My time in India has come to an end. I came home late last night, home to State College, home to a loving family, soft carpets, fresh air, and more silence than I’m used to. I couldn’t fall asleep last night, even after 30 hours of travel, and it was because of the silence! My ears were ringing and I heard unfamiliar voices singing in my head, shifting from one ear to the other, like someone was toggling with the mixer on a distant radio, fading out of my left ear, into my right, then back. I had to play music on my computer to get the sounds in my head to stop. Has it been so long since I heard nothing at all?
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Today we went to Wegmans – a long-awaited event. I was in line for a sandwich when the power went out and the store went dark, momentarily. Power outages: a fact of life in India. I heard a woman behind the sandwich counter say to a coworker, once the lights came back: “well that was scary!” I smiled to myself and shook my head. You have no idea. No idea. A thousand memories flashed through my mind, and then I immediately felt pretentious and unnecessarily self-important for thinking that way. Still, a part of me wanted recognition, attention, to be appreciated, recognized, and treated differently for where I’ve been and how I’ve lived. Which is odd (though not unexpected). In India, I wanted not to be an outsider. Suddenly, now that I blend in, I'm mentally seeking reminders of how I'm different: how my experience has given me a perspective that others, here at home, may not relate to, appreciate, or fully understand. I'm interested in how, when, and why these conflicting feelings take shape in the coming weeks and months.
Anyway, I’m back, so please be in touch. I’m looking forward to catching up with everyone.
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