Here are Sara and her friend M., being dropped off at girl scout camp this morning. I’m expecting a dirty, bedraggled, exhausted “after” photo when I pick them up on Saturday; and, if I’m lucky, they will sleep all the way back to Salt Lake.
I suspect I miss her more than she misses me. I indulged in a minute of leaning in the doorway, staring forlornly into her room this evening.
I watched for an opportunity to discuss homesickness with her before she left, but it never came up. When I tried to mention it last night, she totally shut me down: “Mom, making new friends is one of my specialties. I’ll be fine. Now, can we read a little Harry Potter?” Fine. The truth is, I’m a believer in (and an expert at) homesickness. A powerful force for change! AND it comes in endless permutations. Misery has never been so much fun.
There’s the “Hey, I Thought I Was Doing This With A Friend” version. Like the time I journeyed to the far ends of the Earth, finally arriving at a youth hostel in Townsville, Australia where I was supposed to rendezvous with (then boyfriend) Simon. Instead, I found a note on the notice-board saying, “Can’t find work here. Have moved farther up the coast. Will be in touch.” I had a teaching job lined up in Townsville; the plan was that he would also get a job there and we would live together in romantic bliss. Yeah, right. It was a great youth hostel: clean and new; but the other people who were staying there were pairs and groups, touring Australia on vacation, having a great time. My partner was AWOL. That was a lonely night. The next day, I left there and found a bed at the Australian equivalent of the YWCA, full of women from other cities who were working in Townsville. Simon ended up living in Cairns, four hours north. Lesson: Really, you’re doing this on your own. Always.
There’s the “This Place Sucks” version. This would be my first night in my bed-sit in Littlehampton, England. I had wandered aimlessly through the town, looking for the amusement park where I was supposed to start work in the morning. Eventually, I found Alf, the park manager, in the pub smoking and reaching up some girl’s dress. It was nearly dark by the time he walked me up to the second floor of a terraced house and showed me into my room. I reached for the light switch, but nothing happened. “Oh, uh…have you got 10p?” “Ten pee?” “Pence, Sweetheart. Have you got a ten pence piece?” “Oh! Ummm…” I stirred through my change in the semi-dark, squinting at the unfamiliar coins. “Never mind.” He took one from his pocket and bent over a little metal box behind the door. He inserted the coin and tried the lights again. “There we go!” A single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling illuminated the room. “That’s a meter. You put money in it to pay for the electric,” he said; and then he was gone. I stood there, looking at the mold creeping up the walls. The rickety table and chair. The neighbors upstairs started screaming at each other. Lesson: When faced with a room that sucks, run out and buy a little lamp and put it on your table. Don’t turn on the overhead bulb ever again.
Finally, the “Holy S***, What Have I Done?” version. The Big One. The nuclear approach to homesickness. For me, it was my first night in Poland with Peace Corps. Our group of teachers was taken to a hotel in Warsaw. It was mid-June in a country with the same latitude as Hudson Bay, so it was still light at 10:30 PM. I was disembodied by jet-lag. I realized that I was famished, but had no idea where to go to find food. My new acquaintances and I hadn’t realized we were being given single rooms, so we had no way to find each other. I stuck my head hopefully into the corridor, but saw no one. I turned on the huge wood-cased radio on my table. It spoke to me in a language that I couldn’t understand. I twiddled the knobs, looking for music, but could only find military marches. I turned, exhausted, to the bed, and realized that I had no idea how to get into it. The bedding was a mystery. I ended up tangled in the duvet cover. Then it hit me that this confusion and isolation was going to be my reality for a long time. I was facing two years of mysterious bedding and military marches. That was a lonely night. If you can call it that – it never did get truly dark. Lesson: There were too many to relate. Sorry, Sara. Go and find your own lonely hotel room.
How about you? What is the most profoundly homesick you have ever been?
7 comments:
Hmmmm. I'm going to have to think about that. My first response is that I don't think I have ever been homesick.
Gosh... I might have to ditto Rebecca's answer..but then again.. I haven't had as many adventures as you!
I was never homesick until Bing and I were together and after I had Liv. Now, when I am away from either of them, I get all stupidly misty. But, sometimes I find that being apart is actually a good thing. It reminds you of the strength of that pull...
I 've been homesick when I was working away from home
Interesting.... I've been thinking lately about the fact that going away to camp was like freedom and heaven-on-earth to me, and how I hated coming home. I hope Sara is like that, and yet I also hope she misses you just a teeny-tiny bit as well!
Your post also made me remember many of my first nights in strange places. Especially the first morning in Madrid when I went to take a shower and the water was cold. No matter what knobs I turned which way, no hot water.
I asked my Senora about it, and she reminded me about lighting the pilot light in the kitchen, which she had showed me the night before. Well, the night before, having just come off an airplane at the age of 20, I really had been trying to listen to her explain everything (in Spanish, of course), and I thought I caught most of it. Unfortunately, I thought she was trying to explain something about making coffee! I had absolutely no idea she was talking about the hot water for the bathroom. We were in the KITCHEN for godsakes! I had absolutely no frame of reference for having to light a water heater in the kitchen before taking a shower in the bathroom. I will never, ever forget that feeling of "oh my god, how the hell am I gonna survive the next 4 months"
Funny thing is, of course, it was much harder coming home to America than it was leaving it. Reverse culture shock always hit me hardest. What about you? Any homesickness for the foreign places once you returned home?
And- do you speak Polish?
@ Sue-
I used to speak Polish fluently, and if I had settled in Chicago instead of Salt Lake City, I might still speak it. However, with no chance to practice, it has retreated to the darkest recesses of my mind, and only emerges in dreams or when I'm a little bit drunk.
And I agree about reverse culture shock. It was really hard for me to readjust to life in the US. The lights were too bright; there were too many choices in the stores (which used to make me cry with confusion); it made me notice how much STUFF we have over here that we don't need. And I still miss the bread, the cheese, the gooserries, the mushrooms...
I am nagged by a persistent feeling of "homesickness". I suppose it's a by-product of never truly feeling I belong anywhere...lyrics from a Soul Asylum song pretty much some it up..."oh I am so homesick/but it ain't that bad/I'm homesick for the home I never had."
Post a Comment