "We've both lived here for about 5 years, but we're from Georgia." I've said it before, you can take the girl out of the country...

So tonight, we planned to hit the Staten Island ferry but got caught in a raging thunderstorm. A wonderful June shower, we got drenched. The day was so hot, it was hazy. The temperature 98 degrees, humidity 98%, the actual feel 104 degrees. That's just hot! And I just got back from winter. Another shock. The city and I both needed a good downpour. The waves at the beach today were strong, the water wild and rough. And it was cloudy, not like the clear, green Pacific on the South American coastlines. So the rain canceled out the ferry idea, and we went to Little Italy for dessert. I got a piece of Peanut Butter Explosion pie and an espresso. That's one thing I did miss. Desserts! Flan, tres leches, chocolate mousse? No, thanks. But anything with peanut butter and you can count me in!