The Return

While I got by the jetlag in Hong Kong pretty well by staying up from 6 am local time when we landed through the evening of that - which worked, I was fine the next day - that hasn't been the case returning to AZ. The first difference was that I got in around 6 pm here, which means it should have been bedtime close to my arrival home, withholding the opportunity for me to exhaust myself before sleeping. I also wasn't able to sleep at all on the plane, which should have been nighttime in Asia - my body time - so when I did try to go to sleep, I was wide awake. Got to sleep; wide awake at 4 am. The next night was a little better, but then today I woke up close to my alarm, still tired, so I shut it off ... and woke up again at 3 pm! Shit. That's 6 am in Singapore. Back to where I started. I'll have to be more careful tomorrow and the days to follow to get myself back on schedule. By the way ... it's now past 3 am here, and I'm wide awake ...

It got hot here! When I left it had hit 100, but was mostly in the mid-90s ... now it's between 105 and 115, and we're starting to get a few thunderstorms, not monsoon season yet, but enough to give it a little humidity. It's been fascinating though these past few days because on Wednesday, lightning struck southwest of Phoenix and started a 1000-acre (or more by now) brush fire along a canal. The smoke from this, for three days now, has been visible from Tempe and given us pretty good cloud cover (shade!), and best of all, in the afternoons turns the sun into a bright pink disc that you can look at directly; it looks like a pink moon. Here's a picture that shows the plume of smoke, the cloud cover, and the sun.



It's always a strange feeling to return home after a time away, the longer in duration the more so, certainly, but I think there's a factor that has to do with place as well. When I travel between Home (CT) and home (AZ), I always get a version of this feeling in being in a place I know well but haven't seen go through the recent seasons, haven't been there for certain changes to the neighborhood, seen the kids across the street growing up. But that is gone soon enough ... it's home, it's a place I know well, well enough to adjust my own personal remembrance from past to present without much trouble. And in Arizona, as the other place I think of as home, it's the same sense of one's own place, so jumping between the two doesn't feel like such a far leap.

This sense of displacement has been stronger this week having returned from Asia. Beyond the 15-hour time change and the fact that I am no longer surrounded by Asian people (oddly enough, I wasn't like "Hey!" when I saw white people in Asia!). As different as Hong Kong, Beijing, and Singapore are from America, what was really cool about this trip was that I realized, as I walked around these cities, that while there may be Buddhist temples, Chinese script, ginkgo trees, and a new landscape all around ... they are still cities. Regardless of the side of the street people drive on, there are streets, and there are traffic lights and pedestrians and tall buildings, and with a map, you can find your way. I have walked around Tempe and ASU's campus this week and felt a wonderment at being here when 24 or 48 hours ago I had woken up halfway around the world, but I've found the displacement to be less extreme than I would have thought. I think in some ways it has to do with settling as well, and the fact that I was changing cities and/or hotels every couple days meant that I was never able to put down roots, and leaving me with relief to finally get back to somewhere where I could. The strongest I have ever felt this displacement has been upon the return from Belize. All 3 times. I'll close my eyes on a bus, or at home, or walking through town, and see the rainforest, expecting to find myself there in camp when I open them, and being disappointed. It's a state of mind that takes days to get through. I think it has to do with the fact that we do set down roots there. I think it has to do with culture shock (my first trip I flew into ands spent the first night in central Manhattan!). It's a combination of being a place that feels like a home, but is different enough to feel the absence of the place, and to miss it that strongly. I'm happy to be returning to Asia in the near future, but it hasn't engendered in me the same kind of nostalgia and drive to return as Belize does.