We have been home two weeks and are I am finally starting to feel more settled. Boxes have been excavated and unpacked, the house has been re-organized and reclaimed, the backyard jungle has been mowed to a more tolerable height and food has been re-stocked. The return to friends and familiarity is good but I am also deeply nostalgic for life on the other side of the Atlantic. This is not first-time traveler reentry shock- I have been out of the US for extended periods in many different areas of the world before (including the Middle East and Asia). But there are still some newer experiences in this particular return.
From the moment we landed, as we wait to be picked up outside at the airport, my sleep-deprived fatigue is unpleasantly invaded by a wall of cigarette-infused humid heat. I am appalled and shocked by the mammoth cars idling outside the baggage claims area (one person being picked-up was met by so many people that the vehicles included both an SUV AND a large truck). We are surrounded by loud, mammoth people- not what we have been used to for the last 6 months. I feel as if we have entered a ‘super-sized’ universe that I am not sure I want to be a member of. Before I return, I had been reading about the shut-down of my state (Minnesota) and I had been dreading living in the resulting chaos without the filter of distance and the Atlantic Ocean. Luckily, as we walk in the door, the phone rings and my sister call to welcome us home and to let us that our state government is now back in business. This is a relief, but the details are still being sorted out, and the US government finances are still, unfortunately, up in the air.
Other surprises continued to emerge as we settle home: The other day, I realized that I could actually understand a conversation on the street- at first I thought-wow my language skills must have really improved until my more rational brain pointed out that the language was English!!! I notice that when confronted by a word or name I don't know, I sound it out with Estonian vowel sounds and emphasize the first syllable (as one would with any Estonian word). With joy I spend time rediscovering the many diverse places unique to Minneapolis- Somali centers, Hmong culture and spicy Mexican food. (One evening we join Bruce's church in a joint picnic with their next-door Somali community and I relish the spicy flavor of sambusas.) But I miss the easy of accessibility to all forms of arts- public sculptures, wonderfully imaginative architecture, inexpensive concerts and performances and even the multiple free museums of the British Isles.
Access and quality of news is a different story as well as a challenging adjustment: I don’t like that serious news is often on the middle pages of our local newspaper, while the front page is about the local sports teams or concerts. International news is often relegated to side columns, unless it is grisley horrendous (like the tragic recent killings in Norway). Bruce and I both suffer from severe withdrawal from the BBC International News Service. It is no longer available any time we wanted via TV or Internet. It is now rationed and only available at strange times of the day. Plus, the BBC available in the US has blonde white women with British accents rather than the multi-hued faces with accents that hinted at origins beyond the United Kingdom.)
I continue to struggle with the inevitable need to drive everywhere, whether running errands or meetingsomeone for coffee. It seems impossible it is to get around by walking or taking a bus- unless I have unlimited time. (Another difference between life 'there' and life 'here'). I am also surprised by how expensive everything has gotten since we left- including gas and food. At the markets I am shocked by the cost of basic things like spices, beans and rice. I also mourn the absence of the beautiful fresh fruits and vegetable that were starting to become more available everywhere we went in Europe, once things started to get warmer. We look with no success for the large, sweet pears that were available where ever we traveled in Europe (Making pear ‘pirukas’ or dough wrapped pears with jam got us through the winters in Estonia)
Restaurant prices are also surprising, while traveling we would often compare ‘eating out’ costs in Paris and Amsterdam with ‘back home’, grumbling about how expensive it was to eat ‘over there’ and concluding that it must reflect the higher taxes and the fact that most of the countries we visited had much more available social services (e.g. better public transportation, pensioner rates, health care coverage and support for education). But food costs here have risen and are almost equivalent to what we were paying in Europe. Given that there is such a high rate of unemployment in the US right now, I wonder how some people manage.
On a deeper level my reentry is also challenging- and I continue to feel like Cinderella the day after the ball (and before the prince arrives. During my time in Estonia, being able to teach and valued for what I know and do has deepened and grown stronger roots in my sense of who I am. Now that I am back, I struggle with how to communicate this to friends and colleagues. Professionally it feels hard to know how to re-enter this smaller ‘pool’ (Which has also continued to grow and change while I was gone- How dare they? They were supposed to stay the same until I returned!!!) Where I notice the most change is in my own views about what is important and what I believe and know. Plus, my ability and willingness to accommodate and adapt has decreased. I wrestle with how to re-enter, or if I even want to be in that same pool. All of these are questions I will be exploring and wrestling with for a while. I will not stop being me, I will not stop my work and what I do, but how it fits here is somewhat fuzzy. While the process of understanding the many ways that my time in Estonia has impacted who I am and how I see myself in the world. I don’t know how much of this will be shared in this blog. Perhaps I will add some entries, but the frequency will become a bit less. Thanks for reading this….to be continued in some form…stay tuned.
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